Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Good news first, bad news second. :-(

I think that this lvl only deserves an 8.2, 10 per cent lower than Urbs’ rating. Contrary to what Urbs has written I think that Garden Brawl is, at best, a medium-sized lvl. The size is just 94×71 and the playable area is a lot less, making Garden Brawl more like a small lvl. Small lvls are not necessarily bad but it’s generally agreed that the less space you have the less stuff you can put in your lvl.

FS has crammed as much eyecandy as possible into this lvl and you will be surrounded by it all the time. Sometimes, if there are too many seekers, bouncers and other players in the screen, the animated gems and the floating leaves will confuse you but once you’ve played in the lvl for a while you will get used to it. Nothing wrong here.

The gameplay of Garden Brawl is generally quite good and the flow in the lvl is as smooth as the soup we get in school. Except for the fact that sometimes the soup has large, protruding bumps in it. Eww… I’m talking mostly about the two dead ends in the lvl, one, which is quite small and easily avoided and one, at pos 26, 16, which is just too big to be acceptable. Sure, players will learn to avoid going there once they get to know the lvl but it still ruins the flow. Why not put an extra passage there, a warp, a suckertube, anything that will prevent the player from stopping the player walking into a deathtrap? The very, very tight passageway at pos 69, 41 was also quite annoying and players will only learn how to navigate it in the shortest amount of time, with practice. There is also a lot of jumping and vine climbing to do as well as destruct blocks, which slow down gameplay because most of the time the player has no choice but to destroy the blocks ASAP or get destroyed themselves. If a player gets chased to a destruct block then he is in trouble unless he can get past them fast enough. There are simply too many ‘fixed’ passages in this lvl, where players have only one place to go, which disrupts the flow. It seems to me that this lvl was designed like this because of its small size. There doesn’t appear to be much room for any other alternative routes.

If the gameplay has such serious faults then everything MUST be absolutely perfect so I’m gonna be biased here and say that weapons placement is fine (although 3 carrots for such a small lvl is too much for a 1v1 duel, IMO).

8.2 is a long way away from 9.2. I may be completely wrong in my review, which should be proved/disproved in the next person’s review. Still, an 8.2 is a very respectable rating.

DL recommendation.

Garden Brawl
FireSworD, one of the best level makers for JJ2 at the moment, has released a new battle level. A reason for happiness? Read here.

EYECANDY: 2.5 out of 2.5
As soon as the level loads, you know what the big deal is. The creator has put maximal efforts in the eyecandy, and since the Diamondus Beta edition features a LOT of this, you know it’s good. And it is good. Every layer possible is used, so you will see a beautiful yellow-blue panorama in layer 8 while leaves are falling down in layers 1 and 2. As soon as you walk around, you’ll drown into the beauty. Nothing more to say about it.

AMMO: 2.0 out of 2.5
The ammo is placed in a very particular way. In normal levels you will find the Power-ups quite soon, but here it needs a little discovery first. FireSworD has chosen for a classic three powerup-style-system, featuring a Toaster, Bouncie and Seeker, which is good enough for this level. The smaller ammo is placed in groups around the level, especially in areas which are visited not too much. This is a good move, since all the action now can take place in the larger, open areas of the level while players need to search for ammo in closer areas. There is, however, no Full Energy carrot present, but it is replaced by three normal carrots. They are not easily found, especially the one under the wooden bar. You need to do a lot of practice with this level to find the exact warps for this one. Overall, the ammo placement is nicely done, but sometimes it’s a bit too difficult too find in my opinion, so no maximum score.

LEVEL STRUCTURE: 1.5 out of 2.0
The level structure has it’s good sides and it’s bad sides. Good sides are that the level features a very natural design, and thanks to the excellent eyecandy and the many different forms of nature it looks like you’re really walking around in a beautiful garden on Diamondus. The bad side of the structure is that the navigation is hard to follow sometimes, and there are a few narrow passages that link the large areas, and they can only be followed in one direction. The warps are a nice addition to the gameplay, but they can be a little bit annoying sometimes. Some areas in the game are hard to access, and this takes away a large part of the flow. Overall the structure is allright and quite original, but it could have been better.

GAMEPLAY: 2.5 out of 3.0
Despite the minor flaws in the structure and the small placement bugs, this level is really fun to play in. Yesterday AvK hosted it in it’s server, and I had a really enjoyable time in it. The music used is neat and fits perfectly to the natural atmosphere that the level is trying to present. The more you play the level, the more used to it you get, and that’s a good thing. I don’t know what I have to say more about the gameplay, so let’s pass over to the ratings.

RATINGS:
Overall, FireSworD made a good deal with this level. I guess the average rating at the moment is a little bit too high for this level, but it’s not really too far off. My rating for this is an 8.5. I hope the makers of AB7 will notice this level, because it definitely deserves a place in the battle pack, since it’s one of the best battle levels of 2004. Good job.
Score: 2.5 + 2.0 + 1.5 + 2.5 = 8.5
Download: Yes!
Host: If you like a good battle, yes!

Greetings,
- ChippieBW

Size: The level is a good size for any battle, and would be perfect for duels or.. just having fun (which is always good ;D). One of the first things I notice when playing this level is the amazing level of detail in eyecandy, and background. This new tileset is put to full use and all 8 layers are used wonderfully. There is a good number of powerups, and the ammo placement is very diverse, at first I thought the bottom was somewhat meaningless, but with a toaster powerup, seekers, and a carrot it definetly isn’t. The use of vines is very effective especially near the seeker powerup where the players have to use the vine to get the carrot. The level also makes you use the different weapons, seekers wont work everywhere and neither will the bouncers of toaster. One thing I really like about this level is that its fresh and original, it isn’t just another boring battle level. It has some nice touches like some secret warps, and the seeker powerup being only shootable. The springs and pinballs are also a nice touch and could definetly add some nice strategy in an epic battle. With all the springs and warps getting around this level is easy and also fun =D. The music selection is interesting, it’s not the most memorable song but it doens’t get annoying, and it does add some “depth” to the level. Overall this level is very fun and innovative as we see one of the first levels to use this nice diamondus “alternative” tileset. As for some of the things White Rabbit mentioned, I liked the tight passage way at 69,41 it reminded me of semi. It isn’t hard to get up at all with the well places spring, so I don’t see how it could be annoying 0.o. It’s good to see this level isn’t restricted to how other levels work, it goes on its own path. Definite Download Recommendation. 9.5/10 for me =).

When I started this level for the first time, I just thought: “wow, this looks so nice”. Lately not many levels give me such an impression, so I was optimistic for this one since the very start. And this impression is still keeping up.

Fire Sword has been a levelmaker of quality for quite a while now. The ones that I played already are Higher Fragging Rate and High Volume CTF – both were very good and I always have fun playing them. This level does not only look good, but it’s also great to play.

Carrots around us
The level is medium-sized, yet it features 3 carrots to pick up. You may think that’s a bit too much for duels, but their positioning makes such thinking wrong. It took me a lot time until I found out how to get the lowest-positioned carrot!

Falling
On the right of level, there is a shaft closed with destruct blocks. It’s perfect for escaping from a seeker shooting enemy, if you manage to destroy the blocks fast enough. You can either get out on the way down or fall all the way to the bottom and warp to the top. The problem is, if you’re jumping in from the top, you’ll need to shoot the block before you get out (if you didn’t do that earlier) or you’ll end up in the same place. And your enemy may be prepared for such an occasion.

The getaway
If you look at all those springs in the level, it looks much like CTF at this point. “Speed-tracks” are pretty much everywhere, so there’s no need to stop. Just jump, stomp or shoot when you need to. There are also some pinball bumps. Only a fool would tell they’re randomly placed – for real they help in manouvering in the level. Very well done on that, FS.

k get ammo
I like the ammo placement. It’s a battle level, so you can be armed to teeth in seconds, but you need to jump a bit for that. My only complaint is that there’s too much bouncer ammo in one place. Power-ups are placed well, too. Maybe 3 of them is one too much for such level size, especially they are seeker, bouncer and toaster – if a duel is played and both players have all power-ups, that can result in quite heavy-arms battle. Oh, the seeker power-up can be archieved only by shooting, so getting full ammo for it doesn’t include kicking/uppercutting the PU.

Beautiful beta
Like others, I’m wondering why didn’t Epic leave the tileset the way it was on the two early beta screenshots. Of course, Pyromanus made it a mix between that, final Diamondus and diamonds from 1.20 version, but still it’s just so much better than final version. Fire Sword did great job on eyecandy, so even if you’re alone on the server you’ll probably want to look at everything around while you still can. The point of view on the background layer gives a feel that the level is positioned on a hill. Don’t forget the leafs – they’re an oldie, but the way FS placed them and the direction in which they are moving is much better than what I usually see in this case. The music fits very well and it’s very good as standalone, too.

Ya gotta have it!
Overall, this is a very good level. Basically I would recommend it for duels, but you can also have some great fun with public gameplay. Just don’t use InstaGib – I think that’s a bad style for this one. And you won’t have time to look at eyecandy and listen to the music. ;)

@White Rabbit – I said you’ll have to destroy them if you didn’t do that earlier. Not that it’s impossible in that moment. It can be even done without special moves.

Now this is my 1st review. I just played FS’s level to an unimaginable 100 roasts, and I’ll tell you why it agrees a 9+ for sure.
I really like the awesome looks of the level. From the start I didn’t like the playability, but once i got to around 50 roasts, I actually started to like it. It’s way more original than the overplayed battle levels by Epic.
So eyecandy is super, uhm I don’t know how to actually argument this statement, but FS just used the extremely kewl tilese to its full.
Now, I rarely actually played other battle levels other than the originals. And I think that as CTF got a great deal of very original high quality levels, battle levels weren’t either made or played. So to me personally this is a very nice and positive surprise. I hope the community embraces this awesome looking level.
Gameplay is very nice as well. One has 3 carrots(its a big level) and quite a few nicely placed pu’s where there’s alot of kewl dogfights going on. it’s a new level, so of course it wont just grab you, if you passively play like to 10 roasts, but if you play it a bit longer it’s just great. Thhere are so many different routes to the same location, you have to change weapons alot, so it’s not like in b1, where you can pwn with only seekers.
Ok I prolly did this against all the predesigned unwritten rules of review writting, but heck, I know it deserves this or more. But I really wouldnt like 2 give it more, since it might be unfair, me being quite new at this, and not reviewing many levels and all…
ANYWAY its a must for downloading and GJ FS!!!!!!

@White Rabbit

I do agree it is very overrated. I also agree on most of the points in your review, except the one that states you think 3 carrots would be too much for the level because of its size; it was hard to stay alive with 2 carrots in the earlier version, and when I added an extra carrot, ( re-spawns slower) people still gave suggestions like adding a Full NRG with the other 3 carrots.

I intentionally added a death trap for evil players despite people’s complaints, but skilled players should get out of it quickly. As you mentioned, there are a lot of fixed routes in the level, which is good for the size, but I designed the layout that way to make it easy to predict the movements of another player. It’s all for strategy.

@Jarno Vos

The main problem with your review is that it focuses mainly on the looks of the tile-set, not on the level.

-fs

Ok. Since about 6 other people posted really long extensive reviews about this level I’ll just post a quick summary.

The layout of the level is for the most part, nicely done. I played several games in this and found them quite enjoyable. The level is fairly big, but I noticed much of the activity occured in one place of the level (the center, where the seeker pu and carrot are). Some routes are particularly evil like 68,43, but thankfully there’s another route to get down there. To get around you have to do a lot of jumping, but that made things more interesting in the level. Eyecandy is nicely done, but not overdone. I like the use of the green “bushes” and the cave tiles. Overall it was pleasing to look at. With the eyecandy, tileset choice and music, the atmosphere was very pleasant too. Looking at the level there looks like there would be enough ammo, but a lot of times the ammo is placed in big chunks and spread far apart from other ammo, which makes some areas have more of it and some be empty (although I found the empty ones to be within the main battle area, so thats fine). Powerups are also nicely placed. They seem close to each other but thats because the level isnt all that big. Carrots are also placed nicely, and thankfully for that vine, or the 3rd one would have been almost impossible to find unless you knew where it was. The level played smoothly enough, interesting how there were pinball bumps used.

This level is fun to play and is a solid good level, but I think it’s really overrated (I blame spoy for hosting it so often before its release). 8.2 should do, and I would expect to see this level being hosted fairly often in the future (And congratulations on winning the featured download of the month award, because LRK got lazy ;|).

Intro:
Garden Brawl
This is one of Fire Sword!‘s best levels that I have seen. Read the rest of my review to find out why.

Eyecandy: 2.5/2.5
The eyecandy is incredibly beautiful. Lots of differnet types of eyecandy such as: waterfalls, trees, grass and diamonds. The background has been done nicely. The layers have all been used very nicely. There are also falling leaves in the foreground.

Ammo Placement: 2.0/2.5
The ammo is placed quite well in my opinion. There is a good amount of ammo throughout the level. Lots of places have ammo in them, so I think the ammo placement is excellent.

Level Structure: 1.5/2.0
The structure of this level is very good but it can be quite confusing at times. But overall it is not that bad. So good job on the level structure.

Gameplay: 2.5/3.0
The gameplay of this level runs quite smoothly and I think that it is very fun to play this level. The gameplay was made very very well in my opinion. So good job on the gameplay and continue to do this in your other levels.

Overall: 2.5+2.0+1.5+2.5
I think overall that this level deserves an 8.5 beacuse it is just excellent. Keep up the good work Fire Sword!

Download Recommendation: Yes!

Host this Often:
If you love battle levels then, yes you should host it often.

‘You can either get out on the way down or fall all the way to the bottom and warp to the top. The problem is, if you’re jumping in from the top, you’ll need to shoot the block before you get out (if you didn’t do that earlier) or you’ll end up in the same place. And your enemy may be prepared for such an occasion.’

Use copter ears if you’re Jazz. Double jump if you’re Spaz. :-P

This lvl is overrated. eats the overraters and runs away

Garden Brawl | Review |
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Eyecandy And Other Stuff
7.5

Make A Little Better Eyecandy PLZ.

Color Of Tileset Cool Gray
Hmmmm. What Can i Say Of The Tileset That You Have Used
Nothing But The Color Are Very Great
An 10 From Me.

P.S. And As I Can Give A 15 Should I Do That.

Animating Stuff
9.9

SUPER But Only
Can You Put What Animating Stuff On Your Eyecandy??

Total Score 10
~jarno