Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

While this test is competently designed for the most part, one aspect that I do find tiresome is that most of the later levels are much longer than necessary. Most of the jumps are fairly easy, with a few exceptions being more difficult. I’d much prefer it if these levels were shorter due to having fewer easy but repetitive jumps.

My hands didnt want to do what my brain does. Its ketchup on sausage anooying i hate mustard.(i wnated to say that that with my hands could use a little ketchup is annoying, the test is superb)
It could use a bit sweet! eyecandy. Becouse of that with my hands i couldnt finish second level.

I dont have much time, so expect sort of a short review.

Gameplay
The level has a somewhat interesting layout, the flow isn’t all that bad either, the springs put you more or less where you want to go. Although there are some rather questionable features such as the coin warp, because it is so easy to get to your base from the location of the warp you might as well not use it, they will take around the same time.
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Eyecandy
The eyecandy itself was fine, but there wasn’t quite enough of it, and that made the larger more open areas seem very empty and I must agree with cooba the palette animation wasn’t exactly helping.
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| – 7.3/10

Event Placement
The event placment in the level was rather nice, not too much ammo not too little. the full NRG carrot adds a reason to go to the bottom, and it’s placement in the pit like nblast does help. The choice of powerups is rather good too. The traditional seeker power up, but you also have a bouncer and RF powerup, the bouncers are very good for the underground sections while the RF’s are nice in the more open parts of the level.
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| – 7.2/10

Bonus
-I really liked the carrot placement.
– 0.1/0.5

Download recommendation?
Yes, it may not be the best ctf level out there or the prettiest, but it is rather fun for a play time to time.
=D

=)Freestyle.(=

I wasn’t going to review this, but the reviews prior to mine have really disappointed me, rating-wise. Especially SJ who used to be one of the more harsh reviewers back in the older days. Perhaps times have changed again?

Visual Appeal – 3 out of 5

..the author tried. This level has little to no any outstanding eyecandy (which isn’t necessarily the tileset’s fault), or any good-looking eyecandy for that matter. There’s the (particularly ugly) animation of the palette tile used rather randomly.

Like in other levels by the author, “some parts look pretty empty while others look like they have random stuff tacked on, and the backround is pretty boring” as Blacky put it nicely. The background is nothing interesting, and the rather odd (pastel blue?) 16bit fade just adds to the empty, boring feel.

Also why does layer 7 move faster vertically than layer 6? It looks nonsensical, really. And on a closing note, the author should have at least taken time to disflip the tiles from the flipped half of the level.

Playability – 4 out of 5

First of all, I have to say that this level does have a very nice flow. I haven’t found myself annoyingly bumping into things, which is a vital thing in a CTF layout. On the other hand, the layout itself is a mixed bag. I do like its bottom part, even if it could use a little more paths, but the upper part just feels random and uninspired. There’s a big open area just next to each base, why not add a platform there?

The coins (needed to get to the player’s own base, which could be useful but not really original) are placed decently, if a little confusing. However, I couldn’t help it but get the feeling that there’s way too few loose ammo in the level. And if there actually was ammo, it would be in a boring square pattern.There could be more fastfires rather than just 3, since it would take a longer time to get a properly fast fire rate. The powerups are Bouncer, RF, and Seeker – no balance problem.

And last but not quite least, I really like the way Yasco places the +3 carrots, and this is no exception. The player requires to drop down a pit to get the +3 and bounce with a spring, which is kinda evil and might encourage camping, but I still like it, so there.

• Has several good concepts, like the +3 carrot placement
• Flows decent

• The eyecandy needs work, and quite a lot of it

Overall
This level was definitely overrated. Not by a lot, but certainly not worth an 8. It’s still a fairly decent level, but there are more worthwhile ones around. And just as well, the “BURN, BABY, BURN”, things are moderately disturbing at the least.

Thanks for the reviews. :)

To perhaps encourage more people to review this one, I, as a member of the same group as the author, am giving this level a simple and very tight review, for what is it all about.

The funky blue fade in the background caught my eye first once looking into the level. In front of it there’s some nice underused eyecandy-stuff used, although not really special. The masked walls meant for sprite-layer shouldn’t confuse anyone as it isn’t used for the sprite layer at all. Also some other original decoration like transparent black’n white spots for example are put into the level. Too bad they end up being only very minor things about the level overall. There were a few strange tile-bugs at spots eventhough the level was supposed to have been betatested carefully, I as a lesser one too.

The gameplay is outstanding enough and doesn’t fall under circumstances like for example that the bases are too easily to be reached, bad balance, and so on. Only thing that I thought later about was, that there could be possibly a smaller spring-usage actually.

The choice and placement of pickups remains pretty alright too. There is just a small overuse of ammo in general. Don’t know if putting the carrot into a narrow gorge was that nice idea, especially because Yasco did use that earlier.

As a summary I would give the level a score of 8, but for the sake of good habits, being a groupmate I remain not rating it officially. Do download and review!

Cooba: That’s true. Glad to see your standards changing too, maybe. http://www.jazz2online.com/J2Ov2/downloads/info.php?levelID=2771

Guess belonging to the same group made me “overrate” it perhaps, if anything.

SJ

Betatested this a lot and helped him change a lot too… lets see.

Eyecandy
The eyecandy is good. The tileset doesn’t have a lot to offer, or they just don’t fit within the level. There is foreground, but it doesn’t confuse or get in the way. It’s a lot of eyecandy for this tileset, but maybe use something with more eyecandy tiles in the future. The background is just bland though, but it’s best the tileset can offer probably.

Gameplay
Very smooth. Float ups make sure you don’t just crash into walls without reason and springs are placed right, so you can just walk to the left/right without crashing into walls. Suckertubes here are handy too. The only thing is that the middle might be a little bit campable because of the coin warps and seeker pu, but there’s enough space to shoot people. The coin warps might be a bit too easy, since you only require 2 coins and you land right on the opposite team’s base, but it’s still a nice add. The layout is very easy to learn too, it has a lot of ways but it’s easy to remember. There aren’t a lot of dead ends either, and if there are there is a goodie.

Placement
Enough for everyone. The Pu’s are unbiased and on each side the ammo differs a little, but it’s still balanced. There’s not much more to say.

Maybe there could have been some food to fill up the level (sorry forgot to mention). The 1+ carrots are placed nicely and are reachable to both Jazz and Spaz. They do need to be shot down.

Comment overall level: Good job, nice relaxing music and easy to remember layout.