Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Caveat emptor: I’ve never been a very good reviewer of Jazz 1 conversions, mostly because I’ve failed to be a good little Jazz Jackrabbit fan and actually bother to get and play the game. Unfair as it may be, the following review is entirely based on its merits as a Jazz 2 tileset, not how well converted it was. Although, really, this is a moot point: a rushed Violet conversion is still an excellent conversion.

As JJ1 tilesets go, “Pezrox” was among the weirdest. It’s literally, as suggested, seemingly made of the chalky American Pez candy. However, there are also many odd-colored yellow and green bricks that contrast with the level as a whole. This isn’t a bad thing at all, and actually comes off looking much better than it does when I describe it here.

As for the tileset itself, there is no possible easy way to describe it. It’s some odd world with a lava background and bricks. I can’t imagine what theoretical situation this would follow, so let’s just file it in the “mystical lands” area. In any case, considering the monotonousness of previous JJ1 conversions which lacked sufficient eyecandy to make anything more than a decent-looking utilitarian level (cough, Security Breach, cough), Pezrox has enough colors and trinkets to keep even the biggest eyecandy-obsessive interested. All of the eyecandy looks in the tileset as if it would clash awfully, but you quickly see (as in the excellent demo level) that this is not at all the truth.

I am somewhat concerned about the masking. If you look in JCS, it appears to be fairly easy to get stuck if one tries. However, in play, I never got stuck accidentally. The diagonal tiles also appeared to have jaggies that were rounded off into wave shapes. This is not a major complaint, but if you really pay attention while playing the demo level, you can tell this is the case. Still, there is obviously not much that can be done about this.

This tileset lends itself well to both single player and multiplayer ventures, although it has all the little “cool items” that are required to make an excellent single player level and that should be taken advantage (although it lacks spikes, there is some sort of metallic wheel that could be used instead.)

I hate – hate – to give another 8+ rating to a JJ1 conversion, but they just need to stop being excellent like this one is. Another disappointingly excellent conversion from Violet, and another disappointingly – um – existent – download recommendation.

“boxes”: The name does not scream originality. However, then again, it did not scream “retro tileset endeavor,” which is exactly what this tileset is. It is also slightly underrated. However, it all comes down to one point: This tileset is so totally 1999, and that is so totally not a good thing.

What we have here is a primarily orange-red tileset consisting of, as advertised, quite a number of boxular objects. Here we have all the standard blocks for a hotel level circa Summer ’99: random bricks that seem to lack any potential use, letter blocks, and a few novelty items (large blocks containing Pez and Pepsi logos.) Everything is compiled together somewhat haphazardly, with an automask applied (although, honestly, in a blocks tileset, that isn’t all that surprising nor bad.)

Could a level be made out of this tileset? Theoretically, which is definitely a bonus. It would look ugly, and play badly, but it would still work. There are no major masking errors here, either, which is certainly something, although considering the easiness to mask squares it can’t count for too much. The crate tiles at the beginning of the tileset may look like they could become a clever animation, but beware: For whatever reason, it is just the same tile repeated over and over again.

This is not a tileset completely lacking in effort or talent. Rather, it is a tileset that harkens back to the days when small clan levels were made using tilesets that didn’t use PSP gradients. It was the days when Paint was acceptable as a tileset maker.

It’s much harder for the average computer user to create a tileset than it is a level, and there is effort here. Unfortunately, it translates into something that may provoke nostolgia, but won’t provoke much use.

Alright, I’m bored and its late at night, so lets start.

Firstly, the backround. It would actually look alright if you could remove all the boxes from it. Because right now it looks awkward and annoying. If you want to keep the boxes, at least cut them out from the bg and put them onto an empty tile so if anyone wanted to they could put them in layer 7 or something. Next, the tileset content. Just like the name implies, this tileset mostly consists of…..boxes. Indeed. Most the boxes actually look decent enough. There is a little coloring error where a small snip of orange protrudes the outline of the box, which makes it look strange. Color needs a lot more variety, everything is basically a shade of orange, aside from some blue arrows and a few green letters/boxes. Usability is easy, at least, although there aren’t many tiles to use. Also, needs a variety in boxes. yes, boxes. Maybe some oddly shaped ones/different colored ones to spiff up the theme a bit. On something that does not affect the rating at all, you need a better example level ;o. Overall, rating comes down to (1.7 tiles included, 2 color, 3 useability, 1.2 animations, 2.2 overall (Not average, darnit) = 2.02, rounded down to a 2. This needs quite a bit of work. In the future, consider making a tileset with a larger variety, perhaps multiple themes, and include more tiles (especially the important ones like vines, hooks, suckertubes, destruct blocks, poles etc). Can’t really reccomend this for download, sorry.
~Sleepbaked BR

No gud lival
(no gud revew. Please provide more detail and specify what makes this a bad level. Original rating 1.0. ~Violet)[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]

My pants are on FIRE (random review).

And I’m bored enough to review this. Anyways, I really like this set. The colors are cheerful and bright, and the tiles are nicely textured. The tileset is easy enough to use, and has a large color variety. Comes in 3 different versions (the original is still my favorite). Enough eyecandy tiles, sucker tubes, destruct blocks, hooks, poles etc etc. Masking is also good. Blah. Sorry for the short review, but I think this set owns. 8.5 for the reasons I’ve mentioned above, and the fact that you can make really rux levels with this (as shown by BlurredD).
~Blackraptor

Bah. How could I not review this? I’ve had it sitting in my folder for such a long time…

Corrupted Sanctuary:
I’ve seen it used a hundred times, I’ve made levels with it, I still think its rux. The texturing is just awesome, the tileset is easy to use, and you could make awesome stuff with it. I love the animations (the moving blocks, the chains, the fire, the flags etc), those look so awesome. It has the important tiles as well. My only complaint is there isn’t too much of a color variety and the tileset could’ve had a larger variety in tiles, since most of the set now consists of stone bricks (although they were done very well). Also, the Carrotus Pole, Jungle Pole, Diamondus Pole, Small Tree, and all the pinball objects other then the Carrot Bump sorta look awful. Water looks fine in 8bit and 16bit. Snow doesn’t look too good but doesn’t look too bad either. Same with the psych pole.Although this is a castle style tileset so I don’t know why people would put in poles anyways, so whatever.
Tiles Included: 9
Color: 8.7 (9.2 – 0.5 for palette problems with events such as pinball)
Animations: 9.5
Originality: 8.5
Userfriendliness: 8.9
Masking: 8.8
Overall (not an average): 8.5
Final Rating: 8.8428571 ~ 8.7 (just 0.01 away from 9 ;o)

Alien Space Lab:
Its also a rux tileset, but I don’t like it as much as Corrupted Sanctuary. The textureness and stuff is awesome, but most of this set’s colors are of a dark shade and make it harder to distinguish tiles apart. I don’t like the backround too much (although it does look spacey. Animations are alright, but most of them are pretty small. Tileset isn’t too userfriendly. It has the important tiles (suckers, hurt events etc). Masking is good. Water looks normal in 16bit and slimy green (although it doesnt look too much like water it fits in with the theme and looks cool here) in 8bit. Snow has the same color as most other tiles in this set (dark green) so its a bit hard to see. Pinball pads look alright, and the Carrot and 500 bump look awesome. Carrotus Pole looks sorta ugly but is tolerable, same with the Diamondus pole and Jungle Pole. Psych pole and small tree look sorta sux.
Tiles Included: 8.3
Color: 8.7 (8.5 – 0.2 for color problems + 0.4 because pinball objects and water look rux, snow, diam, carrotus, and jungle pole look OK.
Animations: 7.7
Originality: 8.2
Userfriendliness: 8
Masking: 8.9
Overall (not an average): 8.2
Final Rating: 8.2857142 ~ 8.2

Corrupted Sanctuary: 8.7
Alien Space Lab: 8.2
=8.45 ~ 8.5
This is a rux pack, with sets you can’t miss out on. A great contribution from FQuist and Disguise (and J2LC) and shouldn’t be missed. Good work, and download reccomendation.

ok i am re-upload this lvl, with a lot of
upgrades, i replace the backgroud with a better one, and i give some new colors to the tiles.

& finally, i replace the .bmp file with a
.j2t file. & replace the example lvl.

OMG!! SOmebody made a JJ1 level! Maybe I’ll plug this later.

**** (out of 5)

I think this level is underrated, and that is from someone who is rating the level lower than he believes others should be rating it. That is, I am rating a level higher than the average, which I believe should be higher, even though I will not rate it as high as the average should be, because I underrate. Got it?

In any case, this is a very nice level. I am going to be brief in my review. The eyecandy is top-notch, and the flow is excellent – easy to navigate, but not easy to the point where the level is pointless. Despite what Blacky says himself, which is that this level sucks, I like it quite a lot and believe it deserves the amount of hosting it gets, which is quite significant.

This level is somewhat limited by itself, though, in that the level’s concept is not unique enough to earn a rating higher than 8.2 (8.5 I reserve for creative levels; 8.7 for really awesome and creative levels; 9.0 for levels of near perfection, but it is higher for a single level to get a rating higher than that.) Still, it’s one of the better CTF levels of this year and definitely worth the download recommendation.[This review has been edited by Trafton AT]

This tileset is made out of boxes. Some of them with eyecandy. There are no weapon boxes. If there are… Well yeah. The tileset is also quite monotonous, and it is yellow. It does have some animations! which is a little bit a good thing. This is not a really good tileset… The background is not really good.

Example Level.
There is no level. It is only a floating thing with all the tiles and when you fall you will fall endlessly.

REVIEW 2
You reuploaded it. Yes, you changed some stuff. But now, there is no Background at all. Actually. Only some pieces of a textured background thing with a lot more boxes. The boxes look nice though! You also adde more color! The tileset is now quite more colorful then before. Too bad that there is no more textured one. Maybe you could have done 2 backgronds. One with boxes and one with the thing you first had.

Example Level
It is better than the last one.. But it doesn’t show what the tileset can do. Try looking at other example levels (Cakey is burned into my mind.). Mainly, just try and make a real level to show it. It does not have to be long, as long as it shows what the tileset can.

Tip
Maybe you could make darker boxes for in the background? Like if you are in one giant warehouse with all kinds of boxes surrounding you, dark boxes are useful ^_[This review has been edited by Spazie][This review has been edited by Spazie]

No tileset found >(

EDIT : Despite being this tileset ugly, monochrome and blocky, I was forced to compile it with automask. Pile of sux.

Palette is messed up, textured BG doesn’t work at all, by the way.[This review has been edited by Cooba]

PHT, we do not care.

While trying to got this level to work was effort, I ran it and surviving was even higher effort.

This level is very hard. Consists of lot of evil traps, well placed enemies, and a SCE or whatever from Blaster gun. In most places, damage was unavoidable due to that.

Still, this level doesn’t feature too much eyecandy, but it still looked nice. No tilebugs. The last part, which resembled Crysilis as well, was evilest, and most pretty.

The endboss was jumping snowman, with a blaster SCE nearby, and collapsing scenery which tooks 2 LIVES when you fall down. Evil fun.

I’m not gonna to rate it high because it is first custom JJ1 level, but because it’s well done, and has lot of 1337 stuff. Download heavily recommended.

Can ya make a jj2 version? Don’t have JJ1 :(

Cooba, I don’t care if you care as I asked Violet and NOT YOU! I don’t need comments like that if I not even thought on you while typing. Next time, shut up or say something nicer.[This review has been edited by PHT]

Yay! i cant think of a cooler level (dont have time for a review)!

ACK!! THPTF.

-Bill the cat

cant you see!? hes trying to be funny!

remember, no one likes a pineapple with a big mouth
(Unsupported rating removal. Do I really need to explain this one? Original rating 10.0. ~Violet)

cheese is green on friday!

What do you mean by palette events? I opened a thread abuot it.

…And actuallya majority of the tileset was done in MSPaint. Other programs I used include PSP, Universe, and MSPhotoDraw (some textures).

The “God Rocks” was for fun. I don’t really know CyberSpaz.

What can I say? While this set’s theme may be overdone (buildings on some toxic wasteland), tile quality makes it all up for an 8.

This set doesn’t lack of any event tiles. Any type of destructable blocks, a hook, poles, and two types of vines; one diagonal. O.O

Quality of set is very, but very spiffy, reminds me old Dethman’s Cyberspaz sets. Foreground stuff is 1337, textured background is really cool, and things for background layers are best I have ever seen. Spiffed. Also, every tile has a different texture for itself. Even more spiffed.

On the other hand, from all palette events only carrot from carrot pinball bumper works. I can understand lack of trees and weird totems, but pinball stuff would fit in here as well. =(

And last but not least, masking of everything supposed to be on sprite layer is extremely sm00th.

Overall, this set is a breath of fresh air after all those MSPaint nightmares submitted some time ago. This set is real spiffiness with quality of Dethman. If you don’t download it, I promise you will regret it.

(Oh, and Biohazard, did you made that GOD ROCKS sign especially to remind Cyberspaz?)

You know, I somehow don’t believe about that MSPaint thing you said. ;p[This review has been edited by Cooba]