Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

This unusually engrish celebratory level is unquestionably intended to announce some sort of “Ten V’th Birthday” for Jazz, but precisely what numeral Ten.V is designed to represent is left unfortunately unclear. Jazz’s main birthday transpired several months previous to the present day, and the 10(.v?)th anniversary of HH94 and Jazz CD is not due for another twenty-four days. Thus, what possible meaning can be derived from the unappealing birthday known as 10.v? Perhaps that my language in this paragraph has been really annoying?

Anyway, in summary, I have no idea what this is the 10th birthday of. Maybe the author started playing Jazz ten years ago? That would be kind of cool. Let’s review the level.
Based on the level description and the end boss, this is a Single Player level, but it’s kind of hard to tell as there are no enemies of any kind. There are, in fact, only two real dangers. There’s a single three-tile-wide-pit-of-spikes which can be avoided with ease, and a drop to the bottom of the level which you are quite likely to fall into. You see, you are running along a small platform, and must fall off onto another small platform right below. If you miss the platform, you hit the bottom of the level. This is really poor planning, as there’s no indication that the author meant for this to happen.
Of course, now that I’ve said that, I find myself wondering exactly what the author did mean to happen. The level seems to be a simple romp through a brightly colored tribute to Jazz. The tileset choice is pretty good for that intention – “Jazz Paradise”, featuring fireworks, palm trees, pictures of Jazz, and various party stuff – but it would have been even cooler to see a tileset featuring pictures of Jazz’s more memorable adventures, plus really cool pictures of everyone. “Jazz’s greatest hits”, if you will. Unfortunately, I have no right to expect that from some as new to J2O as Cloud is, and I am left with a hop-skip-jump through Jazz Paradise. Which isn’t a bad thing, but isn’t perfect, either.
The main reason I’m not sure I like this non-difficult level is that without obstacles of any sort, the level becomes boring. I was unable to come up with any reason I was there. Devan appears at the end, controlling a Jazz clone (nice touch… pity they don’t work very well), which seems to give the impression of a plot. Where is the plot in the rest of the level? Actually, where was anything? There were no goodies, no cool stuff like springs or vines, pretty much no anything except for pinball events and warps. The warps don’t even work all that well – they all have the same WarpID.
Pretty much all that’s left to talk about for this level is the eyecandy. It’s not bad. More could probably have been done with the tileset – I’m not entirely sure who this “J A Z S” is, though we all seem to love him – but the author uses a large number of the available tiles, and most of the time there are no real errors. Some places look downright ugly – the area right after the belts, for example – while others manage to look quite nice. I still am not totally enthralled with the tileset, but it’s used fairly well. (Are the background layers stolen? They look like they might be.)
So, in summary…

PROS: Level is kind of fun if you have the right sort of brain, and the eyecandy’s not all that bad. It is also a good level for someone who seems new in the field.
CONS: Kind of boring, and the lack of plot confuses me. A few too many event use errors.
RATING: 3.9 should work. I may come back and change it later, as this level is something of a mixed bag. Add enemies, goodies and random objects and this level should be much better.

(It came to my attention on my second play through that the bottomless pit area I mentioned actually involves belts. You are supposed to stand still and let the belts carry you around safely. Still, the belts are way too slow, don’t work quite right, and you can fall off easily. Too bad.)