Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

I don’t normally review, but I got a chance to play this so here it goes.

Shockwave Sanctuary: 6
This level bothers me for a few reasons. The main one being the so called “new system to capture the flag”. That system not only makes the bases nearly impossible to defend, it is also tedious to go through and has a confusing coin system to top it all off. I feel this detracts from gameplay overall.

I think the design of this level is pretty average. It doesn’t really have anything unique about it (other than the weird system) and is alltogether unmemoriable.

Eyecandy is ok. I’ve seen better things done with this tileset, but there is only so much you can do with an official set that hasn’t been done before. Still, the level pretty much looks like countless other tubelectric levels.

I don’t like how this level flows. There are weird “turret” things near the base which shouldn’t be there for example.

Finally, one thing in particular seems to catch my intrest about this level. The tubes around the 1h carrot near the bottom are arranged into what seems to be a contorted swastika, with the carrot in the middle. What this means, I don’t know.

Cave Connection: 7
This level is a bit better than the other two. The overall layout is a bit more unique, with the level sectored off into 4 distinct areas. Two of the areas are out of the way from the main path from base to base, but those areas contain all the goodies. Carrots can only be obtained by going through tubes, and both tubes lead players to the same area.

This isn’t a bad idea, but the way it is presented is bad. First of all, each tube has a pair of 1h carrots. Since a player has to pass over both, this can lead to some weird situations of there only being one carrot sometimes. 4 carrots is also a lot, and can slow down gameplay. I personally don’t see the point of this, and think full nrg carrots would have been a better choice.

The bottom tube is also painfully hard to access, and is probably near impossible to get into with jazz. I don’t mind bias towards one character, but this is just bad. Aside from that one tube problem and a few oddly placed warps, the flow seems ok though.

This level has average eyecandy, like the other ones in this pack. There are a few tile bugs here and there, and a lot of places it could be better, but not bad overall.

God’s Garden: 6
One thing I really noticed about this level is that it is way too easy to get stuck. This level feels like it wasn’t tested.

One of the reasons it is so easy to get stuck is because it seems like most of the level is made up of one way events. This also has the effect of making the level a haven for seekers, which happen to be abundant. The weird thing is, the seeker powerup is placed in a wall, even though it is kind of pointless to do that for this level.

There are a number of tubes, but I found the exit points to be in weird places. I kept trying to enter tubes which just shot me back out. There are also tile bugs on those tube entrances/exits.

This level has a pretty bland look. Swamps is a pretty hard tileset to use if you want to make a good looking level. It requires extensive usage of layer 5, something there is not very much of in this level.

Overall: 6.33, rounded up to 6.5
This level pack is pretty mediocre. The people who made these levels seem to know what they are doing, and I bet they are capable of making good levels. In this case though, the levels seem pretty rushed and uninspired. My suggestion for the authours is to take a look at various popular levels, and see what makes them good.