Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

DADADADA… it’s time for ST’s random rate of the week again! This time, it’s early! YaY.

First on the agenda is eyecandy. Good, but could be improved in a few places. There were some annoying tricks and a few monotonous eyecandy pieces.

EYECANDY: 2.5/3

Now, about layouts. If I could sum it up in one word, it’d be "almost". This level feels a bit loose and open in some places. It almost seems like if you pulled a drawstring it’d tighten up and be great. Carrots were in niches, and a few places were one-way streets. Pretty average. Weapons were very overused and in funky formations. No useless TNT, though. Coins were a bit hard to get, and I didn’t like those sucker tubes just in the middle of the ground.

WEAPONS: .8/2
NAVIGATION/CARROTS: 2/4

TOTAL LAYOUT: 2.8/6

The overall feel of this level feels incomplete. The level gives off a sense of being thrown together and basically, "missing a roof". You’d think it was half-done if you were going on gut feeling alone. Good, but it’s missing something…

OVERALL "FEEL": .5/1

Closing Remarks: It’s got it’s "15 minutes of fun", but it isn’t really tight and smooth enough to put on your "favorites" list. Nice effort, overall. I still can’t shake that there was that notion to get a polished feel on a half-finished level, though…

TOTAL SCORE: 5.8/10
ROUNDED TOTAL: 5.7

A very nice level, really. Fairly interesting layout, eye candy, and event placement. Did find a few flaws. One of the most annoying, was that you pretty much have to know the level a bit to play in it right, you’ll find the eye candy kinda seems like it’s in the… Forground layer. But I don’t think this should stop you from liking it.

Also, am undecided rather it’s worth a 7.5, or an 8, so I guess I’ll rate it 7.7.

Should be well worth your download, anyway.

I’ve been little quiet. If you’ve even noticed it. The reason is my new release.

This one is good. It’s little small, but it don’t matter so much. Weapon placing Ok, and the layer work was too pretty good. One complaint: Gc used too many same kind tiles next to each other.

And thanks for supporting!

at first i think its very …. that u made it hide in hcl list.
second..the level is good, but confusing
the puzzle is very good
the music is not bad either
d/l it now

Ok, my turn ;)

GC Desert 2 is a … fairly good level. Lay-out is OK (no dead ends in battles, plz), weapon placement also (could have been a bit more). But what i didn’t like was that GC used the ORIGINAL Desert tileset. I play in 8-bit, so the 3D bg is…you know. Speaking of background, i HATE it when ppl use the other layers to boost the eye candy in layer 4. Music choice: average (Medivo2), you could easily use a custom file for this.

Conclusion: not bad. That’s all i can say.

-JelZe GoldRabbit

milger

The level has a nice layout and very good eyecandy. It uses Blade Cool Desert Tileset.

I think its worth about a 8.5

Nimrod

Not a bad peice of work. Design isn’t bad, has a fairly creative layout. Eye candy ain’t bad, just the right amount. But I just wish I could say the same about Events placement, not bad, just OK. Also, they are a few bugs, which could be a bit annoying. And annoying dead ends, also.

Anyway, I’m sure it’s worth your download.

Not a bad level at all.
The very first complaint I have for this has nothing to do with the level at all, it’s the ZIP. You made it extract to a new dir which I think is VERY annoying. but getting beyond that, the level is good. It has a nice layout and okay event placement, some tile errors were present and eye candy could have been easily improved. Also the weapons were weirdly placed. All of the other events were fine though. Everything else wasn’t so great.

Overall you can sure d/l this. (I was pretty undecided between 6.5 and 7 here..)

LOOK PEOPLE STOP ARGUING AND WATCH TONIGHT WITH TREVOR MCDONALD!

Good.

i know what was wrong Fquist,
I uploaded a .j2l file !!
and no .zip file!

Sorry,

It was not your pc. You should not upload levels with the wrong name..

Yeah Africa rocks (and thats not just because I live there)

Introduction to the “Commander Keen: Shadowlands” tileset:

The “Commander Keen: Shadowlands” tileset is a take of the second Commander Keen series’ Commander Keen 4: Secret of the Oracle’s tiles.

Content:

One tileset, one example level, one battle level, and one text file are in the reviewed zip file.

Unbiased Review:

This seems to be the most important section of the tileset review. The tileset is based on a game not related to this.

Design/Content: 1.8/2.5

There are a fair number of tiles in the tileset. The tileset also is able to cover the most frequently used events, which is very important, and many tilesets lack. Though it is possible to flip tiles, they don’t really make up for the left side of a platform very well. The masking of the tileset does hurt the tileset as a whole, but unfortunately, there is no such thing as
a perfect masking.

Tile/Tile compatibility: 2.1/2.5

The tiles fit pretty well together. There is still the occasional excess room for confusion when putting tiles together in a level. However, this was made up by the formation of the tiles within the tileset (a common idea used by ideal tileset developers.) Extra animations were also supplied in the tileset. Perhaps the most amusing animation in the tileset was that of Spaz devouring the dopefish of the second Commander Keen series. This didn’t make up for any confusion in the
tileset make-up, but the other animations did.

Tile/Event Compatibility: 2.0/2.0

The tileset covered most tile-event combinations. As long as the supplied events worked (which they did), the designer of the tileset didn’t have a problem with this portion of the rating.

Tile/Concept compatibility: 0.8/1.0

Besides the day/night transition animation, it was an original concept. This tileset has a strong showing of tiles and their concepts. Though they helped this rating, the extra concepts didn’t really carry out anything useful in any level.

Layer use: 0.5/1.0

Aside from the content downfall, the compatibilities with the tiles and the layers was a sad downfall on the tileset’s part. The only real active layers are the few sprite layers, and maybe the background layer if there is a day/night transition. The eyecandy wasn’t at any current or previous standard (which couldn’t be helped since the original was done in 256 colors.)

JCS compatibility: 1.0/1.0

The tileset is fully compatible with JCS. As far as I know, this is a given for any tileset that works perfectly, and allows enough room for animated tiles to work.

Overall rating: 8.2/10.0

This tileset had limits, which probably could be resolved with a few tweaks that didn’t require much intelligence. The animations, tile make-up, and event compatibility had a well-rounded balance of ratings.

Biased Review:

My thoughts on the tileset aren’t much different from the unbiased review. There are a few different points that could be brought up, though.

Reusability: 3.5/5.0

There aren’t too many reasons to compel you to keep using this tileset for your levels. It isn’t a bad idea to use it for your levels at all, on the other hand. The tileset should be compatible with most of your ideas that apply to the official tilesets.

My opinion on this tileset: 4.5/5.0

The tileset is a fine display of work. I’m sure there was a lot of effort involved in designing this tileset. From the example levels, you can see the author was able to use it pretty well. In any case, this isn’t a tileset that you shouldn’t reconsider taking a look at, in my opinion.

My overall rating: 8.0/10.0*

From what I believed, I thought the tileset was pretty good. That’s all I really have to say about it besides my biased review.

True rating: 8.1/10.0*

Combined, the two reviews are only one tenth of a point apart. The tileset is considered not great, but good. The original rating of 8.2 is fair enough.

Summary:

If you are a fan (or were a fan) of Commander Keen, you should like this. If you are not a fan (or were not a fan) of Commander Keen, you might still like this. In other words, this tileset has my recommendation for a download.

How could this tileset be improved?

The left side of platforms and the eyecandy of the tileset could be tweaked a bit. Confusion with the tileset’s build could also be fixed by re-arranging the tiles in a more suitable manner, though they were done pretty well.

Interesting fact:

The tileset covers the tiles of more than just one level of Commander Keen 4: Secret of the Oracle. The original levels were intended to look like Keen landed in a forest.

• Only the unbiased rating counts towards the site’s review rating system.

~ Derby

Thanks for the reviews! :D I am happy… :)

This level is quite below average. First off, the level’s design can make it so it’s very hard to pass another player, the only way is, well, the level has a few multible paths, some lead to no where, while other’s lead to the right way. Not a very good idea in race. And they are hurt events, which are bad in race, and they’re used in ways no one would think of! And design and eye candy can be inproved, and a few other flaws.

Anyway, not worth your download, I think.

Well, like a lot of the other reviewers think, Keen was a great game. Anyway, the tileset is great, also. But there’s one think I dislike about the tileset, the background. (Well, at least the checkered one). Also, this tileset is… well, I would never guess it was a Keen tileset without the name right in front of me. Also, the poles that you clime are creative, yet buggy. Still, this is a great tileset!

I’m sure it’s worth your download.

I can’t help myself…despite the fact “Race Mania” is, after quite a long time, finally a new race level, i don’t like it too much. The tile placement and the use of layers (sucker tubes!) isn’t too fortunate.
I have to say that there are some nice ideas and the overall concept seems to be great, but reality looks different :-)
To conclude this review, i can only repeat what iCeD already said: slightly below the average and no real need to download it.

P.S.:
The music file in the ZiP seems to be (slightly?) different from the original one!? Waste of webspace, i guess.

A very nice tileset and level. A tad small on the tileset size, but the level size I think is a tad bigger than most should be. Anyway, the tileset also does lack a bit of eye candy, but in the level, I must admite, on the level, the limited eye candy was used quite nicely. Level had great design, eye candy, ect. Also, you can make darn good levels through the tileset. The level, does have a few small problems, such as a super carrot in Battle Mode, oh well.

Anyway, this is well worth your download.