Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

I felt like reviewing some random level, and got this through review ideas ;P.

Apocalyptic Afterworld is a nice piece of work by Magoo (who should make more levels ;P). It’s got some bugs and poor planning in some parts which could’ve been fixed/avoided, but generally its a good level worth your attention.

I’ll start off with the mood. The level has a nice feeling when you go through it (I like the backround) and some lighting to aid to the feeling. I personally would’ve chose a different music though, but whatever.

Layout is alright, and took me some time to get used to. It has a lot of rooms only accessible by warps (Seeker, Full NRG) which makes happy campers just wet their pants with excitement =P. Instead of having rooms for the Full NRG and Seek Pu, you couldve put them into tubes so people cant just hang around them and kill whoever enters the room (at least the full NRG isnt the only carrot in the level, or that would’ve been very, very bad). I’m not too big of a fan on how the layout of this level was made, but its acceptable and I wouldn’t mind playing in it.

Eyecandy is great. The only thing I that I can complain about with eyecandy is that the red rocks were used in layer 5 which might make it confusing for some people to tell if they’re solid or not at first. I didn’t notice that at first at all, so it didn’t bother me one bit.

Flow could be improved a bit. Springs like the one around 126, 60 could be made to have you hit the next spring on the ledge to the right instead of flying over it and going into the side of a wall. The ledge at 63, 50 could be raised so you don’t fall onto it when running from the PU and instead fall down the gap (this doesn’t happen with the ledge next to the PU on the right side of the level which makes the right side have a bit of an advantage). These little annoyances could’ve been fixed easily had a tester noticed them, but I found no significant flow bugs which means that the testers didnt entirely sleep through the level =P.

Ammo is alright. You have to jump for a lot of it though. Magoo also included ice ammo for some reason (if you include it, at least give it more of a use). Otherwise, ammo placement is nice and nice designs are made of it.

Overall the level is pretty well made. A few tweaks could be made here and there, but it still gets an 8.2 the way it is. I don’t know why I havent reviewed this until now ;|. Download reccomended (although most of you have probably downloaded or played this by now anyways)

~Blacky

Another CTF review. I wasn’t able to download this level, but I did now.

Introduction to Apocalyptic Afterworld:
this level was created by MaGoo DM and uses the wisetyness tileset. I haven’t seen many levels with this set, and you will find out if this level is worth downloading(because this level has not many downloads. But that was because you were unable to download this level.

Gameplay:
this level is pretty big, isn’t symmetrical, but it is balanced. It’s easy to get around this level. The suckertubes make the flow pretty good, among with the good spring placement. There are many suckertubes, and they will lead you to a warp with a warp target. It’s not very hard to get to each base, but you can get lost sometimes. There is a straight way to each base, but there are other ways to go to there. I like how this level is constructed, so the layout is good. The vines can be a good idea, instead of springs. Overall the gameplay is nice.

Eye candy:
when I loaded the level, I immediately saw that there is lightning here. Yay! The lighting looks great, I like the flicker lights. There is also lightning in the background, it’s great animated. Layer 3 has alot of secrets and the tubes, and also has some stuff. Layer 2 can be a bit irritating, but I can live with it. There are many things in layer 5, it’s mostly standard… but it’s good. The fire looks nice. I like the tileset use alot here. There are many layers used, except layer 1, but almost no-one uses layer 1 alot. Overall I like the eye candy alot here.

Pickup placement:
I will start off with the ammo placement. There are many groups of ammo, some are odd, others are creative. There are 3 Power-Ups, and they’re pretty basic. There is a tube that leads you to a warp with a Seek PU at both sides. The Seek PU is protected by bomb scen, so you cannot shoot through it. The Bouncy PU is at the bottom-left, and the Toast PU is at the bottom-right of the level. There are 2 +1 Carrots, and 1 Full Energy. There is a warp to the Full Energy, which is at the left and the right side. The +1 carrots are also at the left and right side, in a tube. I also like the pickup placement in this level. A thing that is pretty funny are the Freeze events that are at 50,3 and near.

Others:
This was a nice level by MaGoo, it’s also a bit original, like the freezers. The music fits this level well. This tileset isn’t used many times, like I already said. It’s a fun level, and you can do 3 vs 3/4 vs 4 in it. Also, this level could be hosted sometimes, because I never saw it hosted.

I give this level an 8.35 = 8.4 and a download recommendation.

I beta tested this, too, face.

Apocalyptic Afterworld, by Magoo, uses Mirrow’s overlooked Wisetyness tileset. The gameplay is nice. Fairly smooth flow for the most part, and the bases seem balanced enough. Some of the springs with keep x set seem to throw the flow off a bit, though. It’s hard to set them up just right, after all. The seeker powerup annoys the hood out of me, though. More specifically the sucker tubes leading to it. They seem to take too long to get there, with the warp and all. Floatups are used to help the flow in some areas as well. There are, however, some assorted areas where jumping is required, which is always good.

As always, Magoo managed to make the level look very attractive, although I don’t like how some of the bricks are translucent. I like the ambient lighting effects a lot, and the lightning in the background is nice (Xargon style). As always, though, if you’re going to have several non-tiling animations right next to eachother, you should make an extra animation with a different sync than the ones next to it. The areas where fire is placed in a horizontal line look kind of unnatural. Layer 6 and 7.. well, confuse me. There’s some ground soil and trees in layer 6, while in layer 7, there are metal platforms which are much bigger than the soil.

The ammo placement is good enough. The thing that caught my eye about it was how Magoo made nice designs with it; for example, a cross made out of toaster ammo.

As for the other stuff in the level… well, I personally think that the music isn’t all that good, nor fitting. It also has an invalid next level setting. It tries to loop to Apocalyptic Afterworld.j2l, but there’s no such thing.

Overall, this level gets an 8.3 and a download reccomendation.

Wakeman rated this upload with two stars on Jazz2City.

Wakeman rated this upload with two stars on Jazz2City.

Wakeman rated this upload with two stars on Jazz2City.

Wakeman rated this upload with one star on Jazz2City.

Wakeman rated this upload with one star on Jazz2City.

Wakeman rated this upload with two stars on Jazz2City.

This Is A Nice Level, But It Is Hard to Get Arounnd With Jazz Beacause When He Stops To Do A Super Jump Anyone Who Is Chasing Him Can Shoot Him Quite Easaly.Ya Mainley Cause Jazz cant double Jump. And Yes, You Can Get Hurt Prettey Badley By An Enamy Who Hits You When You On An H-Pole.Over All Its A Nice Level. Even If It Has some Little error’s The Eycandey Was Great For Me I Really Liked It. Yes You Better Download it[This review has been edited by Felix]

Ok, Time for a review!
Gameplay: This level has great gameplay. The platforms had a good size so that you can`t fall off quickly. The springs placement was good, too. The warp to the blaster power-up was the only con here because it was more close to the Blue Base.
Eyecandy: There was very good eyecandy here. I liked it very much. Some good pipes, dark tiles enz. Just very good.
Pickup placement: This level had not many ammo and one power-up, that`s the only con here but ok. Not all levels have a power-up. the other ammo placement was good. Maybe too less but ok. There were a few Fastfires, they were good placed and 2 carrots. The 1st carrot was more close to the blue base, which was also a con in the gameplay. The other carrot was good placed in the middle.
Host this: Yes I think you can host this.
Download: sure.
Final rating: 8.0

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

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.

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.

It took quite a while for me to convert this from 1.24 to a somewhat unstable 1.23, but I did it. And I suppose it was worth it. This is not a bad level at all. In fact, I must say I like it. Still, it is not the best.

TILESET/TILESET USE: The tileset used was Blade’s somewhat overused “Wastelands” tileset. This tileset has clasically looked somewhat bland in color, and it still does in this level. Frankly, eyecandy is by far not the best aspect of this level. Some may like the metallic look of it, but I can not really say that I do. As for bugs – this level does not have many, and none of them are noteworthy enough to make the eyecandy quality worse. Overall, good, but nothing spectuacular eyecandy and tileset use.
Pros: Very few tile bugs
Cons: Uninteresting eyecandy.
Rating: 6.7

WEAPON/ITEM PLACEMENT: Weapon and item placement was good enough. There was not all that much ammo in some parts of the level and, like with many battle levels, the main concentration of placements involved powerups. There was not too much clumping going on, which is a good thing. Some areas, however, had too little ammo, and I thought that there was generally a lack of non-powerup ammo (even if it is not used all that often, it is still nice to see well-placed basic ammo). Food was also used, though not in sufficient quantity to cause sugar rushes.
Pros: Placement is generally well-done and thought over.
Cons: If you dislike food, you might object to this level. Possibly too little basic ammo.
Rating: 7.2

ORIGINALITY: This level is not that original. The theme is pretty much what the tileset provides – a wasteland-like factory – and has been done many times. Eyecandy was nothing original, nor was gameplay. While it was somewhat enjoyable, there was just nothing new or fascinating in either gameplay or eyecandy.
Rating: N/A

GAMEPLAY/DESIGN: This level disagrees with me for some reason. I am just not sure why. The flow of battle levels is no where near as important as it is in CTF levels. Still, it is generally a good thing to have a nice flow in a battle level. And, for one reason or another, I did not feel as if this level had a very good flow. Layout also did not seem as anything special to me. This is all relative, and the level did not have that bad of a layout or a flow, but for some reason it did not agree with me in several respects. Regardless, the build quality of this factor is worth a 6.7.
Pros: Pretty well done.
Cons: The flow just felt odd.
Rating: 6.7

REPLAY VALUE/FUN FACTOR: This level does not offer much to make people play it over and over again. Sure, it is solid and well done, but there isn’t anything INTERESTING that makes people want to play it much. I can see it being hosted a bit, but I doubt it has much staying power.
Pros: Good level, good eyecandy.
Cons: Nothing new.
Rating: 6.7

OVERALL (not an average): This level is not bad, but offers nothing that is very new. It is also 1.24, and therefore deserves to be smacked with fish. Still, it’s worth a download for TSF battle fans or 1.23 battle fans with enough time on their hands and Overlord’s TSF to 1.23 convertor.
Pros: Overall a good level.
Cons: Nothing really amazing.
Rating: 7.0

GAMEPLAY: B
Flow: B
Layout: B
Creativity: B+
Bugs: A -

EYECANDY: B+
Tileset use: B+
Eyecandy look: B+
Creativity: A -
Bugs: A -

PLACEMENT: B+
Weapons: B+
Carrots: B+

THE FINAL GRADE: B+

THE FINAL RATING: 7.0

+ PROS: Solid level.
- CONS: Nothing new. TSF.

- Trafton

A pretty nice level. Good layout, not too big, reasonnable weapon placement… I lik it.

But two big minus points: 1-you placed an enemmy.
2-you placed food(though it could be handy to get a sugar rush, but that’s not funny in battles)

This would be a good level for an online server.

Download recommandation: yes

Nice level.
The music is also nice.
DOWNLOAD RECCOMDEND.

The level was quite good. The tileset use was great, and you have to take in the consideration of what a non-user friendly tileset agama’s egypt tilesets are. The tiles fitted, and the shadows were cool, added more detail. Lots of well placed tiles which made the level more realistic, but it wasnt the best. I felt that some tiles, like the buildings, were underused, and some tiles were a bit overused. Navigation wasnt that good. It was circular and all, but there were several problems. One was that the right side of the level was open, and everyone knows that of you hide in the far right, you’ll become invinsible to shots. This problem could of easily been fixed, and downgraded the rating a bit. Also, near the bottom were the +1 carrot is, it is a complete dead end, which isnt good. There could of been a passage out (other than the one you took in) and i feel the author underlooked this, for you can easily be trapped down there being guarded by another player at the top of the stairway waiting for you to come up so you can take a beating. Some suckerz or warps could of been used instead, or at least make the carrot full energy, because there are powerups in the level which do 2 damage a shot. Bridges could cause divide by zero, but they’re ok. The right side was open at the top, again, and it could of been easily fixed just like the first open side, but it wasnt. The author could pay a bit more attention to these things, so he can get better ratings. The author used vines instead of hooks for better gameplay, and it was easy to get around. The ammo was placed well, but some people may consider it “sparce”. But it was placed in a creative matter, and matched the term “Abit above average” in my eyes. There could of been coins in the level, so you’d have more to explore, but thats my opinion. Springs are nicely placed. I have no idea why the author placed a pole where he did, but he just did. This is because what if you are being chased, and suddenly you run into a pole which takes a few seconds to spin you around, by then your foe will surely catch up and blast you. Anyways, the music fits the level, had an egyptian theme to it. I did find some bugs, but they were tile bugs, so i cant complain to the author i\of this level about that. Instead of a green spring being on the top right near the open space, there could of been a blue spring, which would of fixed the problem completely. Anyways, the cons of this level mainly lie in navigation, and the pros in the tileset use. My overall conclusion is that this is a well structured battle level, a bit on the small side though ^^;;. The author (aka Mr Magoo) overlooked some things which were important and sadly made me change the perfect 8 i was going to give it into a 7.2. I hope that the author keeps making good levels like this, and will learn from my review. That is all.