Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

played this the other day and man was it nostalgic to see this set. this level looks beautiful and is also layed out nicely and plays fairly well. also, i’m pretty surprised how well the rayman graphics still look and the level did a great job of showing that

ל-Deidara
מה הקשר??

ךף,

Ah, the memories of playing Rayman. I thought the graphics here were so amazing when I played that game, and they still hold up quite well in my opinion, except they are pixelated.

Tile-set etc:

The tile-set is structured differently than a normal jj2 set, because the rock tiles are mostly unmasked and things like the ‘grass’ tiles are masked; which means the space in this level is much more expansive than a standard level around the same size with much thicker masked platforms. I don’t find the unmasked rock tiles distracting at all, since I had years of experience playing Rayman, and I believe other players could get used to that easily. Since the grass tiles are thin, they allow players to see lots of paths in a single screen, which means it’s easy to notice and predict players. The layout is quite complex, but easy to understand thanks to the tile-set.

More tilesets and/or levels should be made with this method as it is easier to make more complex yet easy to understand levels.

Game-play:

I believe this is what battle levels should be like. The level generally flowed where I wanted it to flow, and the dead ends are where I felt they needed be (usually with a carrot or other valuable item). Since the layout is complex, it allows lots of movement, choices, tricks and opportunities for escape. There’s a good feel of exploration.

Definitely host this level, A lot. Balanced strategic and fast paced game-play.

-fs

Eyecandy

Well, for starters, this tileset is very.. intimidating. And overwhelming. By playing a level with this tileset, we can feel like a true rabbit in a forest. Everything in this tileset is extremely large, sometimes perhaps too large. The big plants certainly give out the greatest impression, which stand out in the levels a lot (13 tiles high!), which makes the levels look very open and original. This tileset represents a jungle (a bit similar to the official JJ2 Jungle tileset, thanks to Epic), so if you do like nature themed levels, go try this out.

Usability

Well, this tileset falls prey here. You have trees and big plants to use.. and nothing else. Even the JJ2 Jungle has had some building tiles that you could make a village out of, where as this has solely trees and plants, which may make the conversion a bit boring. I know it’s a conversion, but there’s no trouble in adding some stuff by oneself. All the most required tiles are on the top of the set, so there’s no hassle with looking for all kinds of random tiles to make a floor tile properly (hinthint JJ2 Inferno). I do miss a textured background though, all we have here is trees (again..) The mask here seems like a joke, though. It’s just the contour of all the walls. All the soil tiles are unmasked, which is, well, questionable. (Just open a level using this set and look at the mask, you’ll know what do I mean)

• The idea is original
• Splendid plants
• Overall intimidating eyecandy

• Weird mask
• No other possibilites other than making a forest/jungle

Overall
This tileset will appeal to those who like nature (jungle) themes, but unfortunately there’s nothing much else which can be done with this set.. pity.

I’ve noticed you have no reviews for this level, so I took liberty of posting one, so here goes:

FOREIGN COUNTRY

EYECANDY:
The eyecnady in this level was actually very good (better than a lot of recent levels). Layer 8 wasn’t a sky backround that you may find in some normal levels, it was a forest backround, which pretty much fits in with the forest/garden theme in this level. The sprite layer was full of eyecandy like trees, giant plants and other wierd garden things. The foreground was the same, and also shielded the sprite layer from all the tilebugs (as did layer 5). The masking, however, was strange. There wasn’t something right about being able to go through some of the rocks. That’s mainly due to the tileset though. I also felt that there could have been more to the backround or foreground to make it feel more lively in places.

Overall, eyecandy was very good, but even more eyecandy would have been even better. Masking could have been worked on.
EYECANDY RATING: 8.5

GAMEPLAY:
The gameplay in this level included most of the stuff you would find in a normal battle. Warps, springs and some vines. There were some places in the game that offered tactics. Some of the warps could be used as escape routes. But there weren’t many challenging spots. There were no dead ends and everything was open and you could go everywhere. If a battle arena was wide open, it would be pretty easy to escape anyone trying to trap you. However, the masking problems (mentioned before) can also play tricks on someone. This could be used as a tactic and it’s quite hard to tell whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. It is quite interesting though.

Overall, the gameplay is good, but not as good as the eyecandy because there were no traps or challenges and everything was open. The ‘going through walls’ concept is quite interesting.
GAMEPLAY RATING: 6.5

ITEMS:
The items were mainly layed along the ground, although some of them were in the air. This made them quite easy to get but I suppose it’s quite origional too, since most levels have thier items suspended in mid-air. There were 3 powerups in the game, which is enough for a battle level of that size. But, there were too many FastFires. They make the level too easy and they took up the majority of the items in the level.

Overall, the item placement was different, but quite easy. Good amount of Powerups. But, there were far to many FastFires.
ITEM RATING: 7.7

FINAL RATING: 7.6
RANK: 7 Good
DOWNLOAD: It’s worth a download. The eyecandy is rather good and there are some interesting things about this level.

PLEASE REMOVE THE PICTURE FROM THE LEVEL DOWNLOAD PAGE. IT’S TOO HEAVY!

[Heavy? It’s 22KB big, which is pretty small in all honesty. ~Cooba]
[To put things in perspective, your (Fox282) posting of that comment and getting sent back to the info page made you download around twice the amount of kilobytes that it cost to download that picture. – FQuist]

I can’t rate this as I don’t know where to start in reviewing this, so instead, I’ll just state my thoughts.

I think this is an excellent conversion of the Forest levels from the first Rayman game, though I haven’t played this game for about 2 years. It’s missing the water tiles though, but I see in the description that they are being worked on.
The masking is superb. Backgrounds aren’t masked which is good.

I see that you have included the music from the game as well, but one question. When I open it in Winamp, it says the song length is 20 mins 30 secs, why is that?

Overall, I think this is a great conversion and I would definitely RECOMMEND downloading it. Since it is a huge tileset though, some might find it hard to use.

If I was rating this, I’d probably give it about 8.0 – 8.5.

Are you gonna do conversions of the other levels?

Hmmm… wut can i say.
Exect copy of rayman 1 exepv the back.
gj.
The masking gut no probles, and u gut some tiles 4 layer 3.
gj!!!

I won’t actually rate this tileset conversion because I wouldn’t know where to start with the review. I’ve never done it for a conversion before, at least not properly (the last one I wrote was about 5 years back…).

I just want to say you’ve done a good job with the conversion, and the masking is top notch, although it is often not clear which tiles are solid and which are not when you’re playing.

Now, I don’t know Rayman at all, nor have I played it, but I was slightly disappointed when I found out that none of the water/pond tiles were included. It would have been the perfect touch, but since it’s a very large tileset, you probably didn’t have the space.

Last but not least, great work with the foreground tiles of those mushrooms, purple flowers, and red berry trees. Very simple and easy to use. :-)

No rating, but definite download recommendation.

Wow….So many levels I don’t even know from wich levels to start rating!!!! they look great for battle games :)
Nature levels are nice, I like them the most! and I see that the levels were made by a Proffesional! Well They’re nice and they can get aaa…… 8 i guess …..well yes 8!

Nice levels, but i don’t like the dead ends!!!!!I like the levels with huge space….well im not going to rate it, if only I don’t like it….but i like the tilesets hehe….still for someone this levels would be good….oh yea one more thing…i didn’t want to look at all the levels…:))))so i looked at some….

i like pie!!!1
and I’m drunk!!!11
(…I have no clue how this review got here but it’s completely unsupported. ~Violet)

I can really spot the upgrades you have made, so you’ll be rewarded +1.0 to your rating.

EYECANDY: Not bad, you have used the foregroung layers and the backround layers well. 19/25

ITEMS: Some places are empty, but others have some items. You could put in some hidden items. 16/25

GAMEPLAY: Good use of springs. I couldn’t find any warps or coins. But other uses are good. 17/25

SIZE: It’s big, but could be bigger. 19/25

Score = 81/100

Rating (Including the added 1.0) = 9.0

Final Comment: Er……Great Level….

Heh, my rate is 8 because I like this lvl, The gameplay was VERY GOOD for me, I play with NICK and KALLE and some people, and i thinks that was very good game ;)
Eyecandy looks nice too.
I LIKE THIS LVL, THAT ALL!
No many Players makes THAT good BATTLE LVL

Hey a new PoL levels thats INCRIDIBLE!

Ammo

Much and good too i like the placement and the secrets. Its playable for Ammo results for around 16 players. No ammo bugs or stuck shit found so well done.

Gameplay

Well its fun to play and no bugs that i found, its not spaz or jazz based sp well done again :P Size is Okey. Its nice done :)

Eyecandy

Overall ( again >P ) Perfect mayby to much but well done. No bugs the layers ar good used tree\‘s waterfalls and more! Well done

Download Recommendation? Yup

Well another good lvl by PoL.

8.7 from me

Yeah, he must be in a bad mood.

I think this lvl is quite good, actually, and it does remind me slightly of non-new lvls. ;-P It brings back memories of Disguise’s example lvls, Cmdr. Dats battle lvls, stripe’s CTF lvls and Carrotus Squash. :-D

A couple of things seem to have been borrowed from Carrotus Squash, namely the position of the bouncer PU and the fact that there are many crazy springs around the place.

I think I should start with the springs: the point is, some of them limit the gameplay. They force players to go up and since it is usually blue springs that take them up, players often have no choice but to go up or crash into a wall. Pos 64, 60 is a good example of a blue spring you should remove so that ppl can go left if they choose to. Overall, however, the springs are well-placed and the red spring near the carrot solves the problem of the dead end easily.

The eyecandy is great. My two main objections is the ambient lightning, which is too dark, and the usage of the tileset, which, basically, is not complete (i.e. use all the tiles in the tileset: that’s what they’re for! [Especially the text signs]). There are plenty of foreground and background stuff, everything flows around smoothly and the animations should keep idlers busy.

The gameplay, if it weren’t for some of those annoying springs I mentioned earlier, is ok. There is no main battle arena because of the fact that the platforms are more horizontal than vertical, so, most of the time, you just run in straight lines (unless you decide to jump). Horizontal running isn’t itself particularly interesting, but it’s good that you are are making sure that the player runs a bit all over the place. I’m a bit displeased at the severe Jazz unfriendliness of the whole lvl. Some vines are too high up, as are some platforms.

Weapons placement is good but you won’t always have enough if you don’t conserve it.

Yawn. This review took me several hours to write…I think.

Pros:
1. Great eyecandy.
2. Good gameplay.
3. Generally ok weapons placement.

Cons:
1. Jazz-unfriendliness.
2. Annoying ambient lightning.
3. Lack of choice when it comes to some of the springs.
4. Not all tiles are used.

7.5, the moment you fix the things mentioned in the Cons area.

For now, a 7.2 and a DL recommendation.

Actually, this level seems to have a nice ancient feel to it in my opinion. Just fix some of the gameplay aspects like the number and placement of the carrots and other previously mentioned problems by the reviewers, then reupload the level.

What’s up? Are you in a bad mood? :-)
Sorry Cooba, but think again about your review, please.
Maybe some people doesn’t like freezer Ammo in battle levels, but some people like it. Anyway, many good battle-levels have got freezer ammo. And the way to the carrot is very short and there is a red spring to get away quickly. The unbordered left side was bad, that’s right but we’ve edited it.
And the gameplay is not so bad, we think. We’ve played this a few times, online, too. It was really fun! Do you have played this alone or did you play it as a real duel with other players?

As we said, think again about your review!

I don’t really feel like doing a full review for this, so I’ll just summarize and not rate it.

I played this map in Single Player mode to get a feel for the map and whatnot. I noticed right away that the tileset was a double-sized one. This doesn’t make it look very pretty, but comparing sizes with the Xargon characters, it’s probably about right. Still doesn’t look very pretty overall, though.
The level itself is nicely designed. Everything works well, and there’s enough eye-candy to sedate even the toughest critic.(Myself included. =P) There’s also a goodly amount of weapons. Toasters, RF Missiles, Seekers, etc. There’s enough to go around without over-itemizing the map.

Overall, it’s a fun map. Blocky, due to the x2 tileset, but fun. Might make a good level to run around on. If I were to rate it, I’d give it a 7.2.

Edit: Cooba has a few valid points, come to think of it. Given that, I’d change my rating from 7.2 to 6.9. But unless something huge is thrown my way, I won’t go a fraction lower!

Second Edit: Back up to a 7.2, my potential rating goes, thanks to the most recent(as of 03/26/05) edits.