Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Pipe Mosaics-

A rather mediocre race. Dull in eyecandy, it only has 3 colors of pipes, a weird yin-yang thing, and a blue background. The race is littered with springs and pipes that you can go through, but give no indication that you can do so whatsoever.

Toxic Raceway-

This is much better than Pipe Mosaics. It has some interesting lighting tricks, and I especially like the sucker under the toxic goo. The tileset is cool, and while it doesn’t have much eyecandy, it has background mountains, and a 3D background.

Storm Tests-

An interesting race. It’s basically the warp tests in a race. Not much eyecandy in this one, and the clouds are hard to tell between foreground and background. The haze in front of the screen is a cool idea in my opinion.

Primitive Speed Laboratory-

This race apparently uses the same tileset as Storm Tests. You have to be careful on this one, as there are springs everywhere that will send you a long way back. There is an off-color pinball set at the end.

Tube Facility-

This race is mostly annoying. An annoying tube puzzle that can be easily memorized, followed by several annoying spring puzzles. The tileset is pretty mediocre.

Asteroid planets-

In this race, you have to planet-hop around, looking for a warp that you are given no directions to find. The tileset is okay, however, and the star field is pretty cool.

Running through the rain-

Argh. Annoying springs and poles followed by warps, more springs and more warps. Not a very fun level, and the tileset isn’t too good.

Springy Pink-

A short race using a drab tileset. However, it is pretty fun. I think its cool in the part with the poles how Saphir lined them up so that they’d drop you off right at the start if you made a wrong move. There’s a way to cheat in this, but I’m not telling! >)

Spacey Raceway-

I’m pretty disappointed about this one. First, a maze I got completely and utterly lost in. Next, a ridiculously easy flying challenge. Third: AN INVISIBLE MAZE WITH SPRINGS?!? What’s up with that?!? And anyways, this is using a pretty boring tileset.

Head for the crater-

Another cool one. I like the tileset on this one; good eyecandy and a 3D background. Some interesting ideas are used in it, too.

Ice Cold Speedway-

I like this one. While the eyecandy is drab, it has some interesting parts, such as a slippery slope and a speed destroy maze. A very cool level.

Flying through the Milky Way-

Urgh. This one is buggy: I managed to get myself out of the bumper track and then it closed after me.

Deep under the ground-

This is an extremely short, easy and drab race. The bombs don’t do much, the springs and bumpers can be easily dodged, and you can easily jump over the rest.

Epileptic Pinball-

This level is cool. The background shifts to black often, rendering the terrain invisible. The race consists of several pinball puzzles.

And that’s all of them. Keep working at the levels and tilesets, Saphir!

I’m not going to review these because there are so many, but I just want to say that they are indeed fun, but fun isn’t everything… First of all, they are rather ugly eyecandy-wise. They have slow moving gameplay, and I just don’t seem to like them. Many of them are more like mazes and tests than races. Trafton, please don’t delete this, it’s not spam, BTW ;P I’m just saying that I agree with Becky that they are fun, but that’s about it. If I rated these, I’d give them around 6.

Ok, the first one who rates this: let’s start a long review.
*censored*Thunt:
Gameplay: The gameplay was not very good here. There were a few springs but i liked some more, though
Eyecandy: The eyecandy was not very good, there were good secrets but eyecandy could be much better
Pickup placement: The ammo in this level was not that good, really. There were more events that doesn’t need to be in a treasure hunt. There were food events and some strange figures of events. The gems were good placed, actually
Others: lots of tile bugs
With the good secrets this level gets a 4.5.
censored*Race: I don’t know what this is, but it seems to be the same as the *censored treasure hunt.
gauntlet run: I don’t want to say much about this, but this had way too many tile bugs and it sucked because there were also way too many enemies.
Rating:1.5
vine battle: I don’t want a long comment about this, because it was way too small and it’s one of the worst levels I ever seen.
Rating:1
Ripping Tracks: Another bad one. I can’t say much about it, but it’s just like the 2 levels i gave a rating on. And I give this one a 2
Hub Central: the last one, and also bad. Sorry, but all of this levels have tile bugs and no good event placement.
Rating for this level: 4.
4.5+4.5+1.5+1+2+4:6=2.9.
But I give it a 3.

Yes!
9!!!
Thanks, Becky!

About each level!

Pipe Mosaics:
A standard type hard race.Tileset: Clouds1

Toxic Raceway:
A quite short race. If you fall in the slime you get back into the tube. Tileset: Slimy Tower

“Storm Tests”:
Like a test. You CAN play this on high detail, but it is hard. Tileset: Clouds4

Primitive speed laboratory:
A long race level with annoying foreground Tileset: Clouds3

Tube Facility:
Choose right tube.
Tileset: Warbase Inside

Asteroid Planets:
A HUUUGE race level where you jump from planet to planet.
Tileset: Warbase Outside

Running through the rain:
A strange level. Tileset: Clouds2

Springy Pink:
You run from the right to the left.
Tileset: Pinkish Walls

Spacey Speedway (or what was it again):
A maze level.
Tileset: Starlit Spaceship

Head for the Crater:
A quite typical level.
Tileset: Eruption Night (Quite good except for the lava)

The frost lvl (dont remember the name):
A long ice race with belt slopes. Tileset: Temple of Winter

Flying through the Milky Way:
Fly with the airboard through the pinball track. Tileset: Another Universe

Deep Under the Ground: A short but hard and ugly race level.

Epileptic Pinball:
Name says it all. Tileset: Pulsar Colors
That’s all, I think!
Rate them high!

P.S. Actually, all levels are easily playable with Spaz, I think… except for Ice Cold Speedway.

Yea, AcId, there is a way to “cheat” in springy pink, if you mean the drop thing..I maybe should’ve edited it, but it doesn’t help you go much faster.

EDIT: Omg, Ischa way overrated this.

Wow… just wow.

The tileset has all the features of the Diamondous conversion, with approaching screen, ect. but it also has even more! It has the JJ1 lower bar thing (the one that shows you your health and weapon and stuff), which would be really neat to place in layer 1 so it sticks at the bottom of the screen (like that thing in tomb rabbit). Also, it has more added features. Most notable is a background eyecandy peice which is basicly a strech of land with pots on it. Nothing really fancy, but it adds to the background well. However, somehow I think this is worth .5 less than your last one. Maby it is that the JJ1 tileset was so… boring that the conversion is bland, no matter how greatly improved it is. But still, so far NOKA has redifined my idea of a ‘good’ JJ1 tileset conversion.

END REVIEW

Whee, fun! Not many people make race levels. When they do, they aren’t usually this good. These levels are fun, and they are hard. You should download these! If you fall in the toxic on Toxic Raceway, you get put back almost at the begining. On Stormtests you have to have it on low detail…..but it’s still awesome. :D I love these levels. You should host these often. Primitive Speed Laboratory is very confusing….and fun! :D On Tube Facility you have to keep finding the right tubes or you get put back at the begining. Asteroid Planets is an outerspace one. You have to jump from planet to planet and if you fall, you go back to the begining. Running Through the Rain is extremely strange. Then you have to cross cloud without falling. Springy Pink is very interesting….and has a weird bakground. The whole thing is like pink..pink…pink. Spacy Runway is pretty big. It’s a maze-like level. Head For the Crater is huge, like the rest of the levels. The levels are ALL fun. :DDD Ice Cold Speedway is a really hard one…and fun! Flying Through the Milkyway is awesome. It’s like a video game. You have to go through the pinballs on an airboard, then you have to go through a place where you have to jump onto things, without and airboard (duh) and TNT is going off everywhere. If you fall…..you are warped back. Deep Under the Ground is another hard one. Epitleptic is VERY confusing….and hard. Wow, there are a lot of levels there. Good job, Saphir. :D[This review has been edited by Becky][This review has been edited by Becky]

Haha, a tileset season.

Ceramicus is my worst planet also (dziwny zbieg okolicznoœci), and I still cannot believe that it is possible. Just it can’t be!

Every lost tiles in CeIL’s are here, type for sucker-tubes, vines and other stuff. Also You’ve added thingies for layers! And these windows are coolerskie also :D

Yeah, the night version of Diamondus were too bright. And this isn’t. CBVS Rocks.

Even better.

*censored*OMG 970 TILES! :O

And the original set had 50 tiles or something… Anyway, the review. All tiles are there, just like in NOKA’s Diamonuds conversion. All “basic” tiles come in 3 different versions: one version with no background, and two that have one. Yet again the tileset has a “Now approaching sign”, but it still has that newish font while it would have been cool if you used the original JJ1 font. Also included are a 1337 textured background, the JJ1-style signs, animated arrows and basic things like vines, poles and hooks. Also added are two versions of destruct blocks, a not very useful image of the JJ1 score bar, different kinds of layer 6+7 eyecandy (I didn’t like the one with the flower pots, they were too “compressed-jpg” like, if you know what I mean), a JJ1-style gradient background, a few signs with the author’s name on it, and well, that’s it. Everything you need to make a good and interesting level. The example levels are well-done, I didn’t fully complete them but they gave a good impression on the tileset.
The tileset comes in two dfferent versions: a night and day version (I guess). Both look good altough the changes are quite minor, the most prominent change is actually the color change of the background (alyer 6,7 and 8) eyecandy. This time the night version isn’t too bright like in the JJ1Diamondus conversion. The masking is okay, I couldn’t find any bugs, and once again the author added 1337 mask messages ;)
I could only find two bugs: the parts of the flower pots that were #000000 black are transparent on the layer 6/7 thing which makes the grey/purple land shine though it. The second bug: IT IS TSF. Next time you upload a tileset, first ask someone who has 1.23 to compile it in 1.23 for you, so also 1.23 users can download and use a tileset.

Almost bug-free, no tiles missing, full of eyecandy: 8.5 and a big download recommendation, not just for jj1-freas.

NOKA, check your private messages ;) By the by, Ceramicus has already been converted by CelL, but he only did the basic stuff.

sob Ok, next time, I won’t review until it’s been converted to 1.23 Then I won’t have to edit my reviews anymore…

First impressions:

NOKA should make a habit out of starting the examples with the lay-out of the level it’s based on :P Of course it starts with the JJ1 Type intro (Now approaching… NOKA, keep that in ;)) As I further got into the level, I noticed everything was there, including some extras: vines, hooks, that sorta thing. What surprised me most was that NOKA went through the trouble of creating not only a non-standard 3D background, but a mountain background with pots too! Those are very welcome additions to Ceramicus, as they make it more appealing to use.

Conversion Completeness:

Ceramicus has to be the planet with the least amount of tiles (Tho Fanolint and Lagunicus aren’t that far behind it). That makes it quite easy to get all the tiles. And he did get everything, and more: he outfitted them all with 3 different backgrounds: none, the standard one and the green background. Good job :)
I forgot to mention: the original Ceramicus didn’t have slopes aside from from those “trees” He was kind enough to put those slopes in :)

Added extras:
Of course the usual addons are there: vines, poles, destructible blocks, trigger block (even the empty one), sucker tubes (magic perhaps?), non-standard 3D background, JJ1 type sky and the biggest treat of all: a mountain background with pots! Further things are the animations for that background, a red star and a moon, that “Now approaching…” thing (NOKA, make that your trademark ;p) and the JJ1 HUD! On a side note: my guess is that NOKA used a 3D renderer for the background and the planet sphere. Just guessing :p

Masking:

When I check the masking, I always check for smoothness (no bumps, you hear?). Luckily, this set has no such bumps. One warning tho: the new slopes are uneven on the edges, whatever you do, for long slopes, repeat the mid-section. Of course there’s a hidden mask message, this time telling you about his plans. Read it, at least I did :P

Night version:

The night version is basicly the same as the normal one, only with a different palette (duh). My only complaint is that this time, the background is dark enough, but the foreground is a tad too light. (with his Diamondus conversion it was the other way around). Not a big problem, since the sky helps determine the atmosphere more than the foreground :)

Verdict:

Yet another wonderfull conversion by NOKA. Not only has he converted the planet with the least amount of tiles (least appealing to convert, even less to build with it), he added enough extras to make it very appealing to build with. He has certainly earned my respect, and can’t wait to see more of his work soon :) NOKA is well on his way to rival Violet, better watch out ;p

- JelZe GoldRabbit =:3[This review has been edited by JelZe]

Ok, why hasn’t any onereviewed this yet? Too lazy, or is this just too hard? O well…

I may sound biased like this: even without looking at the level, I strongly recommend downloading this. Why? It’s a Golden Oldie of the Jazz 2 City era, it’s a history lesson for the newbies and a piece of history for the “oldies” (that includes me ;p) Now, on to the review. since it’s two levels, I’ll be brief :P

Castle Falkenstein

This level’s a challenge. Using the castle 1 set (and Tubelectric music, which somehow somewhat fits the nature of this level), this level will drive the impatient to insanity :p This isn’t a straight forward level at all, lemme warn ya. Your first “mission” is to find all 20 coins to enter the bonus warp. Easier said than done, with the traps around: spring, spiked pits and hidden enemies. Even worse: you’ll have to backtrack once you find the trigger crate to the last coins. The second part is more of a doozy: find a way down the bridge and to the exit (Hint: try shooting). That part more filled with bonusses for willing :P

Nothing to complain about: eye candy is good, lay-out great… A reason for concern is that room with the last coins mentioned earlier. That is room is accessible, via triggers (part 1) or the one way bridge (part 2). And here’s the problem: when you lose a life, all triggers, goodies, etc. are reset Should you get into that room, there’s no way you can get out once you’ve entered part 2. Shamefull, and it could have easily been avoided by removing that one-way bridge.

Overall, short but challenging, and makes finishing the level worth it.

Rating: 7 (-.5 for that room)

Falkenstein’s Dungeon

More of same thing :p No looking for coins tho: Just find your way to the end of the level. Of course this level has a boss: the SchwartzenGuard with an added challenge: spiked pits :P

Of course no level is pefect: faulty next level setting when played in TSF (labrat2.j2l). I’ll let this one slide tho, since when this level was made the players were “young and foolish” :p

Rating: 6

Verdict:
A blast from the past, which everyone should see. This level is old, but still fun :)

Final rating (J2O): (7 + 6) / 2 + .5 (brownie points :P) = 7
Final rating (J2C): two stars

- JelZe GoldRabbit =:3[This review has been edited by JelZe]

The level, it’s an original idea, but the slowness is annoying.

The eyecandy is OK.

And that’s all.

-

This was the first race level I ever downloaded, in either 1999 or 2000.

Mikee, you probably got it from Birdman’s Nest, his site, which was the first JJ2 site I ever went to besides The Daily Carrot.

It’s a good level, but the eyecandy is not-so-good. Good obstacles. I know the password to your levels, I don’t make them so easy to guess. O.o; I accidently pressed enter while opening your level.

(Unsupported rating removal edit. As a note, a blank password often means the author later chose not to have one, as JCS does not support actual password removal. ~Violet)[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]

Yay! 1.23 now!!!11

Time for the review:

Firstly, the tileset is now 1.23, though the levels are still TSF made, so they show up completely blank in my jcs. I can still review the tileset like this, but it’d have been better to review the tileset by looking at it and how it is used in the example level. Oh well, I should probably give NOKA more credit for turning it into 1.23 than critisizing the fact that the levels are TSF. Back to the review:

Tiles included: Hmmm..lets see. The pine trees, the weird oval looking trees, the tree trunks with the eyes, tree branches and tree stuff, cave bg, kill rabbit posters, lots of ground and wall, trigger tiles, green high grass, plants, the ground turning into bridge, diff. signs, arrows, mushrooms, statues, sparkles, custom made poles, custom made destruct blocks, hooks and suckers, flashing arrows, foreground gems, backround stuff, the sun and cloud, waterfall stuff, two useable bg’s, jazz jackrabbit figure, mini-turtle, NOKA sign inside a television, NOW APPROACHING DIAMONDUS poster (this looks cool, I like it) and Violet CLM rules, NOKA Sucks sign, and some other stuff I missed. This is the most completest Diamondus tileset I have.
Pros: Everything.
Cons: The waterfall anim coulda been better.

Color: Looks great, the night version looks ok (it could’ove been darker, but its fine the way it is for me) and the tileset is pleasing to look at. Can’t say much more.
Pros: Fairly large color variety, 3 different versions with different colors.
Cons: for some reason I had to narrow my eyes when looking at the evening version, but it could’ove been the lighting in the room, or just my eyes

Masking: Looks ok, some of the ground is masked a bit strangely (particulary the holes in the walls, but then when you think about it they’re masked like that for the better to avoid bugs and getting stuck. I like the fact that the wall the pole is coming out of is fully masked, so you won’t “miss” the pole or accidentally put a pole event on the tile that’s half wall half pole. The devan, text, rabbits stink, jazz and checkmark signs are unmasked. I though that the rabbits stink sign would be masked so you could destroy it (since there are two animations for it, one where its not destroyed, one where it is.) Some mask messages and stuff, well done.
Pros: Good masking, some precautions taken to avoid glitches
Cons: Nothing major.

Animations: Since the rabbit stink sign isn’t an animation in this set: Sparkles, large variety of destruct blocks (yes it is large), trigger blocks, arrows (and there are a lot of them), flashy things in bg, a lot of waterfalls, and stuff. Yes, there are a lot of animations, even most of them are small, the set gets a very high mark in this area.
Pros: lots of animations, destruct block variety
Cons: Most are small

Overall: Looking over the tileset I found it 9.2ish. Color is a plus, animations is a plus, tiles included is a very high plus, but some minor things could of been improved (like the waterfalls). Still great though, the best Diamondus conversion I have.

9.2.

Time to review a good/very good level. Let’s start.
Gameplay: This level has good gameplay. The CTF bases were good placed in a small level. The springs were good, enz. Nothing bad about this.
Eyecandy: Eyecandy is very good. There are lots of dark places and all layers were used. That’s very good.
Pickup placement: Ammo placement was very nice. Not many ammo for a small level, great. The full energy was good placed on a small platform in the middle of the level. At each side of the level was a power-up, and the selection of RF and bouncers were good chosen.
Others:
Download: yes
Host this: yes you can host this sometimes and it’s good for duels.
Rating: 8.2
Edit: It’s not old.[This review has been edited by da man]

Another interesting level.

Gameplay – Okay
The sucker tubes annoy me. I kept accidently touching them when trying to innocently navigate the level, and it made it hard to get to where I wanted to get. I’m also anti-deadends in battle / CTF levels, unless it’s strategically done. Another thing I dislike is the spring that has a long delay on it. That disrupts the flow. Overall, the gameplay is decent, but confusing.
Layout – Bad
Ugh, so confusing… I all ways get lost, and the springs and sucker tubes annoy me. It’s interesting, but it’s just annoying and confusing.
Eyecandy – Good
Well, here’s the good part of the level. The eyecandy is fairly good. There is a foreground with some pipes, and some background layers with background stuff. There is some stuff in the sprite layer, too, making the eyecandy look overall pretty nice here.
Ammo placement – Good
Good ammo placement, I guess. It’s original. Rather then rectangles of ammo, there are some straight lines of ammo near the ceilings of the level. There is only one powerup that I counted, which is a well hid bouncer powerup.
Overall – Okay / good
Download reccomendation – Not really. It’s your choice.
Host this often – Probably not.

Interesting. Unfortunately, people have higher standards among levels now.

Gameplay – Good
The gameplay is good, for a frog race…. frog races are very slow moving, and they get very boring, especially because they can only be played in splitscreen. You should make your races so you get a coin every time you finish a lap, and then when you have three coins, you are warped to a room with gems so you can win the level. Or, you could do it with trigger zones, which is a bit more complicated. I understand that back in that day, nobody really thought up of those ideas, which is okay. Anyway, there are multiple routes for completing this level, which is also all ways good in races. They both seem to let me complete them with the same amount of effort, which, unfortunately, isn’t much. At the end of the laps, you find Eva, who kisses you, allowing you to complete a lap. Pretty standard race, really.

Eyecandy – Good
Not bad at all. Diamonds in the walls, trees, grass eyecandy, a background, etc. I would like to complain about some of the trees, though, especially the reddish brown ones. They look rather ugly. The eyecandy is overall pretty good for a level of it’s time.

Size – Bad
It’s too small. Frog races don’t need to be very big, because frogs can’t move fast, but this is still a little too small for my liking.

Ammo placement – N/A
No shooting = no ammo.

Biasing – N/A
No Jazz/Spaz = no biasing.

Overall – Good
This would be fun to play in splitscreen, but it just wouldn’t work online.

Download reccomendation – If you’re like DX DC and you play splitscreen a lot offline. Otherwise, leave this alone.

Host this often – No, because it’s not playable online.

6.9, rounded up to 7.0.

No, DX DC, this is 5 years old. He made it well before you.[This review has been edited by labratkid]

This is amazing. When did you join this site? Because I downloaded it from a private website. I also downloaded your Falkenstien things.

I created this level in 1998!! I got full marks on Jazz2City with it…. This is THE original Frog Race. Before ANYONE had ever thought of making a race as a Frog. I Stand firmly and squarely behind my level. [besides the zipfile has a different name, so there’s no issue!][This review has been edited by Birdman]

I’m prepared to have fun with this review.

GAMEPLAY:

The layout puzzles me. Everything seems to be placed randomly and then somehow connected together. I don’t like the way the layout looks nor all of these narrow passages I keep encountering. But at least the flow is better than it was before; it still needs a little work, but it’s a start. Balance, however, is still a big issue. The red base is at the top right of the level with some options as for escape routes. In contrast, the blue base is in an enclosed area at the bottom left with one way in and one way out. It seems that the blue base would be much easier to defend than the red base. But I have to say, the layout actually isn’t overwhelmingly unbalanced for a level with bases placed diagonally, considering the routes base to base and everything. Moving on, spring placement is better than before, but could better yet. For example, around pos 94,13, one spring in the center of the platform would have been much better than those five springs. And I just don’t see the point of having more than one spring in a row in this level.

EYE CANDY:

At least the tileset was used correctly (finally), although the eye candy still isn’t that good. Well, that’s not entirely true; the chains in the foreground weren’t made well. Other than that, the eye candy is repetitive throughout the entire level. In all, the background is the only thing in this level which keeps the eye candy from being horrible, even though the BG is nothing special.

CARROT AND AMMO PLACEMENT:

I never liked trying to grab a carrot from a small hole. This level has a full energy in that scenario. Albeit, this carrot is nearly the same distance from each base. I would have to say the same applies for the bouncer and seeker powerups more or less. As for ammo placement, there’s enough ammo around the level, but it wasn’t placed strategically or anything. The ammo is just there for the sake of being there.

HOST THIS OFTEN?

Still no. Dx might finally be getting through. 6.2 is my rating. Think of it as a 6.3 rounded down.

Wow!
This is the most complete JJ1 conversion I have ever seen!
First, the tileset has all the basic needed things for a conversion- the ground, the basic eyecandy, ect. Next, the tileset has some things I have seen in conversions before, but not in all conversions- the original JJ1 exit sign, jazz sprites, ect. Also, the tileset has some things I have never seen in a JJ1 conversion before- the ‘approaching’ screen comes to mind. The author even took the liberty of adding new tiles- sucker tubes, vines, ect., some of which actually look good! There even are two pallet-changed versions (an evening and night version). While I am not too fond of the effect, I do congradulate the author on the effort. After all that work, simply changing the tileset(s) from 1.24 to 1.23 must have been pretty easy! So, in conclusion, I have lost track of what I was saying, so I will just get it over with and give this a 9!

END REVIEW