Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Mixed feelings about this one. I really enjoyed the tower section, the spare carrots and falling icicles. But the difficulty was too high for me. Too many spawning enemies… And the windy section was tricky. The build quality of the level was excellent though.

I sort of remember promising I’d review this, so here we go ;-).

I don’t remember playing the very first versions of this as being a very pleasant experience for some reason. Of course the artwork is nice, the chosen enemies were awesome (except for one) and the level layout is just the way I generally like it. But there was one big something that sort of put me off.

When I started playing I immediately realized that it was the difficulty that put me off in the first place. So my very first action was to go back to the main menu and load the save game for the easy difficulty instead of the medium difficulty (thanks for adding those by the way). I’m a wimp, what can I say. I managed to get through the level only losing a single life this way. The things that made my life most difficult were the trigger happy turtles, and the toaster shooters. Okay, so that’s enough about the difficulty. On to the good stuff, because the difficulty really is the only bone I could pick with it. The level actually is a lot of fun to play.

I never really adored this tileset in particular, but I love the way it looks in JJ1. You made some clever additions too to make it fit in better, like black backgrounds and the splashing waterfall. If I wouldn’t know better I probably would have guessed that it was an original. I also really like the background in this level. It is an interesting purple that fades to blueish, black and even green colors. That might sound weird, but it doesn’t distract the player. I guess most people won’t even notice it during their first run through the level.

The layout of the level is enjoyable. There’s not a huge wealth of pickups and ammo, but it’s well balanced and carrots and checkpoints are in the right places. You can tell from cooba’s style that he enjoys puzzles. There are a few hidden passages and platforms that you need to find before you can advance to the next part of the level. It also occurs a few times that cooba sends you to an area to have you pick up an item that you need to access another area in the level. I personally am a big fan of stuff like this, but I can imagine it’s not everybody’s cup of tea.

A tiny point of criticism: I thought the silver bullet enemy was kind of disappointing. Especially when you look at how much time cooba spent on all of the other sprites. This might have to do with the fact that he decided he’d rather have a level out, than have it sit on his hard drive for another two years though. It’s a tiny flaw for me, but one I can live with. I can imagine that he might not even have bothered to finish the level if he would have had to put in much more time.

Overal: if you like puzzles, Jazz1 and a bit of a challenge, I’d say go for it. Good job cooba.

First of all. I liked the experiment. It’s always great if someone uses your creation and gets all creative. Since Jazz1 reviews are a bit scarce (and being a big fan of the game) I thought I’d review it for you. I played through the episode from start to end and I wrote down some notes while doing so. I’ll walk through them planet by planet, because each planet shares it’s pros and cons.

Level 1 + 2: I like the amount of detail you put in here. The levels are beautiful to see when you look at them from within a level editor. The downside is however that because of Jazz1’s lower resolution you see every misplaced pixel. Every creative use of the Carrotus tileset instantly punishes you because the player sees pixels appear in places where they shouldn’t be. I’m not going to make that affect the rating though because I applaud the creativity. What I really didn’t like though was the variety in pickups. Cherries, grapes, ice-cream, yellow stars, blue stars, they’re all there. Perhaps it’d have been better to stick to a few. The first time I played the second level I almost instantly died, I had no idea there were that many spikes. I suppose you were right when you called it fairly challenging.

Level 3 + 4: These two levels I will remember for the amount of enemies. I thought the spikes were challenging in the second level. You better brush up your blaster before entering this planet. There is a staggering amount of bees in these levels. If you like a challenge you will definitely enjoy these levels. If you are a wimp like me, you probably won’t. I’ve never really been a big fan of this particular tileset but the levels look decent and were crafted well. Where the first two levels felt a bit rushed, I don’t think that is the case with these two. The second level even introduces death pits in Jazz1. Yes, you saw it here first. I never saw it coming and quickly committed a painful suicide without expecting it. The difficulty here is insane, but I understand more than most people how difficult it is to balance a Jazz1 level.

Level 5 + 6: I had looked at converting this tileset to Jazz1 but deemed it impossible. Apparently I was wrong. Even though the colors aren’t as vibrant as they were in Disguise’s original tileset, it was done quite well. It’s just too bad that some of the sprite colors had to suffer. I would also have liked to see the torches on fire but I think the color palette severely limited you. These two levels were less difficult than the previous two, but had some nice puzzles in the form of secret passages that had to be found. I especially liked having to find my way through the last level. Did I mention that these two levels (and the previous two) have an awesome huge dragon enemy? I really liked the sight of those.

Overall: If you enjoy playing the original Jazz Jackrabbit and also like a challenge, this pack is recommended. Blackraptor put in a lot of creativity, and the only reason I’m not giving this a higher rating is because it has some rough edges that could have been polished. It could have been balanced a bit better for example. And I’m also missing some of the finer details such as planet images. Blackraptor did a fine job and I hope he will release an updated version that takes care of my criticism.

I love the lava like waterfalls. And the background sure gives it a nice twist. You should look into this if you want to see something different in Jazz1.
The level seems to be some really strange edit of the first Jazz1 level. Although it is hardly recognizable.

This download consists out of two levels. The first level (ICbattle4.j2l) is a remake of the level that came with the OEM versions of Jazz2. It’s not a perfect conversion but it comes very close. I wouldn’t bother playing it online because it relies heavily on the fact that in the OEM version TNT could do damage to other players. But I would like to note that I think it’s very nice we can play that level with 1.23 now. So it’s a nice added bonus to the remake. Now, let’s rate the actual remake.

Eye Candy
First I would like to mention that the eye candy is superb. It looks very nice, although I can imagine that some people don’t like the amount of foreground eye candy. I myself like that so it won’t affect your rating. There also are a couple of nice touches like the light effects, moth events, and you even see a leaf fly by occasionally. When you look at the original level (ICbattle4.j2l) it becomes obvious why the level needs this much eye candy.

Gameplay
The level isn’t much more than a big open area with some platforms in it. Which is obvious because the creators tried to remake a level with the same problems. They did a nice job disguising the problem with the eye candy I mentioned earlier. And I really don’t want to lower my rating much over this slight problem. They also did lots of things to improve the level flow such as adding a bunch of springs, flow up, and one way events.

Ammo and pickup placement
I think the level is slightly out of balance, it has three carrots and they are quite near to eachother. The variaty of ammo is pretty good as well. There are three power ups to be found, and this should make playing this with couple of people a lot of fun. I’m not sure if I would prefer this for duels though. I don’t really get how I should take the seeker power up, but perhaps I’m not the brightest star out there.

Conclusion
Very nice level nonetheless and the original battle4 is an extra bonus. I will definitely host it a couple of times.

Upload fixed.

I’d take Toxic Waste out, it crashed last year’s server.

What is wakeman doing here?
Anyway, I won’t rate this until you finish the last J2S poll results.

Muwahaha…. revenge… finally..[This review has been edited by Newspaz]

I feel this level is a little bit easy to walk through, for a CTF that is. Also the level has a lot of small paths, which can make it dificult to navigate through. The weapon choice is pretty good, but I do think two powerups is to much for a level this size. Personally I hate power-ups. So it’s just my opinion :).

Conclusion: Nothing to special, but it shouldn’t keep anyone from playing it online one, two maybe even three times ;)

This is exactly what you see when you see new levelbuilders. And you might not be new, but it still is more than clear. The level is to much stretched out. It’s simply to big. Further I think the tileset could have been used better. Like actually using all layers. Because it feels quite empty right now.[This review has been edited by Newspaz]

Tell your dad to practise. And tell him to make sure his eye candy is right next time. I’d rate this a 2.7. But since he made it. I won’t rate it at all.

I must say, I hate the level. It’s to much of the same. But since I love the tileset this much. I just have to give this an eight! This is your lucky day ;)!!

This level is the proof that levels also can have to much eye candy. Which makes it pretty tough to play. But anyway, since it must have taken a pretty long time to make, I’ll give you 7.2 for the effort.

If you like to play in a graphical fest, download this. If you like to play rather play battle1.

I must say, I never rated the original. But I’ve played it online a couple of times. And I must say, I think this one has a better tileset choice. And besides, it was worked out into details just like the original was. Also I feel that the music fits the level fine. It can’t be a down that the file has been used before, why not use it again when it fits!

I’d like to add to Evilmike’s review. That the program does show all servers on the lists. And the checkboxes or input boxes should be no problem, since you will not have to use them if you’ll simply click a server from the list.

I saw this tileset all alone, at the bottom of this list, unrated. And since I like my stuff to be rated as well. I’ll do so for you :).

Okay, the tileset exists out of nice colourfull blocks. And it looks like it can be used in a million of purposes. However, I think it could have been a little bit bigger. And maybe a bit more colourfull.

It is clear that most art in this tileset was pixel art, which means that it presumably was made in paint. Because of that, I think you did a fine job! I was undecided between a 6.7 and a 7. So I think I’ll just give you a hand and pick the 7. :).

-New

This perspective view kind of tileset has been tried before by many others. Including me (remember Meza?). Not everyone succeeded in it. But most atempts turned out pretty wel.

I’d consider this a pretty good atempt. The tileset is used amazingly well in the example level. However I think it is very hard to use.

I’d say it’s worth the try.

Sigh, overrated, overrated. You can’t stick to the rating of three years ago. You must compare it with stuff from the present!

And in that case I have a few words that can put this review together.

-Small
-Low eye candy
-Reasonable design

If you like nostalgia, download this. If you like the best levels available go somewhere else.

This is just bad. And I bet the total of all these levels didn’t even take you 2 hours to build.

The eye candy is terrible, there’s no challenge, no enemies (I don’t know if you know this, but that’s a bad thing!). You use the backgrounds of the levels in a wrong way (as you will notice if you will play in 8 bit mode).

I have seldom seen such a bad pack or level in my life! This is just bad. I repeat do not download this. It is a waste of time! Go do something usefull with your time! I am thinking of sueing you because you took valuable minutes of my life away with this crap!

Same goes for the creator of these levels. Spend time building your levels! This could have been so much levels if you would have spent time and would have came with an original subject.

-New[This review has been edited by Newspaz]

Since this is so high in the rating list at J2O and it only has one review I decided to go and check this one out.

I came to the conclusion that it’s just a rip. I don’t like the way the rip was done, it looks like there were to many colours in the original bmp.

Next to lots of RPG tiles and some Super Mario World tiles it has some coloured blocks, and a few tiles ripped from the carrottus, JJ1: Marbler and beach tilesets.

And besides, the example level didn’t work for me. I was undecided between a 7 and a 6.7 so I made it a 6.7.[This review has been edited by Newspaz]