Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Okay, I just wrote a quick review, and I thought that was pointless, so here’s a real review. Now you must always remember, I’m directing my review at you to give constructive criticism. This means I’m trying to provide information or hints as to what is wrong and what is right. I know I can’t be 100% correct, but bare with me, noone ever is.

Now that I’m done with my life-story, I will write a review.

Eyecandy

Rating: 8.2

This is usually the best part to review because you can point out everything that looks great. One great thing about this level is that the eyecandy doesn’t get in the way of the gameplay itself. The level has a typical textured green background with a nice fade in it. The other background layers didn’t really have anything special. Moving closer to the level itself, the level did have something quite original which probably has something in relation to the title. I spotted a demon was created using some times, you can spot a mouth and an eye and blahblah. If you run into its mouth, you’ll get some seeker ammo, and then get shot out afterwards. It feels like the demon itself is swallowing you. Also, the bases have quite nice eyecandy around them as there is nothing that looks extremely bland. The author clearly spent some time making it look good. Other than the “demon” I spotted, I didn’t really see much that was so special.
Many of the EC effects used are very typical in today’s standards of levels and the use of this tileset. I would have wanted to see possibly more demons or maybe Disguise’s head everywhere. Also, the level itself was flipped, I’ll never miss it if someone tries to do that, this usually causes shadows and tiles to look wrong as their directions change which would therefore change the origin of light in the level not that it is that important… Nonetheless, the eyecandy is still somewhat impressive in this level and is worth a look at; I didn’t spot any tilebugs (which really tick me off) which is great and the level itself did look quite pleasing.

Gameplay

Rating: 6.5

This might just be what’s bringing the level down so much. I’ll set this out accordingly: bias, strategy, layout, flow, defense/offense, and of course fun-factor.

The level itself isn’t biased from one team to another as it’s pretty much 100% symmetrical. One bias that I could complain about is that many of the jumps in this level are designed to be done with Spaz. The author clearly did not think too much about using Jazz in this level as many of the jumps are really annoying to pull off with him. This would probably deter anyone from playing as Jazz in this level.

The level itself doesn’t really have many tactical traits built into it, apart from the way you can blow people out of the base using seekers or shooting them with electro blasters which conveniently spawn on the side of the base. The carrot area and the powerups are generally very easy to camp with the exception of the +1 carrots and the RF PU. The seeker PU is easy to camp because of the excess in seeker ammo in the area, which would not only allow the person camping inside (should there be one) to shoot people warping in, but will also allow that player to shoot people moving from above. The only real way of striking back at a camper here is by shooting seekers from above. While this will probably knock them out, the gameplay itself is very disruptive like that and what would the attacker do if he lacked seekers? He could just warp in or go up and try to find some, but other players tend to hog weapons too. Maybe I’m being too critical. The other powerups (toaster and bouncer) are both in very annoying places, a small hole; while this might be a way of biasing the level in Jazz’s favor (which I highly doubt), it could also be a method of making players shoot the powerup instead of kicking. What I suggest is to either make it easier to kick, or make players have to shoot it with electro blaster or something. The Full NRG doesn’t have too much space to bombard it with RFs, and isn’t open enough to attack with bouncers and seekers, which would make this the ultimate camp-spot. There is no real strategy in order to remove the person who may be camping there other than to shoot seekers from a side and hope it hits them, which on a non-laggy server wouldn’t be very effective.

The layout of the level is very simple and quite platformy. Nonetheless it is quite easy to learn as the tubes and springs are quite easy to find. The level’s layout is quite well set out, minus the bases, I hate the bases. On top of the fact that I hate the bases (did I mention I hate the bases?), there are some random dead ends at the top, not that they are anything major, they can be annoying.

The level itself flows quite well as there aren’t any majorly annoying walls or platforms in which you run into or off very easily. The springs are quite well placed. But, some areas of the level itself are very annoying such as near the base area in particular; climbing out from the side of the base in the outdoor area can be very annoying as it requires you to jump from side to side to side to side to side. The water stops toasters from working properly when you run into it (probably by accident), while it does give you an easy boost for the RF climbing thing which you put into it under the base. (While I should have mentioned this in strategy…) The RF climbing will give you a quick boost to the base and can be an easy way in and out to avoid defenders.

In an attacker’s eyes, the base is very hard to reach without getting hit because of the vertical layout and the fact that the base is situated above the point of entry. This makes it even more hard to reach the base unhit. The fact that there is no way of shooting someone camping on the base unless from above with a seeker or electro blaster or bouncer (which they’ll have a chance to recover by the time you reach them) causes attacking to be very annoying in this level. Defense on the other hand is a whole other story. This level is layed out for easy defense in the base area in particular, as you just need either bouncers or seekers and the defense is pretty much solid already. It’s really hard not to hit the incoming attackers.

This level is quite bumpy, as some areas cause you to be very slow and some areas don’t have an affect on your speed much. The fact that the RF PU isn’t very useful for chasing in this level is quite a bummer (to me) as the level’s shape isn’t very straight horizontally, you also can’t really RF hop accross the level so much, but there is the one (not too useful) RF climb area which might just help if noone expects it. The movement in this level isn’t very fun and it isn’t as fast paced as I’d like it to be, but oh well.

General Placement

Rating: 7.0

The ammo is placed quite well in the level and nothing is really in the lacking, but I think there’s an excess in powerups. The fact that this level isn’t insanely huge and quite small in passageways makes me think that even three powerups in this level is pushing it. I’ll let that go. Anyway, none of the powerups are really too close to eachother which is good and the carrots are quite spread out too which is also great. The extra seeker ammo crates placed next to the seeker powerup is quite useless indeed as you’d usually do your special move, shooting would be useless as the crates would probably be in the way. The ammo is quite well placed nonetheless, the only thing I can probably ask for is more electro blasters. The carrots are all well placed. Yeah. Well done.

Originality

The level itself doesn’t have many excessively original gameplay gimmicks or eyecandy concepts with the exception of the “demon” eyecandy. Well done on that as that does relate to the level’s name quite well and creates quite the mood.

One point for originality (though that isn’t really included in rating).

Conclusion

Finally, the best part of the review. Nice level, it’s quite impressive but it does have it’s flaws. Well done on this level, and I reccomend downloading this level as it’s worth looking at.