Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

I promised to review so here I am.

The layout is almost fully symmetrical and easy to learn. It can be splitted into 3 parts, which are the top, the path and the underground.

The top was made mainly for two reasons: obtaining an RF PU and attacking the bases, placed between the top and the path. After obtaining the PU once after every death, it starts to be quite useless, though. There’s not much of ammo there and capturing a flag is much faster with use of a single RF jump from the path. Otherwise (from the top) I’d need to jump on a green spring above an obstacle, and wait until my rabbit will be down there to take the flag, what consume too much of my precious time. The spring should at least be red, so the waiting time could be slower.

To each of the bases there’s one entrance and one exit, but as I said, it’s possible to enter through the exit and also, thanks to the springs added with one of the edits, it’s possible to get out through the entrance. Before the edit it was also possible though, again with use of RFs. Personally, I hate these springs. They take out the whole fun.

The path is an almost flat surface on which players can find RFs, Bouncers, Seekers and Electroblaster ammo – all the types off ammo which the level include, making it even more useless to visit the top or the underground. There is also a Full NRG Carrot in the middle of it and a single slowly-respawning Soft Drink, probably placed just as a decoration.

In the underground there are two small rooms not connected to each other, with thin vertical entrances (the file preview will tell you more). Entering any of them in game is rather rare and there’s no real reason to. The things that can be find here are Bouncer PUs and Seekers, and after collecting them there are two sucker tubes to get out. Because of only one entrance, these places can easily become campy, and this time there’s obviously no way to enter using an exit.

The flow of the whole level is okay. I didn’t find anything decreasing it radically, not counting that green spring in exchange of red. To obtain any of the seekers it’s necessary to slow down though, and I found it a great idea. The rest of weapons uses the same thing but in a less noticable way, making the whole level a choice between a fast or powerful attack. The only weapon which is not really needed is the Electroblaster. I tried using it in game in a few ways, and the only thing in which it helped a little was obtaining the RF PU. It requires some aiming though, and doesn’t really matter, because getting some of Gun 9 ammo (starting near one of the bases) takes a similar amount of time as getting the PU.

Layer 4 and 3 eyecandy looks fine. Unfortunately, while there’s much of great things above the floor, the ground itself looks rather boring. In the deeper part only rocky tiles are used, and Blade’s tileset offers some tiles without rocks as well. Also, some useless pipes could work well.

The background of the level is quite typical as for this tileset and looks really well as it is. I like using the same thing in layers 5 and 6 as it’s almost unnoticable while playing. The town in layer 7 does the job too. I only had a feeling that the textured background doesn’t fit the rest of that, but even if I’m right I guess it’s not your fault, but the tileset’s. Together with the playable part of level, well-used ambient lighting and good choice of music it creates a really great atmosphere, which lacks in so much of other JJ2 levels. This level is worth downloading even for the atmosphere itself, really.

Well, I don’t think you can win a contest with the atmosphere and placement only, though. Go and make it better in any way you want. And don’t listen to my hints, they suck.

*

Edit (due to the level edits #6 and #9001 – previous rating: 7.3):

After these edits, this is just another level, which is much better than the previous one. Lots of things changed. While the eyecandy could be yet more improven, it’s already much better now. I didn’t really expected that these pipes will look like this. They improve both, the outlook and the atmosphere, which now really rocks. This level is truly special in this aspect, and I still believe that even without any gameplay, this would be worth a download.

But the gameplay is better than before too. The Seeker ammo added at the top, as well as changing the spring color really made it pointful to go up there. Changing the underground also made it more visible and more often visited. Now players are finally running in the whole level, not only a little part of it.

So now, what I said should make this level perfect. Unluckily, it still isn’t. The fixes caused some new problems.

As I said, the Seekers were added at the top, making it a more useful place. They were added in a really wrong way, though. Their placement absolutely doesn’t fit the rest of the level. They’re not only on the way, so you can collect them “running like an idiot”, but they’re in really excessive amounts. Just going from left to right through the whole top a player is going to get 50 of them in no time.

The second thing is the fact that editing the underground didn’t really make it camp-proof. While it’s visible if someone’s camping there or not now, still there’s no chance a player will shoot a camper, and even if he wonderfully will, the camper can easily escape with a pipe, which will lead him almost exactly to the only carrot. The underground must be made better once more. And the Electroblaster is still lacking in use, what doesn’t take out any points, though. It’s rather a little hint from me for the previous point.

And, as I said before, the eyecandy can be yet better. It’s the hard part now, and making it “yet better” isn’t really funny anymore, but it can change the ratings a lot.

Oh, and a dog house disappeared with the 6th edit. It may look better, but the dog will be sad. I’m not telling you should make it back there. Just please don’t delete dog houses anymore, because they’re people too, anyway.

*

Edit (due to the level edits #9002 and #0 – previous rating: 8.6):

Everything changed once more. And again the changes are really seriously improving the level.

The first thing which is visible is of course the eyecandy. The first time when I saw the level before its 2nd edit it was repeatitive and boring, now it’s one of the best which can be done with this tileset. There’s a lot of varying stuff in and above the ground, the pipes are irregular and everything looks just damn great. It began to be a little confusing though, since impossible to get pickups, like gold coins, carrot or fire shield appeared there. Good that I was unable to shoot the fire shield or any of RF PUs which were stuck in the ground with Electroblaster or Bouncer. If it’d be possible it would suck. Also, the moving gold coins are a really cool idea.

Camping is absolutely impossible now and no tube leads to the carrot anymore.

Some more food was added. I don’t think it’s really possible to rush when playing a duel, but it looks quite well.

The RF spot still is there, making this level tricky in a good way.

It’s hard to say something more I didn’t say before. This level has just a great gameplay when playing, and a great climate when looking around and listening to the music, and so I feel forced to give it a 9+ rating. Good luck in the contest!

Hi! As I promissed in Review Exchange i will revire this level.

First of all i wish to say that it’s nice, NO bugs and quite fun actually. Here is the review: You start at the top and get RF’s to attack the bases, but after deaths, they are useless, though. You get the flag via a green spring.
There are some ammo like Bouncers, RF, seekers, and Electro, there is an MCE with some coins kinda in the middle, which i like, There is some food, on the middle there are 3 or 4 things to eat, and a Full NRG somewhere..

Another thing is the underground, which is quite small, and has bouncer and seekers, a Bouncer PU, and the rooms are connected by tubes that get you out to the surface, which is quite flat The flow of the level is ok, i did not found anything that might reduce it’s fun radically, there are some sucker tubes in the middle, which i tried near the blue base and the red, and both got me out.

Anyway, the eyecandy is good: 9.3
Ammo placement good but after sometime it becomes useless though 9.1
Food: well onle candy, burger ,fries and a fost drink. They are respwning but their number is quite small: 8.8
EDIT: found a Thing in the wall…
Carrots: 1x FullNRG and a respawning carrot on the wall… : 9.0
Music: good: 9.4.
What’s with the coins? anyway ti’s a MCE event so i liked it.
Score: 9.3+9.1+8.8+9.0+9.4/5 = 9.12 aka 9.1 with DR