Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Alike New Ages had it volume 3 recently, also Impressions-series continues on with a third level pack. The pack here is a bit smaller though, as well it is more focused on battle-levels. As the title says, there has been some sort of Evolution.

The pack kicks off with ’6 Hour Energy Drink’, a rather small and solid battle-level with it’s neat looks. DarkSonic has been creative to keep you interested to play here. ‘Energy Drinks’ that in the end will make you rush at your opponents. Flow seems good, as well the rest of the pickups. The layout though isn’t anything special and the level itself would be just another random level using this tileset if it wasn’t this solid, and if the background wasn’t as innovative.

‘Darker Remains’ is pretty good use of the fresh Castle-set by Blade. That one is probably the better battle-levels out there, cause it’s excellent visuality and limited enough gameplay. Positions for Pickups is suitable in overall as well.

In ‘Scrap Brain’, the thing is to use your brain. It is mostly about controlling the two MCE-carrots at the top-level, as there are PowerUps placed very close to them. The level is somewhat different compared to the previous level by DS using this tileset, ‘Panic!!!’. Still, the eyecandy is what makes this remind me about it.

‘Mixxed Up’ seems to be relative to ’6 Hour Energy Drink’ with it’s name. Using also a new, fresh, Waste Treatment Facility-tileset by Cooba, it goes far to the better side of battle-levels, because it’s nice eyecandy and more tactical layout. The level utilises pits. Just too bad they are only few. Pickups are where they should be, and I don’t see ice useless either, despite the pits aren’t that risky.

My favourite level in the pack is ‘Unreal Surreality’-CTF, that is very unconventional. You could imagine the top-area is the warground mainly here, and below are pits, but instead the bottom-area is what makes this so abnormal. The bottom-area is where the only PowerUps lie, and is also the fastest route to travel between the narrow bases with flying-ability. That way the gameplay is well spread around the space here. I would probably know a better name for this level, but guess I’ll save it for one of my own.

‘Colourful Compact’ is a more default CTF-level. The PowerUps are placed somewhat unwise, and I was already looking for some variety instead of the very usual Bouncer and Toaster. I’m not either sure if two minor carrots fit here. Eyecandy is colourful, only barely not too colourful to confuse your eyes. Unfortunately this one seems to be the worst level in the pack, not by a lot, but still.

What I was most interested about in this pack at first, was the Street Pass No. 3, using the new FlagRun-gametype, and fairly new Desolation-tileset both by BlurredD. After fixing the few minor glitches here, the level seems to work fine, probably in practical use as well. It is going to be sort of crowded here in big JDC-events for example, so I guess this suits 2vs2/3vs3 FR more. The flag-spot could be less campable though, and bad is that this level is just too much like all other flagrun-levels. I can’t either find any “street” here.

Yet another VIP (Very Important Pack) from this month, or something…Alike NA III, also Impressions 3 has gone through improving, just not as much as it could. Download the pack and have a try of each level. It might be after all more like taste with the Energy-drink concepts and all, but I’d say not all the levels here are evenly decent. All work out though, and definitely ‘Unreal Surreality’ is the big diamond of the pack that raises the pack’s worth even more. I would say this month is one of the greatest with that result of upload quantity-quality comparison. I believe this is promising for the whole year, and upcoming Anniversary Bash 10 as well. DS is one another we can thank for that.

SJ

Let’s review!!

6 Hour Energy Drink
Wow. I love this level. Like, I’m not kidding. There’s just something about it. The layout is so simple and boring, but I just love the way this level plays. The tileset is used wonderfully, the level looks absolutely gorgeous. Really, this level is fairly small, but at the same time it’s not cramped, and you could have a decent chase in it. There are soda cans placed around for you to get a sugar rush on, or in this level’s case, energy drinks. Very clever. I like this level a lot. Gave me a really good first impression of the level pack.

Darker Remains
This level’s okay. I guess maybe I just had higher expectations because I liked the first level so much. Anyway though, I enjoyed this level. The layout’s nice, and there’s plenty of room in this level to fit a bunch of players in. I defiinitely give Dark Sonic props for using this tileset. It’s really, really hard to use. Overall the level is pretty, but some of the places look really, well, ugly. I dunno. This one tile is used in a lot of places that just doesn’t work at all. Look around 85, 15. That tile’s just really overdone. Overall, this level’s good, but nothing I’d host.

Scrap Brain
This level’s really great. The tileset is used really well, the level looks really pretty. But that’s not why it’s great! The layout is just awesome. Like, I dunno. Again, it’s nothing special. It’s just a basic layout. But it’s just done really well. There are a million and one places where you can suddenly stop short, change your path, and confuse your enemy who was chasing you. You can jump into a few walls to grab carrots, cut a jump short and climb down some wires, or just, like, I dunno. This level’s just really good. I’d love to have a duel here, I think it’d be really fun. The downfall of this level is the music. If you know me, you’ll know that I absolutely hate the Sluggion theme. I think one time I attempted to rate a level lower than it should’ve been because they used the Sluggion song, but I’ll let you off and just mute the music if I play this level online.

Mixxed Up
I dunno if we have two different versions of the tileset with different masking, or this level just wasn’t tested properly, but when I was trying to test this, I kept falling off the bottom of the level. I dunno. This level is nice and all, it’s pretty, but you fall off the bottom of the level, and that’s never a good thing. I’ll cut my review short on this one because obviously something’s going on here.

Unreal Surreality
I dunno, I really don’t like this level. It’s too cramped up, the eyecandy is confusing, and the layout is boring and symmetrical. I mean it’s not a terrible level but I just really don’t like it. I don’t think you could have a decent game in this level. The base placement is clever, but not pulled off too well, it’s just annoying. It’s too hard to get around the level. I don’t mean to bash it, but I just can’t find anything I enjoy about this level.

Colorful Compact
Another level I just can’t really bring myself to like. This one’s better, but I didn’t enjoy it. The layout seems very confusing, and the eyecandy, although it appears a lot of time was put into it, is just very ugly, to be honest. This level flows okay, but I really don’t like the layout all that much.

Street Pass no. 3
I’m not at all familiar with this gametype. In fact, I couldn’t figure out what the heck to do in this level, so it’s hard to write much about it. I dunno. Again, a very hard tileset was used so I give a lot of props for that, and the level looks really pretty. I particularly enjoyed the flow here a lot. Everything seems to go together nicely. I’ll cut the review there, though, since I have no idea with Flag Run is.

Overall, I enjoyed the battle levels that Dark Sonic made for this pack, but the CTF levels were very disappointing. I’d reccomend this for download.