Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

The Crazy Christmasbattle 2007 doesn’t quite live up to its name, but there are many notable features in this level, and among them, the bonus warp, the water, all the V poles, and of course the hour glasses. To sum it up, it’s 180×72, consists of two towns on each side, a few large platforms in the middle, and a cave under the right town.

EYECANDY
The level looks very average. There are only a few tilebugs (remember to cover all the spots around the windows, not just the actual window frame, or parts of your rabbit will stick out). For the most part, the surroundings look like a typical HH98 level. I found nothing really original in the eyecandy, and sometimes it was a bit plain, especially in the middle, which is the emptiest part of the level, with only two L-shaped platforms.

Technopauluz has opted to use a third layer of mountains in layer 5, which I suppose is slightly original, but it takes away from the level, as layer 5 is usually the most important background eyecandy layer. A tileset like HH98 lacks a lot of transition tiles, so eyecandy is made MUCH more flexible using layer 5.

Simple things like putting those large, brown trees in the background, changing the colour of the layer 8 sky, and using more of those foreground streetlights would make a real difference. Remember to use all available tiles in a tileset.

GAMEPLAY
The level has mostly good flow, but the water and the poles really slow you down unnecessarily. I see no reason why water was included, and it looked slightly out of place too. Always be careful of where you place poles. In Crazy Christmasbattle, they’re at the exit of every cave, which really makes you think twice about entering it in the first place, especially if you’re being chased. I also didn’t like the time-delayed springs, as people aren’t likely to stick around for long in one place (I’ll get to that later). Watch out for pointless dead-ends. There are two of them in the right town.

The level is quite large, but has no carrots, nor does it have any power-ups apart from a few for the freezer gun. More power-ups are only available by entering the bonus warp. Players really do move around a lot in the level, as there are virtually no places worth camping.

Areas above the bubbles are slightly Spaz biased as Jazz/Lori can only reach one platform of the two, but it’s not a big deal.

Like the eyecandy, everything feels quite average. It’s not bad, but you feel there’s nothing different here. The level has an interesting bonus system though. It really is Christmas, as entering the bonus warp does not directly give you anything, but instead drops a goodie down somewhere else in the level for anyone to take. There is a large range of “drop-downs” available, and none respawn. I feel there should be more coins available, so players can enter the warp more often. It’s a good attempt to keep the gameplay interesting, but it’s quite random, and it’s tediuos to enter the coin warp again and again, with nothing but a few crates dropping down.

The hour glasses are another novelty. As the author said, you can shoot them down to get in the way, but people mostly jump over them. Try to test your level online as much as possible, and note the spots where people congregate, or don’t. If nobody ever goes to a place, then it is simply useless space.

OVERALL RATING
This is a well-built level, though not so well-designed, and I can see a lot of effort has been put into the level. I’m sure it’s possible to have a lot of fun in it with enough people going into the bonus warp, but the rest is nothing we haven’t seen before, so the rating won’t be very good. See this level as a learning experience, and a stepping stone to better levels.