Battle, by 
This is totally unbelievable. Shadow relasing a new battle pack? Is that a UFO outside my window? Shadow releasing it as a new ML upload? I think the UFO is landing. Skulg joined ML a year ago without practically anyone knowing about it? Someone’s coming out! OMG RUN!
So, Street Wars: Redemption is here. So, I failed to run away and have now become brainwashed and a mindless slave of the aliens. I liked the original Street Wars and gave it a 9.2 (back when I was a newbie and couldn’t really get to grips with JCS). I now think that I over-rated it, but Redemption has 3 new lvls which should boost its rating up a bit (say, by 0.2 points……darnit, just gave it away!).
First review? Yay!
I’m actually really confused by the way the lvls are linked up together. I don’t see why Shadow wouldn’t set the next lvl settings to mlnec1, mlnec2, mlnec3, etc, to mlnec5, which will of course go back to mlnec1. Instead, mlnec4 goes straight back to mlnec1 while mlnec5 goes to mluptown and that’s just plain confusing and prevents ppl from playing all 5 lvls in one go. Also, looking in JCS, the 3 new lvls have each got 2 different versions, which makes the whole thing even more confusing. This does mean that each lvl will provide a slightly different style of gameplay, but it would be much easier if Shadow just perfected all 5 lvls and only made 1 copy of each.
None of these lvls are particularly Lori-friendly, which is u.n.a.c.c.e.p.t.a.b.l.e. for TSF lvls. Oh well, screw her. No ratings deducted here, but I think this should serve as a warning to everyone who releases TSF uploads.
None of these lvls are particularly Jazz-friendly either, and it is here that I get annoyed. There are simply not enough one ways, vines or springs of appropriate ‘strength’ to give Jazz at least a decent chance vs Spaz in Redemption. Some places seems specifically designed to force ppl to use double jump, which I take it as making the whole lvl a bit more challenging and interesting for duels but what about poor Jazz? I am not going to screw him off (ahem). I don’t know how much Shadow betatested this pack, but he and/or his betatesters clearly didn’t bother playing properly as Jazz in these lvls.
Hot Town and Rocking Streets are still my favourites when it comes to eyecandy, but the new-comers aren’t bad either. The skies are always of interesting colours, most, if not all, layers have been used and I’m glad to see that all background layers have been devoted to…being in the background. It’s always nice to see that some JCSers, like Shadow, aren’t cheating by using layer 5 as unmasked layer 4, which is a particularly easy and cheap way to create good eyecandy. The lvls do not always use all of the tiles available, but so far, I haven’t seen more creative and original use of Townhouse, probably because there are so few Townhouse lvls…sigh. Sometimes, however, the new lvls’ eyecandy get a little repetitive. Shadow has done a lot of realistic tile-placement, which makes buildings look like buildings, cities look like cities but it make everything look a bit squared, rectangular and un-varied. Downtown is a good example of a lvl that desperately needs urban renwal. (And I’m not sry for the bad joke).
The gameplay of all lvls are generally good to great, if it weren’t for the fact that Jazz unfriendliness prevails. Some springs can get in the way, but at least they’re easily accesible. The semi-secret passages are pretty cool too, and they also serve as eyecandy. The different versions of the 3 new lvls make for different kinds of gameplay and weapons placement. Uptown (mluptown) shows ENORMOUS differences from mlnec3 and it is clear that mluptown is the better version. It’s got better placed springs, more ammo, more eyecandy, etc, which makes me wonder what mlnec3 is there for. Get rid of the bad versions, I say!
The weapons placement seems to focus on getting the player killed and preventing him from getting healed. The bonus warp is a REAL PAIN to enter because there are too many easily accessible power-ups and far too few carrots. And carrots, btw, are for wussies, not *ussies. Shadow should consider his use of language. Sure, everyone has enough ammo to blast the whole Townhouse tileset to smithereens but hardly anyone’s going to be alive afterwards. Well, they’ll respawn, but you get my idea. Another weird thing is that the bonus warps sometimes give players power-ups that they could easily stomp/kick/shoot/uppercut/TNT/freeze for free, outside the bonus room. The bonus warps, which are a hefty 50 coins, are clearly not good value. Shadow has one or two lessons to learn from Tesco, ahem.
I still think the original two lvls are the best of the whole pack so I don’t see why they should be “redeemed” by lesser lvls. It still means that Uptown, Downtown and Metropolis Carrotius are good lvls and all TSFers should DL Street Wars: Redemption. 8.2 and a DL recommendation. Now, let’s get that taser out and free my brain…
EDIT: @Shadow: In that case, why haven\‘t you noticed that you keep falling 2-3 tiles short every time you make a particularly large jump? Or that Jazz almost always need a second step when it comes to some red springs? And, btw, the reasons why Spaz players don\‘t complain is probably because the lvls work fine with Spaz. ;-P
J2o no longer allows multiple reviews.
