Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Well uh yeah. I find it extremely unfair that no one reviews uploads by DarkSonic, seeing as he’s one of the most active decent reviewers on J2O. Like n00b once said, “Dear J2O users, you’re all shallow.” Anywho, here goes my obligatory review :

Visual Appeal – 3 out of 5

And this is a problem of the pack. Not necessarily of both levels, as I actually enjoyed the eyecandy in Like an Oven, even if it was a little bit repetitive in some places such as 80,41. However, I certainly did not like the eyecandy in Planet Internet. I can see that the author tried, but unfortunately he kinda failed. Firstly, what’s with all the reverse “boxes” in the walls? I can live with the ones with black outlines, but those with green ones throw me off heavily.

If everything around the box has black outlines, why did you have to reverse it and make it have green outlines? It looks very out of place. Secondly, why are all the layer 4 backgrounds shaped like this:

It made Atom Heart 243.5 look fairly bad, so why did you have to use it the same way as SJ did? There are sloped layer 4 backgrounds, so use them instead of some crappy synthetic stairs thing.

Layer 6 in Planet Internet doesn’t even… tile.

As BlurredD himself says, most of the tiles have to be flipped to tile, and as you can see the background is the finest example of that. There are also more things of rather questionable visual quality (such as all the white/red things on layer4…), but I’ll cut it here. Planet Internet brings down the quality of the pack’s eyecandy a lot.

Playability – 4 out of 5

This was certainly better than the eyecandy. I still like Like an Oven‘s gameplay more than the other level’s. It flows well, and the layout is mainly open in most places, and that works. The balance might be a bit off with Bouncer vs Toaster, since Toaster won’t be as effective in this level. And, um, what’s with the triggers around the bottom +3 carrot? Doesn’t make much sense for me as you could just have removed the platform entirely if you don’t want people to step on it. Not much else can be said on Like an Oven, so let’s go ahead onto Planet Internet… ouch. First of all, why is this level so full of slopes? They don’t serve any particular purpose and just look out of place, honestly. The layout is also mostly generic, with boring platforms serving little purpose. The +1 carrots seem a bit too close to the bases for my tastes, which may just as well result in encouraging camping. Also, I’m not sure why is this level’s center powerup an RF one, since Bouncer and Toaster will be more useful here than RF, as this level is also quite enclosed. That’s all I have to say here, really.

• Like an Oven is a decent level.

• Planet Internet is ugh.

Overall
This was a mixed bag for me. I didn’t quite enjoy Planet Internet as you might have figured. I liked Like an Oven much more, although I still think you made better levels than that. 6.9 (would be 7.something but Planet Internet = ).

Bah. I finally got a review and the rating is.. well, unexpected. I think Planet Internet should have used another tileset, or I would have just made another level. But I was in a hurry when I uploaded this pack, so I had no real time to find good beta testers.

Oh well, I guess I’ll just find real beta testers next time. At least someone reviewed.