Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Oh, and I forgot, but Derby also tested it. ;). Sorry Derby.

Oh yeah.. and Talec LP, too. Sorry! (I keep forgetting who tested it!)

-Edit: I have noticed several overlooked bugs.. most importantly that one of the warps in Puzzle of the Wierd does not advance the lap counter. I will release a patch soon… with a few fixes and improvements. This will not be a second release… I will make that later with improvements to all levels (and you might even get to see four more laps in “A Mess of Tubes” ;) – but that’s only if I get around to it.). Expect the patch in a week or so and the update in a few months.

[This review has been edited by Another Jazz 2 fan][This review has been edited by Another Jazz 2 fan]

Well, this pack had its great ups and its very low downs. That last level with the elevators, that was great. But in contrast to it, that funky Mez02 level, that was just horrible, bugs everywhere.

But for sheer volume and good stuff, I think its a 7.

Wow, very nice pack. Some of the levels were pretty fun (having played them online just a minute ago).. the music files fit well, even though only one was original. Some of the levels were better than others, one of the primary reasons this pack got it’s rating. Levels like StarLight Speedway were pretty cool, but other levels like Puzzle of the Weird (shudder) only succeeded in angering me. You could have improved the eye candy in some of the levels, but I suppose it was okay.
One of the high points of these levels: Originality. (I love the elevator effect in the final race. :-) Some of the originality was buggy though, take the Rising Air level for instance.

Oh well, this is definitely a good pack and worth a download. (I was undecided between 7 and 7.5)

Agh, look what a night gave me. I would’ve been the first to review this, but, eh. Here goes, in my special new Race rate format:

Installation went fine, with a fairly decent readme. ^__
The only downside was all of the levels showed in the Custom Level menu and there wasn’t a level to start at (at least without reading the readme). Overall, not perfect, but over-average.

INSTALLATION RATING: +

Eyecandy wasn’t too bad, but nothing special. Enough to stay away from the blandness feeling and the occasional great eyecandy… it needs a bit more work in the “white spots” to get that 3, though.

EYECANDY: 2.2/3

Track design was varied. Some were very enjoyable, some were boring, some were buggy, and some were just plain bad. Weapon placement was either overdone or not there at all (sometimes not really needed) with the occasional good placement… not much to say without saying too much, if you get what I mean. Some levels had so many tubes etc. you barely got to PLAY the level, you were mostly watching, hehe. A bonus fraction of a point for being largely original, too.

WEAPONS: 1.2/2
TRACK DESIGN: 2.4/4
SUBTOTAL: 3.3/6

Music choice was excellent, and it felt pretty good but rushed in some areas. But you actually finished a decent sum of levels. Nice. O__o

OVERALL “FEELING”: 0.8/1

My closing comments? Download this. It may not be the best Race pack you’ll ever play, but it certainly is fun and worth it. Good job.

TOTAL SCORE: 6.6/10
ROUNDED SCORE: 6.7/10

Love Race levels :) Good practice (and fun) of nobody is around to race you.

These are some wild levels. Not at all the norm. Very original.

Of course, it’s not without it’s downpoints. Tileset usage is pretty good, but could be better. Some tiles seem overused in some places, and there are a few mismatches in there. Also, some levels could use some more eyecandy (while a couple have an overabundance of it ;))

Designwise though, this pack is awesome and challenging. ‘specially Puzzle of the Weird, which is…weird :)

Niftular pack AJ2F.

~Buster

If you reviewers could list the levels that need work, I may rerelease this pack at a later date with fixes and improvements.

Introduction to Race Tournament Pack Final:

This is a race tournament pack that consists of ten race levels.

Content:

Ten race levels, Four custom (Mez) tilesets, four sound files, and one readme text file are packed into the
downloadable zip file.

Unbiased Review:

There aren’t many race packs circulating out there. You’ll see why this pack is rated the way it is.

Design/Content: 2.5/2.5

The design of the Race Tournament Pack race levels are not only semi-open, they’re pretty comfortable to race in.
There aren’t any flaws in the design of the levels, though the real flaws come later. For nine of the ten levels, you
won’t be racing through the same lap over and over again, but a different course each time. The transitions displayed by the design are actually quite pleasing.

Tile/Tile compatibility: 1.7/2.5

Perhaps the most annoying flaw in any level could be the masking which you can’t do much about. The creator of the
Race Tournament Pack could have eliminated the few flaws that caused careless players to get stuck in the walls. I got myself stuck in Rising Air twice in a row, in the same spot. In the fourth lap of the “weird” level, there is also a place where you get “awesome effects” and also get stuck four out of five times. Certain flaws like these could have been corrected easily by better tile arrangement.

Tile/Event Compatibility: 1.5/2.0

Sure, Mez didn’t have poles, but the events didn’t match up with certain tiles, in any case. The one level that had invisible pole movement seemed strange, just because it didn’t have poles. Try to substitute events correctly so things look neat and well done. All that invisible pole swinging seems pretty pointless.

Event/event compatibility: 1.0/1.0

Events were a strong suit in the Race Tournament Pack. In the very first level, variables of movement are boasted
with the requirement of the toaster to melt the spring. Prerequisites in race levels can be very amusing, and you’ll see them occur around the levels.

Layer use: 1.6/2.0

In most of the levels, the use of layers were above average, if not excellent. The creator the Race Tournament Pack used cookie cutting techniques in various areas to make things look much nicer. However, the one level of concern was the “weird” level of the pack. The layers were used poorly in the “weird” level, though they certainly made the level look “weird”. Try to make it so the player doesn’t get blinded while playing, or the player doesn’t have to turn the game off to low detail.

Game compatibility: -0.1/-1.0

The Race Tournament Pack should have no problem working on your copy of Jazz Jackrabbit 2. It might be a problem
by taking up a few extra slots in your home-cooked levels list, though, since some levels weren’t disabled.

Overall rating: 8.2/10.0

An overall rating of 8.2 on an unbiased review calls for a pack download recommendation. This pack can be considered “good”.

Biased Review:

I certainly had a lot to say about the Race Tournament Pack. After all, there aren’t many race levels out there. My
opinion about this pack is probably more optimistic than the unbiased review.

Replayability: 4.7/5.0

The ten levels in this pack are sure to challenge your hands, eyes, and intelligence for a while. Not only does it mildly challenge you for a good amount of time, its pretty fun to race in. The estimated playing time of these levels would be five hours at most. Five hours is fairly decent for replayability, as many levels and packs don’t last very long. However, this is a race pack, and expectations for playing time are a little higher than usual.

My opinion on this pack: 3.8/5.0

I enjoyed testing this level pack. I’m sure I’d enjoy it just as much to play it against others. The level wasn’t without its flaws, and the flaws I experienced in this level were probably the only thing to hold it back. If only players had more control over their character and weren’t guided by tubes as much, I’d like it a little more.

My overall rating: 8.5/10.0*

Making this level pack probably took the creator of it a lot of effort. Good job.

True rating: 8.35/10.0*

A margin of difference of .”35” signifies that I didn’t have much more to say about the pack aside from the unbiased review.

Summary:

The Race Tournament Pack is one of the few submitted race packs circulating online. This is, without a doubt, the
best race pack that has been submitted to Jazz Jackrabbit 2 site. If you enjoy the race mode in Jazz Jackrabbit 2, I
recommend downloading this pack 8:2. If you are not a fan of the race mode in Jazz Jackrabbit 2, I recommend
downloading this pack 7:3.

Improvements:

Take out some of those poles in Bird’s Eye View. Make the background layer in the “weird” level a little neater, so
you don’t blind the critics. Try to give players more control of their player, and have less tubes. I especially found tubes where they weren’t necessary.

Starting Level:

Race Tournament Pack: Starlight Speedway is the starting level of the pack.

Interesting fact:

Not all of the levels were completed in the beta release. One was left half-done, and remained half-done. It ended up being a single lap course.

• Only the unbiased rating counts towards the site’s review rating system.

~ Derby

The levels are pretty entertaining, but the author should have tested them more, as I and my “contestant” got stuck a lot when racing.

One of the known facts of the J2O database is, that there is a lack of race levels. Not to mention good race level packs!
First of all, the creativeness of this pack is unbelievable. Each of the ten(!) levels has its very own style and look. As i always suspected, Another Jazz2 fan is one of the masterminds regarding Jazz2 level design. He is one of the very few people in the scene who still produce lots of great design ideas. My congratulations!
From the awesome “Rising Air” or the breathtaking “Final Raceway”, every level is worth mentioning. Only the MEZ02 levels are a bit dull and boring (Invisible poles? Horrible!) but that doesn’t take too much away from the overall score.
The authors experiments with eyecandy are darn cool. He only used the three (cool) MEZ tilesets but nevertheless there are lots of interesting and/or funny layer tricks in most of the levels. Of course, there are still too many large, boring areas, where he didn’t put a lot of stuff (eyecandy, please! :-) but as i explained, sometimes its just the other way round.

Now, to conclude this long review, i really love the style of this race level pack. IT iS A MUST DOWNLOAD FOR EVERYONE!

P.S.:
The included custom music file (tigress.xm) is good but not really a gem of german tracking :-) The other tracks from Jazz1 fit well in most levels.[This review has been edited by Aiko]

Pretty good, but I got stuck a lot, almost ten times. Other than the masking problem, there is nothing wrong with these levels. Very nice.

GAMEPLAY: 1.9 IT was fun. The race levels were really long (my opinion) some were to confusing, you couldnt tell where to go, and that isnt very fun in races. Lots of cool effects, but the thing which takes from the gameplay a lot is the suckerz. There are to much sucker tubes, its boring watching you being slowly sucked by them, the least you could of done was make them a bit faster, but gameplay was well done overall.
Tile placment: 1.8
The tile placement in most levels was good. In soem the tiles didnt go together, but that was usually to either make the level have a difficult puzzle which needed those column tiles to be floating in midair, or just to confuse you. Either than that, tile placment wasnt bad. Looked like Another Jazz 2 Fan knew what he was doing. Good job on the tile placement
Eyecandy: 2.0
Although confusing on several times, the eyecadny sometimes amazed me in most places. The eyecandy was confusing, but fun and excellently made (is excellently even a word? Dont think so….) A few small problems barely unnoticable, but eyecandy was sometimes very well done, though confusing.
Music: 1.0
Not the best in the world but at least it fits.
Other: Whatever i left out, how the levels all fit and all, get a .8
OVERALL: 7.5. Good job on the levels. Next time, add some ammo and dont make the levels that confusing. Other than that, good job.

Wow! This is a great race pack.
If you don’t count the puzzle of the wierd, because you can get stuck there.
AND in that place with the blinking foreground tiles, you sometimes fall out and I once accidentally somehow got OVER the whole thing and missed two laps.
MEZ rules, good tileset choise!

In other terms : SO GOOD THERE IS NO WORD OR SENTENCE FOR IT. YOU GUYS ARE GOOOOOOODS

(Content truncation/Intolerable filter bypass removal/Rating removal. Please provide a longer review. Additionally, do not do this again; the filter is there to filter. Let it do its job. You receive a subwarning for this. -Trafton)[This review has been edited by Trafton AT]