Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

I already promised to review this, so here goes.

IC PITFALL BATTLE LEVELS

Another out of the blue upload from IC. These guys just seem to constantly pump out new packs one after another, which is good since JJ2 needs another active group after OLC pretty much collapsed.

Basically, these are normal battle levels, except they’re open (usually floating platforms) and allow the player to fall to the bottom of the level. The downside is that you need BlurredD’s Carrotade for these levels to actually work, which just became even more inconvenient now that Gry has released a (featured) 1.23x patch that refuses to work alongside the program. It would’ve been nice if there could have been an LRS version of these levels included just for convenience sake and so that more people would be able to play them.

Anyways, the levels themselves:

ICPF01/ICPF02

These two are basically battle 1 and battle 2 edits, edited so they have pits to make them into a pitfall battle. Aside from adding pits, very little else is actually edited. The eyecandy still remains as subpar as it was, and the levels are just weird the way they are. If you were going to take the trouble of editing them, you might as well have improved their appearance a bit while you were at it. I won’t include these two in the overall rating, as the original levels aren’t yours. However, the pits were placed rather well in this level, and some of them were rather hard to avoid.

Forest Awakening

I’ve seen a screenshot of this level before, and I still have the same opinion about its eyecandy: simply beautiful. The backround looks amazing; you’ve made it look distant and not interfere with the foreground/layer 4, yet it looks full of life and actually does make the level seem like some sort of forest. The foreground eyecandy is also very well done, and overall appearance wise this level is stunning.

The layout is rather basic, but I like it. There are treetops, several chucks of land and pits disguised as water. The level does a good job of not being platformish, and the water as pits was a great idea as it made the level seem more natural and not like some floating chunks of land in midair. Powerups were placed nicely. The seeker was hidden in a rather interesting place, and the bouncer and blaster were out of the way and needed some exploration/risk to acquire. The carrots were also placed in nice little alcoves instead of just floating around, and you had to take some risks to get them. Ammo placement was nice, although I felt that it was too sparce since I had very limited ammo aside from the powerups when I played here online. Overall, however, this is my favorite level in the pack.

V.F.I.A.P

Apparently this stands for some inside joke, Vivando Fell Into a Pit or something. The level is bigger than the previous, but also a lot narrower. I didn’t like the layout as much since it seemed rather random. Making dead ends but placing warps into them for no reason is also rather weird; either make the warps visible or use something else. The top left of the level seemed rather useless, as there’s nothing there aside from some loose ammo and it just takes you back to the same spot where you came from. You’re also able to camp under the +1 carrot above the purple bridge by stomping out of some sucker tubes (I don’t know if this is intentional or not, but imo it shouldnt be).

The eyecandy was rather basic but looked nice, and I liked the ambient lighting used. It wasn’t incredibly innovative or anything, though, but it did try to be different then other beton levels with the weird tubes and other things like that, and nothing in the level looks bad. The ammo was placed in creative little patterns, but again I feel like there could’ve been more. The level feels like it’s intended for a small amount of people since it’s not as open as the last one and because of the ammo, and because there is only one carrot and one powerup. Overall, the level is decent but I’m not too into it.

Psychosis

I could already tell who made this one a few seconds after first playing it ;P. This level is quite different from the one above. It’s rather platformish, but because of the EC you won’t notice that as much. There’s 3 (!!) powerups AND a fire shield (which is rather easy to get, at least compared to the one in The Temple of Suffering) which makes this level a slaughterfest. The ammo placement in this level is probably the best in the pack, as there’s only 3 different types of ammo and each of them has a powerup for them with a rather short respawn time, so getting/refilling ammo won’t be difficult. The powerups were also placed similarly to Forest Awakening; they’re in little alcoves that you need to go out of your way to get to, and (especially the seeker powerup) post risks of falling into a pit/getting owned by your opponent when trying to get them. Intentionally or not, the fire shield doesn’t respawn, so you have 40 seconds to actually make it count and then it’s gone.

Eyecandy here is just awesome. You don’t see the (rather limiting) Death Metal tileset being used all too often, and here P4ul used it in a different and visually appealing way. The bones look great as they litter the ground/ceiling/basically everything. There’s even the little things to take into consideration such as the chains made to look as if they’re holding the bones up, which is really nice. Overall, this is would be the second best level in the pack imo.

It’s Over

This is a good level, but it’s already been uploaded before ;|. Honestly it would’ve been better to just make a new level instead of reusing an old one (especially when your pack only has three other levels in it, not counting the b1/b2 edits), but too late now I guess. The level uses the overused Diamondus B tileset, which has been completely overused to the point where it’s been eaten alive, digested, spat out and eaten again, then spat out and trampled over. That’s how overused it’s become >O (speaking of which, Pyro uploaded an xmas version of it Here !!). The eyecandy in here is the same as the eyecandy in most other diam b levels, which consists of a lot of trees/waterfalls/vegetation everywhere, but it still manages to look pleasing. Like P4ul’s other levels this one has lots of powerups everywhere, ensuring large amounts of flying rabbit limbs and carnage. There’s also a full energy carrot hovering over a pit, which can get shot down to the bottom of the level. The face in the wall looks awesome, btw.

Also, the music for this level isn’t included in the zip, and the one that the Level Description links to isn’t the one that this level uses. You’d either have to go out of your way to convert the basebos.it music to j2b format and rename it for the music to play in this level, or play without it =/.

OVERALL

I like this pack. It could’ve been something a lot better though. There’s only three new levels in this (the rest consists of one recycled level and two battle game edits) and the pack requires a program to actually function (said program also doesn’t work with featured 1.23x patch). If this had something like LRS versions of the levels included, and more new levels, it could’ve been something really awesome. Right now, it’s still good, but doesn’t try to distinguish itself by being something exceptional. However, with that said, it still deserves a download and is still a good upload overall. I’m going to give this an 8.4, although I really hoped it could’ve gotten higher then that.

~Blacky