Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Review time again! :D

Before I start I want to point out one thing to all the new level makers out there: there are two versions of JJ2, 1.23 and 1.24 (also known as TSF, The Secret Files) These two are not 100% compatible. In short: levels made with TSF, no matter what tileset used, can not be played in 1.23. Remember that.
Also note that if you want a good rating, make levels with the 1.23 version: TSF has been released in Europe only, so the Americans are missing out.

Enough ranting, on to the actual review.

First impressions:

A long fun level with some challenges. The author says he made it in only two days. It’s quite surprising that level doesn’t look like a hastely crafted thingamajig, but more like a level carefully created in like… 2 weeks to a month (that’s a recommended period for average level makers). Unfortunately the apperance of the level suffers somewhat due to the 2 days period.

Flow:
Not as linear as you may expect, given the time spent: it’s only linear at the beginning of the level, which goes from the left all the way to the right. A long drop thereafter and the linearity is gone. From there the path goes Zigzag :p I even saw a crossroad near the end of level (cut off by trigger blocks, good job!) As mentioned earlier, the level is designed to Spaz’ advantages, but not to the point where Jazz can’t finish the level.

Challenges:
This is were the most care went into: the puzzles and challenges. Right at the beginning’you’re treated to one, tho a rather lame one: “get to the other side of a bramble pit via the vines. The author was so nice to actually block the other side so you’ll have to run through the brambles. Good thing there was a carrot hidden at the end, so no harm done (?) Following is a collapsing floor and a “Roller Coaster” Maze (meaning a system of poles and springs). Quite fun, but the long way suffers from halts caused by bad tiles and spring placement. Those things are always hard to make, so it’s no biggie. Next is a “find the crate at the other side of another bramble pit à la Easter, followed by a “frog lane”. The frog lane is quite challenging as the objective is get to the bottom via the zigzag platfroms with springs. At end you’ll have to fight a boss. Although he doesn’t appear! My guess is he used the Tweedle boss, which does not work in JJ2. Quite a shame, as you can’t properly finish the level without having to cheat. Overall, with some adjustments, it’s pretty good.

Tileset use:
Pretty basic, but not too bad. Carrotus is known for having tile bugs that can’t be helped, but can be hidden. What really makes me worry is the background layer down at the very bottom of the level: a big green line from the castle can be seen. A major bug, which I hope to see fixed in an update of the level.

Ammo, Food, stuff that’s good:
A level is no good without goodies, and luckily this level has them. They’re spread out all over the level, you won’t see a section without goodies. At some places you even have work for goodies (at the challenges mentioned above). One complaint: what good are coins if there isn’t a coin warp? Answer: none. Although there are coins, I can’t see a coin warp anywhere. Either the animation isn’t working (Showamin = 1 only works for 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 coins), or the author simply forgot to put one in. Either way. nothing that can’t be quickly fixed.

Enemies, goons and other beings that want rabbit stew for dinner:
The usual Carrotus enemies make an apperance: lizards, (tuff) turtles, bats, mosquitos and even smal dragons. aan interesting thing to note is that the dragons can only be found in the “find the crate” sector, places on ccarrot stomps with a low ceiling. You gguessed it: there is where they can get annoying for Jazz, but not for Spaz aand Lori (sidekick ;)). Nothing else out of the usual.

Verdict:
A pretty good level, given the 2 day period. It’s just a shame the level suffers from flaws that add up (glitched Tweedle boss, no coin warp, bugged background, “Roller Coaster” halts). I can’t give it a rating because it’s “unfinished” to me. Untill the flaws (at least the Tweedle boss one and the coin wrap )are fixed, no rating from me.

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

I’m sorry Neon!
I thaught it was only 1.24 if you use new tilesets!carrotus is included by 1.23 so… I don’t know ev’rything about Jazz2, okey!? I’m new!

this review has been edited by Wadledee

Dx Dc: You’r not NEW
Wadledee:I’m not NEW!? This is(originaly 3LVL) my second game!

This review has been edited by Wadledee[This review has been edited by wadledee]

Okey

1-very much tilebugs
2-easy
3-spaz basic
4-some eyecandy
5-good food placed
6-The boss does’t shows up.

I give it a 7.O

~Ðx

Yor not NEW[This review has been edited by dx dc]

dont lie about it being 1.23 :P its 1.24

Hopefully this will be a long review.

GAMEPLAY:

This level is basically linear. There isn’t too much too this level: a base on the left, a base on the right, and a few platforms in between them. Also, the 4th layer in this level wasn’t resized. I could jump on top of the area above blue base if I wanted to, and I could fall off the level if I keep going to the right. The balance isn’t too good. For example, the red base is out in the open, while the blue base is only accessible through a narrow hole filled with springs. The flow also isn’t too good, although I could live with it. But what hurts this level the most is the bad start positions. Make sure to use team based start positions next time (that is, with the “Multiplayer Level Start” event). My last complaint has to do with the bridge. It’s absolutely unnecessary so it shouldn’t have been used. Getting rid of it might save this level from “Divide By Zero” errors.

EYE CANDY:

The eye candy in this level isn’t too bad. It’s decent—at least until I look at the giant empty space in the background. Yes, I know multiple background layers were used for the leaves. Still, it leaves the rest of the background other than the leaves look bland. Perhaps the traditional background would look best here.

CARROT AND AMMO PLACEMENT:

Looks like +1 carrots are the only carrots in the level. I advise (as usual) to use at least 1 or 2 full energy carrots placed well in the level (e.g. equal distances from each base). Ammo is just there so players can get ammo. It’s not distributed evenly or anything. And there’s TNT in this level which seems to have no purpose. Also, the powerups seem were thrown left and right. At least one of the powerups on the far left side has to go.

HOST THIS OFTEN?

Nah, but at least this is better than the last level. 5.5 is my rating.

Gameplay – Bad
I dislike the gameplay here a lot. It’s Spaz biased, and the team on the left (I’m too lazy to look and see which one it was) has a lot more ammo and stuff on their side. It seems as if you got lazy and only decided to put ammo in half of the level. There are flow issues, too, for example, when you are running at the sleeping leopard, you have to jump to get on top of him. You should use a float up or something to let you get on top of him easier. There are also springs where there shouldn’t be, and no springs where there should be.
Eyecandy – Bad / Okay
Well, the foreground and sprite layer eyecandy is reasonable, but there is nothing in the background that I see. There isn’t even a textured background. I’m really getting angry that you won’t take my advice. You should also make the water translucent. It looks dumb when clear water that lets you see the dirt behind it hides you when you are between the water and the dirt, if you know what I mean.
Ammo placement – Bad
I dislike the ammo placement. As I said, the team on the left has a lot more ammo than the team on the right. There are two carrots. One is towards the middle more, and one is on the left side.
Overall – Bad / okay
Download – No.
Host this – No.[This review has been edited by labratkid]

Hmm, there’s some room for improvement here.

There’s a fairly decent use of eyecandy in layer 4 and 5, but you should definitely start using layers 6 and 7 (and by that I don’t mean using them the same way as layer 5, just have a look at layers 6 and 7 in the standard jj2 levels in JCS, you’ll see what I mean). This will usually fill up a lot of the empty space in the more open parts of levels.

Gameplay could use a lot of tweaking in this one: try to avoid dead ends in multiplayer levels at all costs, ESPECIALLY at CTF bases. Both CTF bases are at a dead end here, and the excessive number of springs near the blue base makes it even more annoying. It should also be easier to run around between the bases. This is a bit of a pain in the level as it is now. You keep crashing into poles or abrupt changes of the ground level. You should put the poles in either the foreground or the background, but they’re not quite in place in the sprite layer the way they are used here. As for changing the level of the ground: that’s perfectly fine as long as you put a float up or spring in front of it; CTF levels aren’t supposed to be obstacle courses. One other thing are the tree branches and the wooden platforms: these would be better with one-way on them.

Overall: sort of ok level I guess, but the gameplay and lack of good layer 6 and 7 use kinda kill it.[This review has been edited by Enigma]

I don`t review DX`s levels much, but this one is a CTF which I need to review. Let`s start:
Gameplay: the gameplay was average, there were some springs here but there could be more because there were some necessary places to put them.
Eyecandy: The eyecandy was just good. I enjoyed it.
Pickup placement: There was a big bug here, you putted a power-up next to a base and on the other side no one! There was good ammo placement. A few chests, and good groups of ammo in the level. There were two carrots here, one in a crate and one single. No Full NRG but two carrots is good too. But one was closer to the red base. There were many power-ups here, maybe too many.
Others: The level`s size was not good for a CTF level. The width and height must be almost the same and around the 125. That`s a good size for a level.
Download this: not really
Host this: No.
Final Rating: 6.7

Good! :)

Tileset= :-D
Eyecandy= :-D
Background= :-)
Ammo= :-)
Carrots= :’-(
Other= :-)

a 8,2! Good work, Dx

Well, my review isn’t gonna be long this time, sorry for that =(

EYECANDY / TILESET USE:
Okay, tileset use is below average here, some tiles were used wrongly, and
there were some small tile bugs.Eyecandy is below average too, next time, Please put a background layer on layers 6-7. Your levels get higher ratings, if you do so.
anyway, tileset use / eyecandy is below average.
Pros:Well, sprite layer is ok, at least…
Cons:Small tile bugs, no background , etc.
Rating:6

GAMEPLAY:
Gameplay is below average too. There are lotsa things in your way, when running on ground.Too bad, but i have to drop my rating number because of that. Gameplay is average.
Pros:well, atleast its ok..
Cons:see my gameplay section.
Rating:5.5

FUN FACTOR / ORIGINALITY:
This level has a ok tileset use, and its quite boring, because there is just flat ground and some hills in it.Put Platforms nad other things. Youll get much higher ratings.
Pros:…
Cons:boring..
Rating:5.7

PLACEMENT:
Well well, there is not much ammo, so its hard to rate.Bouncy powerup is nicely hidden though..
Pros:Powerup is nicely hidden.
Cons:not much ammo..
Rating:5.7

CONCLUSION:
Well, it is average level. Not any other words.
Hmm.. a short review, =P
DOWNLOAD RECOMMEDATION:Maybe….
FINAL RATING:5.7 (6 + 5.5 = 5.7 + 5.7 = 5.8 + 5.7 = 5.7)

~ThE ChaiR[This review has been edited by ThE ChaiR]

Well here is my review!!!

Eyecandy:
Good!!! There where no tilebugs and you used more layers. There where bushes treas and stuff on layer 5,6 and 7.

Item placement:
Good!!! There was a lot of ammo and there are 4 kinds of powerups Bouncers, Rf missle and pepperspray and that ammo 8.
There are 2 carrots.

Other:
Okay!!! There are some secrets. The leveldesign is great. The 2 bases are fair placed there is not 1 base that is easyer to go to. You used a good tileset of Agama.

This is a good CTF level here a —8.0—
[This review has been edited by Satan]

Aaaaah… the magic of the JCS 1.23 patch. :) Well, onto the review:

I thought this level was fairly hard, but I don’t know what some of you are complaining about it being ‘too hard’… the difficulty is just perfect. Nice and hard. There’s nothing too special with the eyecandy, some glitches but it wasn’t too bad. The enemy placement was good as well. The pickups placement wasn’t very good, there was not enough ammo. But overall, this level is a good level, but I thought it looked a little rushed. Nice job. :)

Fairly good level, censored good eyecandy, etc. But I think bridges aren’t very good in multiplayer maps because they’re very buggy and they tend to stuff up a lot. Nice job.

I love this level.

1-good eyecandy
2-good ammo placed
3-good bases placed.
4-nope no bugs.
5-its originally!

a 8 from me.

host it:yes sometime
download r.:Yes

Nice job on the tileset better than I could ever done
But It looks WAY too much like the worms tileset.
What is the point of this one if you have one allmost esactly the same?

otherwize ok.

opps :P got the rating wrong![This review has been edited by Neon PSY]
(Unsupported rating removal edit. ~Violet)[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]

Nice levels! :D

Eyecandy: Great
Pickups: Nicely done
Enemy Placement: Decent
Gameplay: Good
Replay Value: Decent

Download Recommendation: Go for it. :D

Although it is very good and looks as if it takes a long time to complete I found it got kinda boring because it was just way too open and it got kinda boring with no real action at the start. Still, it’s pretty censored good. :)

When I saw that Magoo was hosting this, I had a bad feeling that Magoo released this—I was right. Let’s review…

GAMEPLAY:

The flow is decent, the balance is okay for the most part, but the general layout is a bit confusing. Well, the last thing I said is negligible. I can’t find anything horribly wrong with the layout, except maybe it’s easier getting around with Hardware Acceleration off than when it’s on. Lucky me has to play with it on (see Eye Candy section below). Another issue could be the bridges: they aren’t completely necessarily and they could cause some Divide By Zero errors, but the bridges aren’t totally useless and could come in handy.

EYE CANDY:

I don’t know what to think. The eye candy is still BlurredD-unfriendly (that is, it’s too laggy for me to be able to play the level as is). Being that every tile in this level, as it seems, is translucent and there’s some lighting used, this level is really really really BlurredD-unfriendly. I average about 6 fps… On 8-bit. For a second, let me just pretend I don’t get outrageously low fps. The eye candy here would probably be the best eye candy I’ve ever seen in this tileset. Or at least the most original eye candy I’ve ever seen in this tileset. Too bad it’s so incredibly laggy that I have to turn everything off just so I can play.

CARROT AND AMMO PLACEMENT:

I’m not the biggest fan of levels which only use +1 carrots, but at least there are two of them so I won’t go totally insane. I liked the version with the full energy carrot more, though. I’m too tired of reviewing at the moment to truly analyze everything else, so I’ll just say it’s good and be done with it.

HOST THIS OFTEN?

Maybe. I still don’t know what to think. The pros and cons somehow make 7.5 my rating. Feel free to argue.

The Edit: I didn’t notice it before, but the level doesn’t loops to itself. It loops to “Tinted Titanium.j2l” (instead of “mg02.j2l”) which is the older version of this level. That explains the different music and everything.[This review has been edited by BlurredD]

Tinted Titanium, by Magoo.

Tile Placement: I found no tile bugs while running through the level, though some parts looked like they were a bit messed up because of the confusing eyecandy and translucent tiles, but after looking closely at them they were alright. This set is easy to compile with, since most of the tiles are metal blocks and they are easy to put together.

Eyecandy: It looks alright at first, but the more I look at it, the more dull the bg gets. True, it IS original, but it just looks..dull. It could be the tileset, it could be me, or it could just be the level. There is some fairly well done foreground eyecandy, though some of it looks a bit strange, like around the red base. This tileset isnt exactly the best for eyecandy, but you could of come up with something more creative. Magoo also says all the layers are used, anf by looking at the level, I can tell that he speaks the truth. Not often are all the layers in a level used, so this is a good sign for the rating I’ll give to this level.

Event Placement: Firstly, bridges in ctf=no. They’re buggy and give divide by zero’s, don’t use them unless you seriously need to. I see some fast feet events, and they’re used for eyecandy as well. There is some ammo, though its a bit sparce, and only one powerup, a blaster. I, personally, enjoy levels with more ammo and powerups than this, but its tolerable. Also, the vine above red base, not all of it has vine events on it. But the vine isn’t important, so that wont affect the rating of the level.

Layout: It seems fairly balanced, the carrots (both +1) are in the middle (one on top with the blaster powerup, one on the bottom). The suckers to the bottom carrot seem fairly equal. The warps to the top carrot seem fairly equal as well, except the spring near the red base which you need to take to the warp is easy to miss when falling down from the base, and going back to jump on it wastes valuable seconds. Other than that, I have no problems with the layout.

Originality: The tileset choice says the level isn’t original, but the level proves otherwise. The backround, though dull when you look at it, is original, and beats the old overused warped backround. The eyecandy also seems fairly original (translucent tiles etc).

Glitches: While playing this online, for some reason a different music suddenly started playing (the original, Grey Void, suddenly turned into the Unreal_pm one or something, and others in the server complained about the level being different. Magoo then said its been cycled to an older version of it somehow. After testing this several times, I am lead to beleive its a rare bug jj2 is causing, so the creator of the level isn’t at fault.) I also got stuck somewhere twice in a row, which lead me to be suspicious. It was on a slant around 90,20. There weren’t one ways there or anything, so it was probably either me or the tileset. One time the lighting didn’t affect me, but that was when the level “was cycled to an older version of it” so I’ll ingore that. And there’s the Divide by zero caused by the bridges bug.

And finally Flow: It seemed fairly good, except some springs got annoying and others were easy to miss. I occasionally bumped into walls, but not often. Flow was good, but some things could of been modified.

Ratings:
Tile Placement: 8.5
Eyecandy:8
Events: 7.7
Layout: 8.5
Originality: 8.3
Glitches: 7.5 (Im kinda suspicious about the level on this part)
Flow:8
Total: 8.0714285, rounded to an 8.

Overall rating is 8, but may be upgraded/downgraded slightly after further testing and confirmation.

There is just something about this tileset that bothers me to the very core of my existence. Call me a cynic, but for some reason – probably because it is – this tileset feels like much of it was put together from different tilesets. Usually, when someone does this, it turns out looking very poor and being completely unusable. This is not the case, although it does really make this tileset a lot worse than it could have been. Oh well; here we go.

THEME: The theme of this tileset is…uh….to be one hundred percent honest, I have no idea what the theme it. It appears to be ground. With waterfalls. This is a genre that is way too old. The ground, in fact, looks like it is from many tilesets from 1999. There is not much creativy contained within the tileset. It features the standard, minimal features for a tileset such as this: Ground, mountains, a waterfall or two, and grass. Yawn.
Pros: It is not a space tileset.
Cons: It is a nature tileset.
Rating: 2.0

GRAPHICS: To put it bluntly, the graphics here are dismal. As I previously mentioned, the ground looks like something made in Paint in 1999. It has little jaggies which you would never find in actual dirt, and is pretty much the standard brown “ick” color with the same pattern repeated over and over again. When going down a hill, one notices that there are little bumps in the hill. This could have been made to look good, but instead simply looks like a lazy alignment problem. There is an alternative ground color, slightly darker, which is not much better and is even more depressing. The rocks look surprisingly good, although not very realistic. The grass reminds me of Hotel Heroes tilesets, which is arguably a good or bad thing. However, it just does not fit in with the ground. The vine looks okay, although its color suggests that it may have been made out of Wheat Thins. The hook looks more like a noose than a hook. The text sign is okay, although it is a bit too resemblant of a pillow speared onto a fence post. There is also a mushroom, seemingly stolen out of Commander Keen, that sort of fits in, yet at the same time looks too bright for the level. It is a decent addition, though, considering. The other mushrooms, which look like spades from a card game, are too dark to be noticed very easily against their background. A standard crystal-like waterfall from (insert 8-bit game here) and some various pictures of players and players’ names round off the rest, with a few okay-looking mountains thrown in for good measure and layer seven use. The whitesmoke-colored lumps are probably intended to be clouds. If they are intended to be anything but whitesmoke-colored lumps, though, they don’t do the job very well. Come to think of it, the ground looks out of a Hotel Heroes tileset, as well. Overall, disappointing.
Pros: Nothing looks hideous…
Cons: …except for the clouds and the ground.
Rating: 4.5

INVENTORY: I’ve never been very good with finding things, nor remembering things that should be included in something. However, for the most part, it appears that everything is here. There are vines, hooks, and the like. There is also fire, disappointingly the default sort. Rarer items like sucker tubes appear to be completely missing from this tileset, while the more common sucker tubes also seem not to be here. In this sort of tileset, there is no excuse for missing sucker tubes, as just having the sucking effect out in the open looks bad.
Pros: Most things are here.
Cons: Sucker tubes are missing, as are most things considered extra.
Rating: 5.2

ORIGINALITY: No. There is little to say here other than “no.” This tileset frankly lacks any originality whatsoever. It is just like nearly every single earth-themed tileset before it, and does not do a very good job, either. There are a few interesting inclusions, such as the mushroom, but everything else is too standard to be regarded as anything of notable originality. And even the mushrooms – although not those mushrooms specifically – are fairly common in tilesets like this.
Pros: None.
Cons: No originality to speak of.
Rating: 2.7

EASE OF USE: This is one category in which this tileset excels. To put it simply, there are few easier to use tilesets than this, mainly because it does not take any risks at all. There are a few places in which the use of another layer are necessary in order to make the tileset look good, which does do damage to its score, but other than that, it is an easy tileset to use. Not that you would probably want to.
Pros: Really easy to use.
Cons: There are a few areas in which it could have been made more user-friendly.
Rating: 7.5

MASKING: So-so. All the little ridges and stuff are translated to the mask, as well, which probably should not have been done, since they are small enough to theoretically get stuck in. However, getting stuck was moderately difficult in testing, so I suppose they are not too small. Still, there is no point in having them. The masking on the hills worries me, mainly because it goes from fairly straight to way to steep. This is the sort of place where one could easily get stuck while running. The whole thing bothers me, but I think I’m just being paranoid. It more or less looks okay.
Pros: Not easy to get stuck.
Cons: Questionable masking proceedures that are more or less bad ideas; no reason to have them, despite them not doing much damage.
Rating: 6.0

OVERALL (not an average): I just cannot like this tileset, no matter how hard I try. I hate to be the person who rates so low, but unfortunately I just do not see in way in which this tileset could possibly deserve a score of eight. It looks below average, the mask is below average, and most everything about this tileset is generally subpar. There are not many bright spots, either. This tileset lacks creativity and feels more like a “hello world” than a release. What sort of level would benefit from this tileset’s use, I do not know. It is too generic to show effort, and seems to not want to go to any pains to develop an identity. So, it remains in the bins of sub-mediocrity.
Pros: Very few to note.
Cons: Lots of problems. Just plain not very attractive.
Rating: 4.7

SCORECARD
Bugs: C
Eyecandy: D+
Background Eyecandy: C+
Foreground Eyecandy: C -
Masking: C
Tile Variety: D
Tiles Included: C
Quality: C -
OVERALL: C -

Pros: Very few to note.
Cons: Lots of problems. Just plain not very attractive.

FINAL SCORE: 4.7

- Trafton