Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Something happened to me today while I was playing Jimbob’s Highland Glaciers, something that has (thankfully) RARELY ever happened to me when playing Jazz Jackrabbit 2.

When I played the level, I was confused…impressed…disappointed…incredulous…all at the same exact time.

And fellers, that’s hard to accomplish.

Highland Glaciers is a study in consternation and unexpected surprises. There’s HUGE clumps of ammo littered all over the place. Powerups in plain sight. A boatload of capture points. A seeker powerup with a carrot and a capture point, all of which can be camped upon ‘til the cows come home.

Huh?

The level also made some eyebrow-raising eyecandy choices, with clusters of twinkling sparks in various places, an off-color Layer 8 background, and some water that’s apparently supposed to make the point that this is a glacier, or the very least, a fjord.

It was a tough sell.

Music worked decently well for the level, once it got far enough into the song. I won’t quibble too much here.

Gameplay, on the other hand, was brilliant. The level flowed quite smoothly, and I liked the shape, size and overall structure of HG. That was well executed.

Hence the consternation.

Did I like Highland Glaciers? I guess so…but that’s a VERY tentative “guess so”. There was nothing visually offensive or hard to ignore in terms of eyecandy, and once I got over the initial shock of the amount of weapons, it was reasonably fun to play.

If this qualifies a download rec, then I guess I’ll give it my blessing.

Whoa. Talk about a hangover…

That’s basically what Enter the Chaos by FireSworD is. A controlled hangover. Eyecandy is layered and stretched chaotically. Weapons are grouped in various places. A unique and really fun Chaos symbol formed by a falling Pole event. Darkness, broken occasionally by a brilliant, yet not overpowering flash of light. Erratic music, filled with clashing chords and wierd-sounding samples. Backwards rain.

A Caterpillar event.

In any other level, this combination of factors would result in complete and utter anarchy. In EtC, it’s brilliance at its best.

Every single aspect of FireSworD’s masterpiece contributes handily to an overall impression of disorderly disarray, yet never seems too over-the-top. It’s crazy, but as the old, cliched adage goes, there IS a method to the madness.

EtC is also available in a Lite and Dark variation, which are simply the same level with corresponding light or dark Layer 8 fade colors, plus a few aesthetic differences (like more/less platforms, caterpillar/no caterpillar, etc.).

Do I have any objections to this level? Not many. My biggest problem with Enter the Chaos is with how dark it is. The vines in the wide open central ‘cavern’ were quite hard to see, and it tipped the level more towards ominous and away from chaotic.

It seems, then, that this Enter the Chaos gives…well, chaos…a pretty good name. I like it a lot, and heartily recommend its download.

Hello, Aritra ! Now watch the mistakes and other things and please fix them!

EYECANDY

The eyecandy don’t suck but , isn’t very good .. And good choice for the tileset ! It’s my favourite and very nice. Please next time try to work more time on eyecandy. ( 2.3 )
GAMEPLAY

Gameplay didn’t look so bad but you did some mistakes …
The oneway and vine are NOT FOR NO FIRE levels ! And you miss some parts . I’ve seen some clean zones (i mean no fire) and WATER BLOCK ARE YOU INSANE ?! Please repair these mistakes and re-upload ! Now the real gameplay , is playable but not VERY RECOMMENDED! ( 1.9 )

AMMO PLACES AND OTHER

Also the ammo isn’t for these levels but i didn’t seen any food stuff ! What’s so hard to put food and some electro (automatic no player shoot) and sucker tube . I dislike the way you’ve put only one jazz start. ( 0.0 )

OVERALL

This map sucks.. Try to spend more time in JCS !

And my rating is : 4.2 – Not recommended

Are you fucking kidding me? It is only 0.40kB txt file why i need to download it?
(Rating clearance. Do not rate uploads if you have not downloaded them. ~Violet)

Pls tell me next this is TSF only level THX!
I hate when I stuck in the wall .
Oneway or vine or any other events like these should not used on nofirelevels
I can fire some places on the level… this is not good for any nofire levels :(
The eyecandy is not bad :), but it can be better
I think it’ll never hosted in any server…
If you remove vines and oneways I’ll rate the level

I have played this level with a bunch of people in Ragnarok’s server and I was surprised. It was better than I initially thought. The good use of the tileset, as Toni said, led to good eyecandy (not anything special, but it’s good). The gameplay is great, it works well with a lot of people (a bit surprising for such a small level) and ammo is so conveniently placed. This level deserves a high rating, and if I forget I need the reward for a minute I can rate it 8.5 and give it a DL rec. Good job and good luck on the contest!

For the originality, gameplay and concept I give it a 8.0. For a good use of tileset I give +0.5. Nice idea. Good job!

[shall I say that I finished a lap once and it didn’t count ?]

Its a nice lvl, a bit small but that was the point. Btw i totally kicked ur ass in it >]

I can’t believe no one has reviewed this yet. It’s a travesty, I’m telling you.

This is an awesome pack. That’s all that needs to be said.

However, since people will undoubtedly want particulars, I’ll provide some.

After Apocalypse consists of two CTF levels, “Cast to Darkness” and “Post-Apocalyptic Office”. Each level is done particularly well, but I will highlight a few strengths and weaknesses in each.

CtD:

PROS

“I loved the way Jgke used the Desolation tileset here. Eyecandy is original and visually pleasing, and it looks pretty sharp. Weapons are evenly distributed, and the gameplay is smooth. Music was appropriate, and suited the level well enough.”

CONS

“It seemed a bit skewed, in terms of size. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a hater on small levels, but it just felt claustraphobic to me. It was also pretty easy to get from base to base.”

P-AO

PROS

“The tileset is used PERFECTLY. The gameplay was terrific, bases were suitably far apart and challenging to travel between, and events weren’t too bad, either.

“The song for this level was divine. Simply divine. The ominous, pulse-pounding melody enhanced the level’s creepiness factor by tenfold. It’s one of the best level-song combinations I’ve seen in quite a spell. Well done!”

CONS

“Almost nothing. The blaster powerup seemed rather easy to procure, and the Red base was a little challenging to navigate in. Both are minimal drawbacks.”

In the end, I was wholly pleased by this pack. After Apocalypse delivers nicely on the expectation of quality levelbuilding, and I fully endorse its download.

This was a quaint little level. Not quirky, not queer. Quaint.

At the same time, that quaintness helps this collab to excel, if not fantastically, then at least moderately successfully.

Mystic Pond is well on the small side, with clumps of food and ammo lathered without restraint across the level and powerups in easy-to-reach places. Add to that a ridiculously short underwater segment with only one access point which houses fastfires and a blaster powerup, and you’ve got this level.

On the brighter end of the spectrum, MP has some good, solid eyecandy and a background song that helps create the mythic atmosphere of a serene, untouched lake in the middle of the wilderness. Kind of relaxing, which is no doubt what the level was intended to convey.

There weren’t really any problems with bugs that I could uncover, which is always good.

Should you download Mystic Pond and play it? I think so. It’s a well-built level with a handful of notable, drawbacks, and it’s worth playing, if there’s nothing else to do. So go ahead and download it. And just relax…

Collabs can be fun, and they can be brutal. They can go well, or they can tank.

This one was a little of both.

Visceral Tower had some great eyecandy and decently passable level structure. It was also extremely small and hard to manuever within. Granted, there were some good routes and it wasn’t the worst level ever created, but for a CTF level, it was pretty cramped. In my mind, it would’ve fared much better if released as a duel level instead. Maybe a 2-v-2 CTF.

The powerups were also kind of easy to procure.

That being said, VT was pretty clean bugwise, and the background song worked quite nicely. As I said before, the eyecandy was very impressive, and I thought the level had a great look to it.

The color-coordinated springs were a clever flourish.

In the end, Visceral Tower’s saving grace is its eyecandy. I flipped and flopped for what seemed like forever between grading it with a 6.2 or a 7.2, but the great visuals ultimately overcame the limited space, and I went with the higher mark.

Good work, and DL rec.

Heh. This was a fun level to play.

I really liked Sparks Factory for a number of different reasons. For starters, the gameplay was amazing. It’s a Boss Challenge map, where you have to navigate your way through a short level and break into a boss arena. Sort of like starting from the last checkpoint of a Jazz 2 level and going straight to the boss.

In SF, you are required to find twenty coins and activate a warp, which leads you into an arena with the Schwartzenguard. Easy enough, right?

Wrong. The whole time that you’re searching for coins, the Schwartzenguard is throwing flailarangs at you. Since you’re in a Sparks factory, Sparks are constantly being spawned to come after you. The eyecandy was quite whimsical, with Sparks parts moving through tubes and belts as if in a real factory.

The only thing missing from that is the factory ambient sounds…

SF is relatively free of bugs, and the music, while not terribly interesting, was nonetheless quite fitting.

My biggest beef with the level is that there’s too much going on. Don’t get me wrong, factories are USUALLY busy, and there SHOULD be plenty of activity here, but for such a concentrated are there seems to be an inordinate amount of eyecandy. It’s kind of distracting.

In any case, Sparks Factory is a good level, and it’s worth a download.

Let’s say a few words about Evilmike’s CTF level, Helldome.

First off, the eyecandy was great. EM used the Where Bad Rabbits Go tileset to construct an environment indicative of the gates of hell (or at least, how hell is most commonly depicted), and it’s pretty wicked. No pun intended.

Plenty of various types of ammo. Springs are placed so as to help the player quickly move from side to side of the level.

The “deathpit” at the bottom of the level warps you back into the level. Now, I didn’t really like that for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it takes your flag away if you’ve stolen another team’s flag, and that’s very irritating. Secondly, if you (Evilmike) are trying to convey the image of a CTF gone to hell (literally), shouldn’t there be some…I don’t know…death involved?

I also wasn’t a big fan of the music. Sure, it provided an action-oriented environment and it was kind of a little spooky, but it was also a little too ‘technological’ for me. Didn’t fit very well, in my mind.

In the end, I think an 8.2 sounds about fair. Good job with Helldome, Evilmike, and a definite DL rec.

It sure seems like I’ve been reviewing a LOT of Ragnarok’s levels lately, doesn’t it?

Never mind, because most of his levels, including this one, are pretty danged good.

Dusk uses the Traditional Japan set brilliantly, with imposing Japanese palace-things on both sides of the level, a small handful of pagodas housing CTF bases in the middle, liberally distributed ammo pickups and a couple of powerups, namely the RF and Toaster ones.

Eyecandy was placed without qualm or reserve, and it really enhanced the overall appearance of the level. Take, for instance, the rock caves in the upper midsection of the level. Instead of just making a plain old flat wall, Rag punched a cheese grater through the back, creating holes left and right, some of which he placed waterfalls behind. It was the sign of what all good JCSers do, which is work with what they have and make something really good.

One problem I DID have with the eyecandy was that all of the waterfalls seem to be moving at the exact same speed. Seriously. I would’ve liked to see maybe some moving a little faster, some moving a little slower, but instead everything moves at an identical rate. Bummer.

Eyecandy aside, the gameplay was smooth, bugs were generally avoided, and the whole level rocked.

I didn’t download the song (since I’m paranoid about that because I got nasty spyware the last time I tried that), so I won’t include it in my rating. Knowing Rag, though, it’s probably also really good.

Therefore, it seems in the end that Ragnarok has continued his winning ways with Dusk of Serenity, building another champ level that just happened to take DL of the Month in its respective month. Great job once again, Rag. DL rec.

EDIT: Waterfalls fixed. Rating modified.

10, 5 No warp target.

Nice eyecandy, gameplay is fine, music fits well. Download recommended.

I’ll give a short review of this level.

Even thought It’s small, It’s very fun and exciting to play, I don’t play DOM as much and I don’t like it that much, but I really enjoyed playing a bit on this map, nice job Ktos.
Rating, 9 ~ Skele.

It’s kinda hard to move here, idd. There are a lot of sucker tubes, and you don’t know exactly where will you exit on the end. I see, you fixed tilebugs and it’s a little better now. Maybe overloaded with ammo and warps, just like Ktos said. Eyecandy is good, and also OVERLOADED WITH CAKES! You get fat if you eat much cakes. DR!

This is good conversion!I see a good disaign!Sorry for my bad english!

[Review changed to quick review, see the review rules.

Nice story , and i’m waiting for the next episode ! The eyecandy rocks , my eyes are going INSANE !!! And the gameplay is nice . And i like that you don’t put much enemies like in the devres (EvilMike’s episodes) ! You own the JCS ,man ! Good luck on working at the second episode (of course if you are working)!

My favourite levels are the Woods of Light and Caves! These levels had nice eyecandy and they toasted my eyes !!! I hope that the next episode will be too .

And Gus is right don’t use Triggers and scenery events on mirrored tiles ! That really causes access violation .
By the way you’re using a TSF only tileset and you don’t mark the upload as TSF only ?