Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

It’s been nearly a year since FireSworD uploaded a new level to J2O – time sure flies fast huh? While last year we were graced with Enter the Chaos (quite a controversial level, but still an instant classic), today we turn 180 from mayhem and turmoil.

Golem Landscapes brings us to a highly abstract battlefield. As FS himself explained, this level takes action on a stone golem, which is a shockingly good idea, especially with the given tileset (a recolor of Carrotus). The theme is realised very well – taking the obvious aside, you can notice that all the walls (including the ones in the background) form a logical, solid mass of rock – like a giant monolith. It’s also a very stoic and tranquil landscape – dim lighting, leaves slowly falling to the ground, and the relaxing background track, with a beat that’s vaguely like a heartbeat – perhaps to imply that the golem is asleep?

The gameplay is far from tranquil, however, as this level sports four different kinds of powerups, lots of dodge space, fast movement, and shortcuts. This layout will remind you a lot of the classic OLC CTF levels – it’s highly interconnected and very spacious. With fast routes, two +1 carrots and one full, and no place to hide, this becomes an ideal level for 2on2 matches. You can get from base to base fairly easily with the aid of warps, but you’re not going to last like that too long, as most key items are out of the simplest route. There’s a ton of situational tactics (that I’ll leave you to discover and abuse…), so every game here ought to be interesting.

This is one of FS’ best releases up to date, so go download, play it a lot, and get inspired!

This is practically a very versatile CTF-level in a while from FireSworD and OLC. This goes well for duels, but also a 3vs3 which I played here once, went smoothly. What can you expect? No disappointment at least.

The atmosphere is ambient, calm, and tranquil. What you see here is a fairly bleached mass of soil covered with moss just like a stone golem could be. The edges of the level that aren’t parts of the golem look a bit bland though. This Carrotus/Easter-edit fits really well for a concept like this. If it only had those top/bottom edges of background caves fixed, it would be perfect. This level is one of those few ones that generally look better in 8-bit rather than 16-bit colour, at least for me. 8-bit mode makes things look more transparent in a neat way and gives you a more lighter background.

What I find the most exotic about this level is the base placement. Your base is located on one of the golem’s hands, and you should attack the opposite hand. Golem’s solid body however, is there between the hands, as obvious. So, you should find a way to either go round the body, or cut through it. The warp on your hand is one of the possibilities. It takes you below the golem’s body, so that you are able to cut through it’s feet to the opponent’s side. Another option is to cut through the golem’s shoulders. You will need a copter or ice-ammo for this though to get through the ceiling springs. Generally the layout is limiting, and I like it that way. It is not a level with a dozen of small passages and mazes. Instead, you have lots of space to move around, the layout is simple enough to be learned fast, and yet you can still survive in bigger games if you know how.
The bases are kinda easy to defend, as well, you can hold flag ready for a score for a really long time against weak attackers, since you have a minor healing carrot right above your base, thus you can keep healing yourself all the time, as long as you keep getting only minimal damage. The flipper pads work great on the hands, so that you can quickly jump away if needed. If you suddenly get a critical hit, you can also go for the full energy carrot at the bottom-middle of the level, which can be very unsafe though. This was very well thought out.
There is also a half-secret shield, though getting it is really…hard. The idea is practically that you can be lucky and abuse a warp exit while an opponent player is camping the exit with seeker-ammo. If you are lucky, and your opponent is dumb, you may try to abuse the seekers so that they push you up to the shield-room. Reaching the warps themselves is already really hard though, since you require a copter for that, again. What is even harder,(barely possible) is trying to reach the shield-room straight with the copter. I managed with this once so far, but it really requires perfect timing and handling of the copter, as well a double-jump of Spaz. Now the problem with this is, that if you get in there with the flag, is that you can just never come down again and thus freeze the game. While it would make sense only if it was a time-based game where you are having the lead, it is still sort of lame, as really nothing can make you fall down, and no opponent is likely able to enter there. Good idea otherwise, though.

If this was all I had to say about the level, I would rate it really high. However, there are still some bad things as well that are mattering me. Unfortunately I’m not sure is it wise to try to fix them without a major change in gameplay.

One is that there is basically very few ammo. You must gain your ammunition mainly from PowerUps. If you try to charge into opponent base to kill the enemy flagholder without any ammo, you’ll be most likely dead very quick.
Another thing are the dead ends. Luckily they are small and contain PowerUps, so they aren’t just useless areas.
The level is also fairly Spaz-biased. Although who am I to care about that, since I am a Spaz-player?
The cut through the ceiling-springs isn’t after all as useful as it could be, because the warp-shortcuts are a bit too fast.
I’m not very sure if I find Powered up seekers fitting well for a level of this kind. They can cause much airhits in such and open level.

In overall this is a really decent, interesting and enjoyable level for everyone. It just could have been very awesome if it didn’t have those minor flaws in it. The layout is strategic, and you need it to master the level, but also you require much endurance to be faster to reach things before your enemy. I recommend this download for everyone, and hope to see it played in both Bash12 and JDC18 duels/2on2’s/events. Thank you FireSworD.

Edit: Thanks for the fixes. With them this level deserves a bit more.

SJ

This level should get to be an classic. DZ, this to ZA and ZD…
Also to CL’s mappool.

Golem landscapes has some really unique points, like the RF-powerup placement. It is really easy to get, because there are warps right over bases to RF. Camping RF will get extremely hard when multiple players are present, if someone possesses a seeker PU and uses them with the sucker tubes next to RF PU.

This level has three carrots, one full C below RF PU and two +1 C’s over bases. Carrot placement is really balanced, and even with three carrots, this level should go well with duels.

Gameplay on this level is great. This map is actually friendly to random players(excluding copters/shield). Elite players can also shine on this level, if they copter to the platform over shield, or use good thinking with the ice PU and springs. Seekering through the RF-tubes is a great offensive/defensive move.

Overall, this level has got a really great theming. It receives an over 1000 character-review from me with an 9.5 and a Download Recommendation.