Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

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

Eyecandy – Good / very good
This tileset is rather limiting, but people all ways seem to whip up original eyecandy in their levels with it. This one, for example, takes all most all the tiles and makes them translucent. The background is moved to layer 7, is made translucent, and there is a blocky background in layer 8. Very original and nice looking. In layer 6, there are just variations of blocks that make up a nice layer of (I forgot what I was going to put here). Layer 5 consists of some pipes, and other stuff. Layer 1 has pipes, also. They’re not overdone, and they look nice overall. Layer 3 has some occasional blocks in front of you to add to the eyecandy. Overall, a limiting tileset using seven out of eight of the layers is very impressive.
I’ve said all that good stuff, and I unfortunately bring you the bad news – just about everything is translucent and will therefore slow down some older computers. I’m not taking off any points, but I’m not guarenteeing some people, such as BlurredD won’t take off any. My computer seems to run just fine.
Pros: Nice eyecandy; uses most of the layers.
Cons: The translucency may cause some older bags of suck computers to run slower.

Gameplay – Good / very good
Very good. There is one big balancing issue… the warp that leads to the blaster powerup and one of the two 1up carrots is much, much closer to the blue base. I didn’t notice this when testing the level, unfortunately… argh. The level flows nicely, and there are some secrets. There isn’t any biasing… the sucker tubes’ speeds are set nicely, too. I’d like to point out that the sucker tube leading from the blue base to the left has to go slow for balancing purposes. Without it, you will be able to reach the carrot from the blue base in three seconds. The red base takes four seconds to get to the carrot, and Magoo had to slow down the sucker tube in order to make both bases be able to reach the carrot in approximately four seconds.
Pros: Good gameplay, nice flow, no biasing, etc.
Cons: The blue base has the warp to the carrot and blaster powerup much closer.

Ammo placement – Good
Let’s see… not bad at all. Magoo explains that for a level of it’s size, it doesn’t need any more than one powerup. I’d like to see more than one powerup… and if not that, maybe a different powerup besides the blaster one. Perhaps a seeker powerup and/or a bouncer one. I usually make bouncer powerups and seeker powerups priorities in my level. The blaster power up is far too close to the blue base, though, especially because it’s the only powerup. On top of that, there is a 1up carrot right next to the blaster powerup. The carrot in the middle that I was talking about earlier is placed nicely, though.
Pros: Good ammo placement overall.
Cons: The blaster powerup and one of the two 1up carrots is too close to the blue base.

Overall: Solid CTF level.
Download: Yes.
Host this often: Sure, but I don’t think I’d ever host it quite as much as Distopia, Moree Mines, and some of the other ones I’m addicted to.

Another tileset of Labratkid. Nothing else

There’s NOT much eyecandy tiles for layer 4, only some mushrooms (next time make anim to Mad Mushroom of CK4), deeeeeadly fire and familiar mountains from Psych reserved to 7th and 6th ones. Chair said that some tiles should be done better, and I agree with he… she… whatever.
“Event” tiles also are in here, type hooks, poles, bustable scenery etc. I didn’t saw any mistakes in stuff, but I place 7.5 since I don’t like youthis tileset is great!

Cooba a.k.a Qba

[This review has been edited by Cooba]

Winner, yes, the waterfall was ripped from JJ1, and, no, it’s not from Diamondus. I don’t know where it’s from, but it’s not Diamondus ;-P I think it’s Crystalis, but I’m too lazy to look.[This review has been edited by labratkid]

Um, no. IMO it’s ripped from Crysilis, not Crystalis
Crystalis doesn’t exist
Only Crysilis
So
:P
Hahaha

A tileset =O

TILES/EYECANDY OF THEM:
I’d like to mention that Labratkid starts to advertise TF with this tileset. And this one has even ripped mountains from Psych 1 (night?). Waterfalls are ripped from Jazz1: Diamondus. The tileset has a text “Waterfall taken from Ancient Riches. Used with permission.” Maybe Ancient Riches has that ripped waterfall too? I never saw ancient riches so I can’t tell if that’s a lie or not. Anyways the waterfall is from Jazz1 diamondus. Layer4 tiles aren’t a so good quality things. The grass isn’t wonderful, but it isn’t bad. Average, maybe.
TILES/EYECANDY OVERALL: 7.7

MASKING:
Woah, mask messages. MASK MESSAGES STRIKE BACK! There are invisible tiles. Yay. Now you don’t need to make an arenastyle level to CTF. Just use these tiles as a border and you don’t need to take care of them again. The masking is just as it must be. Fun…
MASKING OVERALL: 9.4

EASY-TO-USE:
It’s actually easy to use this tileset. So all newbies can download this now. You can make a good level even if you would be new to JCS. You just need to know how JCS works and blabla…
EASY-TO-USE OVERALL: 9.2

PALETTE:
Normal palette… Just like the stencil.
PALETTE RATING: Does not affect.

TILESET INTERESTINGNESS:
or how was it said? ;P
The tileset itself is quite boring. If the colorful one tile is ignored, the whole tileset is brown and blue. If a level with this is made, it should be short. This is boring…
INTERESTINGNESS OVERALL: 5.7

VERDICT:
A quite nice tileset, but it’s boring. I don’t really see anything interesting in it. 7.

For some reason, I don’t like it. hides

To start, the layer 6+7 eyecandy is ripped, something I don’t like. The waterfalls and fire are also ripped, I won’t take points away for the fire because it’s very hard to make a decent fire animation but you could have created the waterfall yourself easily. The ground looks nice, however it’s almost the same color as the background eyecandy and the contrast is too low. Some gradients at the edges would have been nice. The grass is okay, too bad there are no tiles with grass for slopes. Some things that I will add points for altough it’s unfair: The commander keen mushroom (hurray!) and the Total Freaks signs (hehehehaha). I also EXTREMELY LIKE the support act >)
All items that should be in a decent tileset are present, including hooks, poles spikes and text signs. No exit sign, but you can use an “EOL Signpost” event for that.
The textured background is fairly nice, the fog tiles can be useful but overall the tileset looks quite boring. Everything has the same, brown color. A little gradient at the edge of the platforms could have taken this major setback (in my very humble opinion) away.

Make more colorful stuff next time, the graphic quality shows your tilesets have some potential >)

YEAH!!!!!!!!! You have a ton of items!

1 Good eye candy
2 Great arts (you are good arter)
3 Good texture background
4 Great backround
5 Great forground
6 You forgot a lot of stomps
7 Good hook tile
8 Good poles tiles
9 Good leyers
10 Good animated tiles
11 Cool mountains
12 Cool fire
13 You’ve name your tileset, with your rabbit, that’s good!

Overall rating: 8.2, there some problem but few! ;-) Have a nice day!

~Bjarni Haraldur Sigfússon

COOL TILESET!

The tileset is good drawn and not too hard to use. It has also textured bg (stolen from psych tileset by Nick Stadler ;P). There is also some stuff for layer 3 and 5. At the moment I can’t use it because I am working on my Forests Of Dreams episode but it’s really cool tileset. + Bonus for those blue “things” from Comander Keen 4 (I hated those as I played Commander Keen :]). I don’t feel like making the review much longer. All I have to say is: Well Done.
PROS: good drawn, stuff for layers 3 and 5, commander keen thingys.
CONS: like mentioned in chair’s review textured bg isn’t too easy for newbies (like me
;->)
FINAL RATING: 6.5
THE FINAL GRADE: C-
DOWNLOAD RECCOMENDATION: maybe

PHT

EDIT: now I saw Traft’s rating and was shocked. OH MY GOD! I’M AN OVERRATER!!!
Then I looked again and….well, maybe 7.7 is really a bit too high. alltough I think 4.7 is a bit too low for this.
A 6.5 fits it for me
sry labrat.
PS: cause I don’t get mad on you you shouldn’t get mad on me ;-P
[This review has been edited by PHT][This review has been edited by PHT]

I’m not a big fan of CTF levels, but I find this one’s not too bad at all. :)

(Unsupported rating removal edit. Give more detail in your reviews or they’ll just end up being deleted, and you might even get a warning if you do it too much. ~Violet)[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]

Aaaah… the magic of the JCS 1.23 patch. This level is very mediocre.

Perhaps a little long for a race level. I liked the water, but the tileset used wasn’t very nice. :\ And the eyecandy was nothing special. Still, it’s a pretty good level.

Very good race level. Only real drawback is I find it’s a little long to be a race.

Totally original. ;)

Nice tileset. :)

Wow! Awesome tileset. Although, I find it’s kinda hard to use. :\

True, true, it is an odd boss, but I doubt anyone would want to use this. :P

Too short and bad selection of enemies. But I suppose it’s not the worst for your first level. Let’s just leave it at that, I’m not in the mood for anymore criticism

Not enough enemies and the level is just way too short, I mean, it’s okay to have a semi-short level but this one is just ridiculous. However, the tileset use wasn’t bad at all, but that barely pulls the rating any higher.

AWESOME tilesets. I’m not into the mood for a review, so I’ll just leave it with that. :P

(Sorry, that sort of behavior is unacceptable. Unsupported rating removal edit. ~Violet)[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]