Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

This is a fairly interesting battle level.

Eyecandy: 7/10
The eyecandy is relatively good, but doesn’t really stand out to me. As with most levels using this tileset, it’s fairly bright and clean looking. There’s some nice layering with the background throughout the level, and I like the part just above the “sparkly pumpkin,” with a waterfall that appears to fall between two layers of background. I don’t really like the layer 2 rain much, because it seems to move too fast and if anything gives the impression of a powerful storm with wild winds, which don’t really fit with the blue sky and rest of the background. Events like moths and food, (although the food at least can also effect gameplay to some extent) give the level a pleasant, natural look.

Gameplay: 6/10
The gameplay of this level has some interesting ideas, and could lead to fun games, but doesn’t really feel polished all the way. The most unique part of the level I noticed was two coin warps. One requires 20 coins, the other requires 50. The 20 coin warp can send a player to either a bouncy or pepper-spray power-up, while the 50 coin warp can send the player to either an empty room or a room with a shield and a blaster power-up. The empty room is three times more likely than the room with the power-up and shield. (I know for single player warps with multiple targets aren’t actually random, but I forget if this is true for multiplayer games. If it is, then a smart player can always get their money’s worth for the 50 coins if they use the 20 coin warp the right number of times in before using the 50.) I feel this is a bit unbalanced. A shield is nice, and the blaster could be useful because of the relatively sparse ammo on the level, but without any fast-fires on the level, a bouncy power-up is far superior in the long run, if one can collect ammo fast enough. Which actually could be rather difficult, because every generator on this level seems to have a delay of 30 seconds, and there isn’t a particularly large amount of ammo on the level to begin with. If there are many players, collecting 50 coins would be nearly impossible, and getting the reward doesn’t seem worth the effort, especially if one ends up getting dumped into an empty room 75% of the time. Ammo is also difficult to collect enough of. This is especially true because there is only one power-up that does real damage and requires ammo. I believe there are six +3 bouncy ammo events to collect, each with a respawn time of 30. Of course, limiting people’s ability to use power-ups may also work ok, because there is only one +1 carrot that players are supposed to be able to get. It is possible to get a full NRG with a somewhat tricky rf jump (No, i did not use any cheat codes to get up there). The bouncy power-up and pepper-spray can also be got by some possibly unintentional means. The pepper-spray can be shot through the walls of its room by running into the wall and shooting some bouncies just before colliding. The bouncy power-up requires either the warp or a rather difficult rf jump that would be even more difficult during an actual battle, so this probably doesn’t have to be worried about.

6+7=13/20=6.5/10
Overall, this level is fairly good, but because it’s rather difficult to collect ammo, I don’t find the gameplay as great as it could be, and don’t believe the level really stands out much.