Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

They obviously wanted to squeeze in as much as possible into this upload in order to free up some space in the others.

This is totally unbelievable. Shadow relasing a new battle pack? Is that a UFO outside my window? Shadow releasing it as a new ML upload? I think the UFO is landing. Skulg joined ML a year ago without practically anyone knowing about it? Someone’s coming out! OMG RUN!

So, Street Wars: Redemption is here. So, I failed to run away and have now become brainwashed and a mindless slave of the aliens. I liked the original Street Wars and gave it a 9.2 (back when I was a newbie and couldn’t really get to grips with JCS). I now think that I over-rated it, but Redemption has 3 new lvls which should boost its rating up a bit (say, by 0.2 points……darnit, just gave it away!).

First review? Yay!

I’m actually really confused by the way the lvls are linked up together. I don’t see why Shadow wouldn’t set the next lvl settings to mlnec1, mlnec2, mlnec3, etc, to mlnec5, which will of course go back to mlnec1. Instead, mlnec4 goes straight back to mlnec1 while mlnec5 goes to mluptown and that’s just plain confusing and prevents ppl from playing all 5 lvls in one go. Also, looking in JCS, the 3 new lvls have each got 2 different versions, which makes the whole thing even more confusing. This does mean that each lvl will provide a slightly different style of gameplay, but it would be much easier if Shadow just perfected all 5 lvls and only made 1 copy of each.

None of these lvls are particularly Lori-friendly, which is u.n.a.c.c.e.p.t.a.b.l.e. for TSF lvls. Oh well, screw her. No ratings deducted here, but I think this should serve as a warning to everyone who releases TSF uploads.

None of these lvls are particularly Jazz-friendly either, and it is here that I get annoyed. There are simply not enough one ways, vines or springs of appropriate ‘strength’ to give Jazz at least a decent chance vs Spaz in Redemption. Some places seems specifically designed to force ppl to use double jump, which I take it as making the whole lvl a bit more challenging and interesting for duels but what about poor Jazz? I am not going to screw him off (ahem). I don’t know how much Shadow betatested this pack, but he and/or his betatesters clearly didn’t bother playing properly as Jazz in these lvls.

Hot Town and Rocking Streets are still my favourites when it comes to eyecandy, but the new-comers aren’t bad either. The skies are always of interesting colours, most, if not all, layers have been used and I’m glad to see that all background layers have been devoted to…being in the background. It’s always nice to see that some JCSers, like Shadow, aren’t cheating by using layer 5 as unmasked layer 4, which is a particularly easy and cheap way to create good eyecandy. The lvls do not always use all of the tiles available, but so far, I haven’t seen more creative and original use of Townhouse, probably because there are so few Townhouse lvls…sigh. Sometimes, however, the new lvls’ eyecandy get a little repetitive. Shadow has done a lot of realistic tile-placement, which makes buildings look like buildings, cities look like cities but it make everything look a bit squared, rectangular and un-varied. Downtown is a good example of a lvl that desperately needs urban renwal. (And I’m not sry for the bad joke).

The gameplay of all lvls are generally good to great, if it weren’t for the fact that Jazz unfriendliness prevails. Some springs can get in the way, but at least they’re easily accesible. The semi-secret passages are pretty cool too, and they also serve as eyecandy. The different versions of the 3 new lvls make for different kinds of gameplay and weapons placement. Uptown (mluptown) shows ENORMOUS differences from mlnec3 and it is clear that mluptown is the better version. It’s got better placed springs, more ammo, more eyecandy, etc, which makes me wonder what mlnec3 is there for. Get rid of the bad versions, I say!

The weapons placement seems to focus on getting the player killed and preventing him from getting healed. The bonus warp is a REAL PAIN to enter because there are too many easily accessible power-ups and far too few carrots. And carrots, btw, are for wussies, not *ussies. Shadow should consider his use of language. Sure, everyone has enough ammo to blast the whole Townhouse tileset to smithereens but hardly anyone’s going to be alive afterwards. Well, they’ll respawn, but you get my idea. Another weird thing is that the bonus warps sometimes give players power-ups that they could easily stomp/kick/shoot/uppercut/TNT/freeze for free, outside the bonus room. The bonus warps, which are a hefty 50 coins, are clearly not good value. Shadow has one or two lessons to learn from Tesco, ahem.

I still think the original two lvls are the best of the whole pack so I don’t see why they should be “redeemed” by lesser lvls. It still means that Uptown, Downtown and Metropolis Carrotius are good lvls and all TSFers should DL Street Wars: Redemption. 8.2 and a DL recommendation. Now, let’s get that taser out and free my brain…

EDIT: @Shadow: In that case, why haven\‘t you noticed that you keep falling 2-3 tiles short every time you make a particularly large jump? Or that Jazz almost always need a second step when it comes to some red springs? And, btw, the reasons why Spaz players don\‘t complain is probably because the lvls work fine with Spaz. ;-P

J2o no longer allows multiple reviews.

I Feel Enjoy.

However, what are the tilesets here for? They’re also in the tileset pack.

Strange number of download. 3 and 666? OMG RU devil or satan?

Because he can.

Why do you make these lvls 1.24 >(

*******

Why dont you make them 1.23?

Moo.

The first level, using a Disguise tileset (I forgot the name) is a good and hard level with some trigger puzzles and lots of suckers. It took a few attempts to complete the level, which is good (I don’t like easy levels). The eyecandy was decent, but what reallly annoyed me here was the foreground layer which hindered my view. After that comes my favourite level of the pack, using the Beach tileset by Nick Stadler. It has some nice puzzle elements with TNTs and great eyecandy. I love the background and foreground layers in this one, they give a cool atmosphere. It was again difficult, but a little less than in the less level. The third was again a good level, but worse than the second. It uses Castle Eclipse by BlurredD and has some of the crate puzzles the first level had, with enemies falling from the top. The eyecandy felt a little uninspired. Most of the time it looked boring. Level 4 was a downfall. After killing a few enemies and collecting some ammo you get pushed into a boss arena with two robots and a bolly, but as the control Devans (for the robots) are at the top you can’t see anything for a few seconds and loose two hearts unfairly. As you try to kill one of the bosses you get hindered by a waterfall in the foreground, and can’t see anything again. I couldn’t beat this level, and gave up.

Overall this is a nice pack, though with some clitches. I liked the puzzle elements and the difficulty (apart from level 4). At some parts it could use more eyecandy, and a story would’ve been nice too, but I enjoyed playing for most of the time.

Nice music joice aswell, except in level 3 (standard castle music is boring).

Download Reccommendation.

It’s not the trigger crate what blocks the wallclimb spot, it’s the trigger zone. It’s there so latecomers don’t wallclimb in when game starts. However, this system falls prey when server is laggy, and right now I’m modifying it. Thanks for noticing that, Blacky.

(blah) Nonetheless, thanks for pointing the bugs out, Sonyk. You helped me with making these levels better, thanks to you. =)

China Turtle Temple, another turtemple mix by Danyjel.

I like what you did to the beginning, it sounds different from the original turtemple and also gives that china feel.
I really like the song at its climax (patterns 12 – 14), it sounded great there. Too bad it was only a few patterns (12 – 14 and 27 – 29).
The ending is a nice fadeout, but if you want to use the music in a jj2 level, you won’t hear the fadeout and instead the music would just keep going full volume until the last pattern and then abruptly stop and loop.

Otherwise, I like this better than Templorary Turtle. It has more of an atmosphere and I like the main beat more. A good listen, and a good download =D.

Overgrown

Firstly, let me comment on how the music for this level wasn’t in the zip =D.
Otherwise, I dislike the crate system. It blocks off the wallclimb spot so nobody else could get in after someone gets into controller room. Why did you make that? Anyways, I played this with a lot of people and it got annoying. The actual level is pretty small, and you need TNT to blow up stuff, so its not that fun and chaotic like other ground force levels. eyecandy is alright.
Rating: 7

A Lone Island
Yay music =D. And again that crate system >.>. I don’t like the main arena here much. Eyecandy needs a lot of work and the backround is pretty boring. The delay between the bomb falling is nice, if only you couldn’t reach the bombs and blow them up manually without even hitting the crate.
Rating: 6.5

A Water surprise
Nice atmosphere, and imo this level looks a lot better for me in 16bit =D. I actually kinda like this level. Eyecandy is nice for the most part. I think you put too many carrots in the crates that fall though, it might get laggy. I would’ve given this a 7.5, but I managed to jump out of the gem area the controller gets to when out and back into the arena. You really need to fix that. -0.5

Rating: 7

Blazing Speed:
The turtle shell thing is fun (although not completely original since Blur’s Scatter used it), but some times the turtle shell fell without breaking anything. Yay for LRK’s song. The eyecandy is alright here, and this is a decent level.

Rating: 7.2

Palace of Punishment:
++Music. The concept is interesting, but this level is kinda hard =\. I’d prefer the coin amount you need before you get out to be higher. The eyecandy is alright, but because of color repetetiveness within the tiles it gets confusing.
Rating: 6.5

Windy Carrots
Lol @ tileset. This level was actually kinda fun, and the wind thing was original, but the wind might’ve been too strong. Still, one of the better ones in the pack imo.

Rating: 7.4

10 is a magical number
Dont get the name but k. Destruct blocks took some effort to destroy, and the empty areas in the arena were =\. Don’t really have much to comment on the level.
Rating: 7

Elixir of Distort:
Woah. Pretty big level. Also kinda lacking in music =P. might’ve been funner if the crates didnt drop the bombs on you and in a distant area where other players might be instead. Tileset use was ok. I like the backround
Rating: 7.2

Marbles of Magic:
Hm. Lots of eyecandy bugs in the start area, but I liked what you did in the walls in the arena. I dont like the layout of the level, since its really hard to get up especially if you fall down all the way. Music is nice.
Rating: 6.7

Thunderstorm of the Ancients:
I see rain but I dont see lightning anywhere ;(. More like a huge rainstorm. Level is pretty big too, and the turtle thing is interesting (the shells). One thing I noticed is that people were able to get back into the arena if they rejoined the level (-0.5), and that kinda sucks. I also got killed by the turtles too. Whee. Music is nostalgic though, reminds me of donkey kong 3 (probably cause I think it is from donkey kong 3).
Rating: 7.4 – 0.5 = 6.9.

Rating of the pack: 6.94 rounded down to a 6.9.

Lots of these levels are really buggy and need some fixes, but otherwise some of them are ok and kinda fun to play. I’d give this a download reccomendation, since it has some fairly original stuff in it.

~Blacky

Edit: Since apparently a lot of bugs are fixed, I’ll upgrade the rating of this to a 7.6. GG.

Edit: Some bugs are still there. I can get into the arena after the server and everyone else got in (i.e by rejoining if I get out) and stuff. Back down to a 7.3 until this gets fixed..

Okay, people got all annoied at my “underrating” of this set, but for someone who never used the Access Violation patch, or knows how to avoid common errors and problems… the levels were kinda unstable, which made playing them horrible and all. Anyway, with the fixes the levels are more enjoyable.

Each level is basic ground force, nothing too special about the types. When each level starts, the system is different in each. But the server locks the start area, which makes problems in servers with downloaders.

Each level has its own little “theme” which relates to the levels name, more often than not. Like in ’10 is a magical number’, each block takes ten hits to destroy it. In ‘Thunderstorm of the Ancients’, there are even turtles, which I presume to be the ‘Ancients.’

Overall, the levels are nicely made, but ground force is a ‘you like it; you don’t’ kind of thing, so downloading it is really your choice.

Overall, since Ground Force levels are (in my opinion) not that original, or anything breathtaking, I didn’t really see anything in this pack that really deserved a 9+, but the levels are nice, so an 8 is about right.

EDIT: After playing the levels some more, I started liking them more and more, so, I recommend to download them now. Very much so.

—————————————————————————-
A little note I would like to make to those who blame me for “underrating” as well. A review is how I liked the pack and the rating is what I felt it deserved. As long as I provide reason (which I did) I could’ve made this rating lower or higher. So, I had reason for rating it the way I originally did, and thus, if you didn’t like it, simply ignore what I have to say from now on.

i like pie!!!1
and I’m drunk!!!11
(…I have no clue how this review got here but it’s completely unsupported. ~Violet)

The storyline of this level pack is simple but funny and also original, Jazz needs to go on adventure for days to only bring food and drinks to Eva! The levels are all like one map but the storyline and enemy’s are changed in all of them, very original! The shop is also nice, at first i thought those items where real.. May the BeachTown map needed some more eyecandy, and the map may needed something bigger too, but in general this download is recommed, and will get a 7.5 from me! Keep going on with this!

The uploading date is far back, but I never came to write a review. I just replayed, so here it shall be.

“Time Tripping – JJ2” is a nice conversion of the game Hocus Pocus made by Apogee. I haven’t played the original, so I can’t rate on that.

No one needs the original though, as Violet did exactly convert the game as accurate as possible. Some may like that, but I don’t. Of course it gets unbalanced if one uses running, stomping, etc., but without running it’s kinda boring. I had put less carrots instead, most of them I really did not need. There were also put sucker tubes to prevent high jumping, which often through me into spikes unfairly, which was annoying. The enemy placement of the original must have sucked, because so it does in this pack. Clumped together enemies on every platform, it’s annoying. There were a lot of places were I got unfairly hurt also, because for example a warp target was put directly above spikes in the last level. That’s not Violet’s fault as he didn’t make the gameplay, but I hate it. I just don’t like that Violet sticked to the original so much, leave a little room for creativity. That doesn’t mean the pack wasn’t creative though, some things were done profesionally. I had never thought off stopping Tuf Bosses from shooting with belts. There are a lot of tricks used to make it as accurate to the original as possible. That, however, often ruins the gameplay and looks just weird. It was not bad, but it could’ve been a lot better and I don’t think it does deserve a 10. On a final note, the music annoyed me to hell.

The pack is a nice and very accurate conversion, but freaking overrated.

If you’re a fan of this kind of gameplay then download, otherwise don’t.

I can really spot the upgrades you have made, so you’ll be rewarded +1.0 to your rating.

EYECANDY: Not bad, you have used the foregroung layers and the backround layers well. 19/25

ITEMS: Some places are empty, but others have some items. You could put in some hidden items. 16/25

GAMEPLAY: Good use of springs. I couldn’t find any warps or coins. But other uses are good. 17/25

SIZE: It’s big, but could be bigger. 19/25

Score = 81/100

Rating (Including the added 1.0) = 9.0

Final Comment: Er……Great Level….

Yo, Tubz/Tublear here. Easy rater, I gotta say this song…

Linkin Park – Points of Authority (DJ JSZ JazZ Remix) is hot! You did a great job, dawg, have a nice 9! Download recommendation haha!

You can’t get a 10 because It’s a remix, sorry.
(Unsupported rating removal. You really did nothing more than say that this is good, twice. Try explaining your rating and giving me a feeling of what the upload is like. ~Violet)

More people can play it if it’s 1.23… though 1.24 makes no real difference.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s the 53rd review for this darned overrated pack. Oh well.

What we have here is a 17.5 MB package including 12 levels, ambient soundtracks, 5 3D cutscenes and lots of other stuff which I’m too lazy to mention.

A huge amount of effort has gone into creating this episode, however, that doesn’t make it perfect for me.

The story tells the quest of young Jazz, stranded on an island inhabited by dinosaurs – yes, the story’s stolen from Jurassic Park. However, that didn’t matter for me at all.

The levels are all pretty well designed, some with very original stuff, however way too short and easy. I played through this in around 20 minutes I believe (can’t remember correctly), which is way too short considering what could have been possible. The levels are mostly outdoor areas with lots of evil enemies and a few puzzles scattered about. Those were pretty easy though, could’ve had some more depth. The dino hunt level was cool, but too short and easy again.

Like I said, the difficulty of this episode isn’t very high. The enemies are mostly not strategically placed, the puzzles aren’t that hard to solve, what else? Boosted difficulty had made this a lot more fun.

A good aspect of the pack is that it’s pretty creative. There are some ideas and tricks I’ve never seen before, and the dino hunt was spectacular. The puzzles could’ve been better, but overall very nice.

Eyecandy is so-so. In the outside areas it looks nice, while in the caves it’s dull. The tileset is not the best, which could be the main reason. It’s not bad, but it needs a lot more detail, especially in walls. Level 8 had exactly 10 different tiles I believe. Some tricks are neat though.

The story is told in a nice way through short dialoges of the character, and it’s easily understandable even for someone who didn’t watch the film. Some things don’t really fit in like the ammo, but that doesn’t matter.

Overall this pack is nice, especially for those caring about lots of extra features like cutscenes and makros (that are those little recorded games showing up if you do nothing in the main menu), but the levels were a little dissapointment due to easieness and shortness.

Those are my two cents, agree with it or not.

It’s a decent pack though, and worth the download.

EDIT:

I’ve played with my friend in Coop mode yesterday. It was fun, so I’ll increase the rating a bit. :)

(7.7 -> 8.0)

DX let him decide himself

im not going to rate it. but i do think its neat. who cares if he worked hard on it or not, i had fun playing it.