Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

nice storytelling, but pretty basic levels except for a few

Seems you have tileset missing. Im getting Tileset Missing error when trying to run the spaceship level.

Problems…

i find this pack over rated…. d only 2 maps which i liked were semi (ofc) and happy castle…. desert is not bad…. but lacks some great deal of ec. the others were…… :S well for me disasterous….

so:
Hell – 3 – Such a bad ec
Castle – 7
Canyon – 4.5 – i rly wonder how this is popular
Jungle – 3 – ec is …. WAAA and also i dont like d map
Semiconductor – 9 – well no wonder its one of d most popular lvls. (@ bs7… nah impartiality isnt that important in ctf lvls… d game flow is by far better… in a war there is always impartiality between nations as well :D)
Desert – 6.5

Average = 5.5

As I like to take initiatives, I have decided to finally review this upload. I strongly believe that taking initiatives is important, if they are done in a reasonable way.

I am not going to cover all aspects thoroughly, just the ones I think are worth mentioning. I am also not reviewing this consistently with other uploads I have reviewed, and have adopted a new way of reviewing uploads.

First, let me start off by saying that I respect this upload for the fact it was relatively good when it was made, and it served as an inspiration for people to make levels, so things would probably be slightly different today without this. However, the problem with most older levels is that they are quite franky…very unbalanced. One of the levels in this pack is the most popular level according to JDC statistics, which I will explain further in my review. Generally, these levels are a bad influence when it comes to gameplay, and I feel that at least needs to be clarified. No one can make levels like these, receive high ratings, and even have one of them be the most popular level currently. I am in no way insulting stripe, and I have liked a few of his levels (superconductor), and I also think he is still one of the best level designers ever in the jj2 scene.

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Happy Hell CTF

What a fitting name, or not so fitting as I was only happy to change to the next level. In general, I don’t mind mp levels that are hard to navigate, as long as you can adjust to the obstacles. Here, you are forced to use the v-poles to reach the bases, but there’s also a warp at the bottom to reach both bases. However, it can only send you to a number of locations in a certain order. I find that annoying, what’s the tactic? – It’s not fun in any way in my opinion. There’s this cool secret: you can go into the platform that is below the poles, and the spring there will make it so you can reach the first pole only. Now, the spring on top of the platform will force you to use both poles, so you can only stomp before the second pole. The secret allows you to go below the second pole without the stomping state. If you took the ‘secret’ spring, you can go towards the right side of the shaft, which is where the other part of the secret is. It’s a toaster pu with some triggers that spawn platforms that make it easier to reach the bases! – Unfortunately, the effect is triggered off once you touch a base. I would really rather play something else than this level. The famous quote “inferno sucks!” is clearly not just frustration at using the tileset, but also the author expressing that he knew the level is subpar. There’s probably more I can say about the full NRG, but I’m really, really sick of this level.

Happy Canyon CTF

I really don’t want to go into detail here. You can apparently destroy the bridge and access the hoverboards (afaik you need your team around to access hoverboards) all by destroying the crates and opening triggers. Some of the triggers and crates are well hidden and require you to search every wall. Besides that, the level is really nothing I would consider interesting, and it’s annoying to play in my opinion, because of the void left in the middle after crates are broken. I’ve heard the level is buggy and laggy as well.

Happy Castle CTF

I never have liked this level much. I only recall enjoying a jb game here. There is only one way red team players can reach blue base, while there is only one way blue team players can reach red base? – Not exactly, blue base’s design is much easier to defend than red. It doesn’t help that the layout is somewhat symmetrical with varying sides. It doesn’t help that blue can only get bouncer pu while red can only get toaster, and there are no other pus to compensate for this. The differing pus may be said to be equal, but I’ve always had more of an advantage with bouncers for obvious reasons. Also, in my opinion, the layout is redundant and overly complex; I never used all the area available to me. I like the ‘cannons’ at each base, and I also like how the roofs are open in your team’s base. Again, there’s probably more to cover, but those were the most important points.

Happy Jungle CTF

I have always liked small, yet fun and quirky levels like MULCH/MALCH, Stupid CTF and Beachcombing. This level is very small as well, however it’s not as simple as Stupid CTF, MULCH/MALCH or beachcombing. It has blue base at the top, with red base at bottom. Guess what? – Higher up is always more advantageous. The times I’ve played here were all chaotic and lag based. I can’t really say anything more about this.

Happy Desert CTF

A complex level. Again, I don’t really want to go into detail here, but it’s another somewhat-but-not-really-symmetrical level that’s probably imbalanced. The first time I played this I thought it was absurdly hard to navigate. Nowadays I don’t think it’s that hard, but the layout could’ve benefited from much better arrangement.

Happy Semiconductor CTF

Where do I begin?

This level has been one of the most popular levels on jj2, and seems to be even more popular now being the most played level on jj2 currently. There are some nice tricks, like exploiting the top right area as an RTS spot, all the neat rf climbs, and the fact most platforms are 1 tile
thick make the level fun. What isn’t fun is blue team has better spawnpoints. Blue is easier to defend than red. It doesn’t help that it’s really campy in duels because of 1 full c (although most levels are campy). Lots of passages are 1 tile thick, though I personally don’t mind. In my opinion, this level is average at best, maybe even below average if I consider the gameplay quirks. I keep hearing varying opinions on which side is better, but the fact is this level is imbalanced.

I could’ve gotten into more depth with other aspects, but there’s no point. I think the designers now should focus on making balanced levels, with emphasis on flow. I never mind obstacles that can result in a way to gain an advantage, but not as advantageous as exploiting the level in a way that the opposing team or player can’t.

This shows how storylines be made, it is absorbing and the levels are designed near perfectly around the story concepts, to the point of making it feel like an interactive DVD. However, there is very little gameplay to speak of. It’s almost impossible to die and can be completed in a few minutes. However, the creativity is what makes it shine.

Well, well, another great singleplayer pack! This one centers around the story of a rabbit [unnamed], who starts out on a job from his momma and winds up getting caught and brainwashed by turtles. Through a bizarre turn of events, including an encounter with a rabbit village that gets wiped out, he recovers his true rabbityness and strikes back at the turtles that caused him this grief. Not too much gameplay, more story-oriented, but that’s okay. The story made up for the lack of play. Not a ginormous amount of eycandy either, though there was some. Not much buggage, this makes the pack a very usable pack. DL now.

I don’t know how people are rating this pack since one of the tile sets are missing. The level tmcship1.j2l
this needs to be added in.

I guess it was alright. Could have been longer and more understandable. One thing that disappointed me was after the end of one of the levels at the loading i get an access violation saying that a level is missing or something like that. But the thing i did like was that you’ve done a diffrent and original type of single player pack.

Overall i think the story wasn’t all that epic. I usually like level packs with exciting and action type stories.

Download recommendation: Don’t know, you decide. Like or dislike, your opinion

H A P P Y C T F

- – - – -

Ah, HappyCTF. IMO this is the very best CTF pack out there. It contains 6 levels. Now let’s review it.
There goes my second review…

H A P P Y J U N G L E C T F

The first level of Happy CTF and in my opinion the worst one, but it still means very nice.

This level is an example how a small level can be pretty good. Tileset? Look at the name. Used nicely.

Music: nice choice and nice quality. ‘Last Sunset’ fits it, but I expected something more jungle-ish.

Eyecandy is confusing but nice. This level uses the trees for the main background eyecandy.

No other ‘OMG-quality’ fireworks though.

Gameplay… Well, this is the worst level, but it still is pretty nice. The bases are pretty originally placed (red at the bottom, blue at the top). Ammo placement rather good. Flow good.

O V E R A L L – Probably the worst level in HappyCTF, but it is still fun.

H A P P Y D E S E R T C T F

And here we have the second level of the pack. Happy Desert CTF is a mostly vertical level

(136 tiles high!) using Beach.

Happy Desert uses Dark Groove Part 1 for the music; you don’t have to download it, it comes with the game (it’s used in the second Inferno level). IMO it could use something like camel.xm or silver.mod. However, the music fits.

Eyecandy? Yes, eyecandy. Nice. IMO the textured BG could use stars. There are some fun things like sand-filled chambers in the wooden parts, or wooden arrows. The level also uses some faraway dunes on layer 7&6. Layer 2 boasts a ‘pass’ to the sandy part of the level. Overall nice.

And now, let’s get to the gameplay. The bottom of the level is partially filled with water.

Flows very nice, although the level is divided in half on the wooden part and I don’t really like it. Ammo placement is nice. Base placement is nice.

O V E R A L L – A good level. If it comes to compare this one to other HappyCTF levels, this one is average.

H A P P Y H E L L C T F

3rd HappyCTF level – Happy Hell CTF. This is a pretty small level using Inferno Night, and IMO it uses this tileset very well.

The thing that doesn’t fit really well it’s the music – the choice is pretty strange (especially when you see giant skulls lying on the ground ;P). I would rather hear this one in a beach level, but never mind, it doesn’t sting as much as it would when you would hear childish music in Windstorm Fortress or Odyssey.

The eyecandy is good. Nothing really hyper, but the background is interesting. The fog ‘rays’ you would normally see in on the foreground or background on the bottom of the level are zooming through the background layers 7 and 6. One of the rays also floats in the foreground. I only found ONE tilebug and when you run around you don’t really notice it.

You can run around the level and nothing will really block you. The ammo placement is also sweet: not too much ammo, but you don’t run outta it too fast. The bases are placed nicely. The blue base’s platform doesn’t have any dropdown routes, but it doesn’t hurt.

O V E R A L L – This level is pretty nice.

H A P P Y C A N Y O N C T F

The 4th level of HappyCTF is Happy Canyon CTF, also called TIBASL. It is a rather large semi-symmetrical level that uses Labrat 1. The tileset use is sweet.

The music fits well. If this level was more lab-stylized, it rather would end up bleh.

The eyecandy is nice too. What I really liked was layer 8. Well. It looks nice. The looks of the bridge are also nice.

Now for the gameplay. If it wasn’t for the semi-symmetricalness, this level would be pretty boring. The vertical routes to and from the bases are different. Now this is where Happy Canyon gets really fun. There are trigger crates placed in the teams’ vertical shafts. Destroying these crates will affect the bridge and also grant access to the very bottom of the level. For the normal gameplay aspects, you can hop around this level and nothing will block you too. Ammo placement is good.

O V E R A L L – Interesting and fun to play. IMO one of the best levels in the pack.

H A P P Y C A S T L E C T F

Now for the 5th level, Happy Castle (or J.A.I.L). I’m not sure it’s really happy, especially if you have gargoyles floating around that stare at you like >:(. Haha. Anyway, this uses Medivo 2. It’s not very big if you look horizontally, but it is 89 tiles high.

Let’s move on to the music department. It doesn’t fit the name really (‘Happy’ and ‘Jazz Belmont (haunted.it)’? omg), but it does fit the theme.

Eyecandy’s fun. Layer 7 has the gargoyle I mentioned before. The first time I played HCCTF I got as scared as the first time I looked up in Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. But this is not a moon. Layer 6 is used nicely. It has speed a bit lower than 1, so it looks like it is not that far

away from the sprite layer. Also, other fun tidbits include: the muscley gargoyle with a flag-made cape and ghastly lights on inside-the-castle wall tiles. Didn’t see any tilebugs. Inside-the-castle wall tiles are a bit repetitive but not annoying.

Gameplay. Flows very nicely, base placement good, ammo placement good. Won’t write too much – it’s good.

O V E R A L L – Jail, uhm, Happy Castle CTF is another nice level.

H A P P Y S E M I C O N D U C T O R C T F

The 6th level in the pack, and for me also THE level… The great Happy Semiconductor CTF.

The name is kind of long, so I’ll just call it Semi for now. Also, I’ll note that it is not too small, not too big. Also, this uses Tubelectric.

Now let’s see how the music fits. And? Sweet! For a normal ‘radiostation music world’ level it wouldn’t fit but here it fits really nice! Also, not only it fits nice, Darkhalo is also a great artist, so the music has quality.

Let’s look what we have here if it comes to the eyecandy. Also really sweet. We have two layers of faraway pipes and a sprite supporting background layer 5, but it isn’t used that much, only about 10 tiles are placed there. Foreground is superb! Semi has lots of stuff that look sweet on the foreground, like a pipe-made ‘Stripe’ word (the author, duh ;P) or a yellow-block ‘cage’ that is the home to the RF weapon powerup. Semi’s eyecandy is great.

GAMEPLAAAAAY! Sweet – 3 PUs, superb base and ammo placement, and I <3 the flow. Example of splendid gameplay.

O V E R A L L – For me, this is THE level. For you, dear reader of the review, it may be not, but it surely is the best level in the pack and one of the greatest levels ever.

HappyCTF is one of the greatest level packs ever made, and IMO it is the best one ever. A big fat 10 from me.

~Eigus

This is a great episode. The strong point on this is the story, not the playability. The levels are rather small, some are movies, but it’s very well done. It’s fun to play, especially the jungle levels. Another great thing are the efects, such as the reactor on the ship and the explosions. I’d recommend you to download this.
PD: I give this 9.5 cause it could have more playable levels and/or longer ones.

The best pack I’ve ever played. It contains my favourite level Happy Semi conductors CTF and the other levels are good too. Backgrounds are excellent, but I didn’t like the Jungle level at all.

nice story but i got 3 times an error that the templete is not there… Very anoying… Is this just me? it is not in the folder…
(Unsupported rating (8.7) removal. Do you mean “tileset”, by the way? In any case, the bulk of your rating still seems to come down to “nice story”, which could use some explanation, especially as you don’t seem to be rating the levels themselves. Try harder. ~Violet)

Heh levels out of stoneage that still rock the globe!!
Bloodbunny was prolly the 1st level designer ever to reach and even beat Epics quality. I remember how no sane person played custom levels back in 98 cuz they literally sucked( xcept for the authors of course:)).
BB swing and BB lair are still one of the best levels and thats like 6 years later( bb city is nice 2)
Anyway deserves a 10+.
(Triple post. ~Violet)

ok a very short review. These levels are so liked and so played by everyone of us. That alone tells us how they withstood the test of time, and thats why I give the pack a 10, it deserves it.
GJ stripe!

Wakeman rated this upload with three stars on Jazz2City.

Wakeman rated this upload with three stars on Jazz2City.

Wakeman rated this upload with two stars on Jazz2City.

How happy is it?

Eyecandy:

Well, i whink this lvlpack probably extremly nice eyecndy, the only thing i dont like that it is the original eyecandy the other lvls in these tilesets use! also i think that the eyecandy can be a bit improved(9/10)

Gameplay:

Well, i have to say its not really a single player but it is fun and has good gameplay (fun and intersesting and well placed things). this is an actually xtremely nice storyline. also this is a pack that is worth a great look-at!! (10/10)

Pickups: Great placement and really good, (for all events i mean) but there arent really that much or none!

Overall: this is great! 9.5