Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Evilmike asked formore reviews here I have one. It’s very short but ok.
This episode with invasion of deserto are the best packs I’ve ever played. I thought the first one was very good but this one is just GREAT. It has great story, it is difficult and has many new things in it. Well I hope there come more reviews soon because I can’t wait for ep3

Arjan

While I’m not really a talented reviewer, I’ll give my best shot commenting on this pack. Some of the cons was the eye candy. While Evilmike sure did focus on getting the levels huge, there was no special touches in this that drove you..

What am I saying?!? This thing rocks. Go download it now. The levels are worked well through, the music zooms you into the levels. Jumping from spaceship to spaceship and destroying a whole fleet, performing advanced missions such as destroying central computers, this pack brings an amazing new style.

Go save the universe, fanboy!

An extremely solid episode containing a few revolutionary concepts involving the aforementioned alternative endings. The deepest most involving story to have ever been told in a jj2 pack and debatably any other two demensional game. The author has spent a great deal of time perfecting this episode, there are very few if any aspects that seem tacked on or reflect the author being lazy at all.

There is nothing more to be said. This pack is for everyone. It doesn’t get any better than this. You won’t be disappointed.

fs

Edited Section
I just want to add that I am STILL playing (or trying) your episode on hard, rather than playing World of Warcraft. Keep up the good work, Mike, and don’t let me down on the third!

Starting Comments
The long awaited sequel to Invasion of Deserto is finally here! I finished this episode after a long night and seven cups o’ coffee, but I did it!

Story
As for the story… It’s a little… Well, err… Basic. Devan this, evil scheme that. BUT! (There always is a but…) This one is not about mass destrustion or stealing diamonds and girlfriends! This story is one of the GREATEST DEVAN RELATED STORIES I have ever hear of. Ofcourse I won’t tell more details, play it yourself.
Story = Great

Balance
This pack sure was hard. Hard as in “KICK SOME LIZARD” hard! The puzzles were amazing, the enemies and ammo were well placed, but it was hard. I finished it in easy (Both endings(!)) and still had a tough time. Although, the fact that I made it through this pack says a LOT!
Balance = Nearly Perfect (True perfect does not exist.) :P

Eyecandy
First, I have never seen Top Secret used like this. This isn’t Top Secret anymore, this is ‘teh b0mb’. The first level was the best, IMO. You really feel like being in a scorching hot desert area… :)
Eyecandy = Super!

Originality
I noticed many of the things I saw in this episode were also in my latest project. I am not saying that you stole them (Or that I stole them…), but I also have multiple endings, layer 5 speed used to make you move faster, vehicles such as the escape pod, etc. Although, I won’t complain about this any further. :)
Originality = Nice to others, but because I knew it already, just a little bland. ;)

Score
This nice pack DESERVES to be a nice pack, and should be rated as such. If you played Invasion of Deserto, this pack is a MUST2PLAY for you! And, if you didn’t, I suggest you scroll down Mike’s download page and GET IT NOW!
Score = 9,5

Any bonusses/substractions
Nothing TOO MUCH outstanding to earn a bonus… No flaws, either. ;)
Bonus = 0

Download Recommendation
Ah, heck, why not. :)

Further comment
I hope you are motivated enough now. :) I’d like to hear from you sometimes. You got my MSN, dontcha?

I can’t wait for Episode Three. And I will review it again. You can count on it. :)

Haven’t posted a review in a long time, and I didn’t exactly take notes on everything, but here is an impression.

Design -10
Brilliant. Very, very evil, but brilliant. The levels look very authentic. I’d often really sit and just look at the screen thinking “Prettyyyy…”… and the way you revisit places throughout the story, and how they change and affect stuff… a very powerful effect. Can’t really be done any better in such a simple game.

Challenge -9.5
Challenge indeed. It was there a-plenty. However, there were also a bunch of places that were just unfair. Oftentimes you’d suddenly walk into enemies without having any chance to evade them. At least a carrot follows right after most of the most unfair spots, but still.
However, apart from those points, the pack is excellent in this field. There were many great challenges that were just that: Challenging. In the ???? level, I almost panicked when I suddenly found that a lot of the bees instantly respawned after being shot, but when I got a grip of the situation, it was just challenging to evade bees. Rushing through a landscape fleeing from and destroying enemies all the time is a quite interesting gaming sensation, very different from what you usually get, which is either a crapload of enemies all over the place or a few very meanly placed ones, which slows down gameplay a lot.
Another really cool place was the one in the end of the castle with the collapsing scenery and freeze enemies.
Examples of unfair places are the room with the animated disappearing blocks and the spikes underneath in the Temple, which is extremely hard to beat with Spaz, as well as one spot in the castle where you have to bomb through pillars with spikes inbetween, where the TNT is quite likely to just blow you right into the spikes, and a place right after that with a high wall right after you fall down a pit at the bottom of which two bats will immediately attack.. I never did figure out how to get up there without cheating… although that probably doesn’t count as an unfair spot.
Anyway.

Story -8.7
The story seems decent. Of course, I cannot say much about it yet, not knowing about plot twists that will follow, although I can guess that Devan will be resurrected in the second episode… it has been done before, but the plot works well in that it creates suspense, with unexpected plot-twists such as the setting of the bomb.
I don’t know what was up with Bilsy and the green place, but oh well. I hope it will be explained in a later episode.

And before I sputter any more unintelligible nonsense, take a few extra points for cool stuff like effects ( teleport-effect, flood, intro and outro, eavesdropping scene, etc. ), and take the 9.5.

Okay, Im gonna make this review quite quick, so I will say what is happening overall. EM made a very sexy SP pack, which is probably the best on J2O. So many things are original about it, and this to be quite honest, nails everything. This beats Hocus Pocus, this beats lost world so HAHAHAHA. EM Poons you all.

Overall Eyecandy
Rating : 9.7
Comments
Well, overall, I didn’t expect much eyecandy as quite old and limited tilesets. But Evilmike surprised us again. Using crippled tiles, pipes, waterfalls, and a lot of amazing things. Lights, a whole new eyecandy feel to many tilesets. Waz 03 has a new colour for tiles and such. It keeps going on. There are shadows for once in deserto, Tarlet CLM and loads more! There are even bee-nests in one of the levels, and a lot of destructing scenery. Even … See for yourself.

Gameplay
Rating : 9.7
Comments
The feel is great and the gameplay is so good. There are secrets, bonuses, tactics, choices to make, and loads of places to go. The feel of this is amazing. There is even a new boss working. The rocket turtle is quite easy to beat if you use your brain. And there are also spike effects, sideways, upside-down. Even spikes that arent in the tileset. See JCS for that if you want to know how. There is a lot of difficulty in areas, and a lot of ease and repetition in others. The pack even has its own 3 difficulties. Does it rock or what? The one thing I dislike, that it is possible to get infinate pts. Gj =(

Layout
Rating : 10.0
Comments
Don’t ask why you got a 10 already. You just rock, or your levels do at least. Anyway, the levels all fit together, it fits in such a good way. Like you loop the whole thing. You visit the western barricade twice. And obviously the sewers and many other places. This pack just keeps on getting better!

Placement
Rating : 9.0
Comments
I guess the ammo is distributed very fairly, you get PUs at nice times for nice reasons, although there are a few pointless things here and there. The gems and food and everything is so sexy. You rock.

Overall
Rating : 9.5
Comments
I love myself and this pack, so make 2. ;)

changing my review to QR, as i thought my original one sucked. anyway, this pack is great.

I’m giving you low rating. Why? Because you’re very annoying person – you’re insulting players in your comments (see above and the readme file). Releasing a levelpack doesn’t make you a god. It wouldn’t be bad if I’d enjoyed this pack a bit, but I didn’t – it’s not about difficulty it’s about: I’m not going to dance how you play me… sorry. Whole levelpack is not as hard as … just boring, especially because there was no gameplay flow and I had to find something hidden too much times. Putting the action on the desert probably made it easier to not care too much about eyecandiness.
In case you are stupid or just suck: the rating would be higher if your attitude was different, but not much since I didn’t enjoy playing these levels. And it was an insult for me that I couldn’t play for long with Lori character.

[Unsupported rating removal (5.0). You’ve given invalid reasons for your rating. Please only take into consideration the quality of the download when rating, not your dislike of the author. – FQuist]

I might as well review this, since Mike wants more reviews. I’ve been putting this off for a while now (every time I was about to play it, something/someone interrupted me and I ended up doing something else).

Basically, one of the first things that made me like this pack was that it had a storyline. Thankfully, it didnt have to do with Devan or saving Carrotus, and it was written well enough for a jj2 pack.

The levels were all either extremely huge or extremely short. Some were extremely hard to beat, some were relatively easy providing you were a bit careful. Lots of them had some original stuff in them.

The structure of the levels was nice. They weren’t extremely linear, but often times I had no idea what to do in certain parts (like what to bomb with my TNT, in the castle level). The difficulty was kinda insane though. Some things seemed almost unavoidable, and I lost over 15 lives trying to beat this pack.

The eyecandy of the levels ranged from average to beautiful. I loved the eyecandy in the level using Dark Reign, and the level based around a really old part of the temple. The only thing that brought down the rating a bit was the repetetiveness. Because the storyline was based around Deserto, most levels were forced to use the Deserto set, and seeing Deserto almost everywhere kinda got dull. Otherwise, Mike did a great job on eyecandy throughout the pack.

The originality of the pack was one of the things that I found shined to me the most. Where else could you find a level where you had to chase down a Rocket Turtle, or jump through a part that looked like it had no gravity in it (in terms of the secret level)? To sum it up, this is one of the most original packs I’ve seen (Along with Blur’s Unleashed Demo).

The placement of stuff was alright. I didn’t really mind the lack of things like non-purple gems (in fact, I didn’t even notice it really). Carrots were a bit sparce when I played in medium mode, but they were still there when I needed them in areas. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten 20 purple gems in any of the levels yet, but I came pretty close a few times.

To sum up my review, The Invasion of Deserto is a must download pack. It has a lot of great ideas implemented in it, that guaranteed you probably won’t see anywhere else, and it was (at least for me) an enjoyment to play. I’ll give this pack a 9.2, and definately a download reccomendation. Hopefully Mike will release more stuff like this in the future.

There were very few gems because gems are stupid worthless items that do nothing important. I only used them in cases where they created an effect.

Hmm. Interesting, really. I mean the level design was cool: 5 points for it. Monsters were well placed: 2 more points. But the interesting part: Don’t you think, I’ts a bit boring to return to the Temple again & again??? So I think, that’s -3 points. But the ending was very cool, so I think, it worth 5 more points, so in the end: 9 points.

Download recommendation: YESYESYES – Download it now…

An amazing level pack!

A huge level pack with lots of fun! Here’s my review:

Good points: The levels are huge, hard to beat and enjoyable
The enemies and ammo placements were really good!
Also there were wonderfull ideas like collecting purple gems can bring you some awards!
And Rocket Turtle Boss was amazing!! I didn’t know that you could make him move with Area ID. It really rocks!
And the use of tileset was also fine! I liked the tilesets. (Except the castle one) And they were used intelligently!

Bad Points: In a level, it causes an error and you have to start from the begginning!
The levels were reallly good, but you were always at the same place, and saying i’ve been there! And this made the level a bit boring.
The goodies could have been placed better. There would be more gems and carrots.

Overall it could make 8.5, but the rocket turtle idea impressed me, so it makes 8.7 :)

Level one barely touches on the challenges of the next levels, and it’s still pretty damn hard, nice work!
(Unsupported rating (10) removal. This is a good try, but it would be appreciated if you spoke of more than just the difficulty… especially as we don’t really know what these challenges you mentioned are, from reading this review. ~Violet)

Alright.. I haven’t played it all, but I guess here goes something.. XD

The first level, I don’t know the level, but I swear that the tileset could be a small bit better. Even though I recognize it’s a JJ1 conversion, the sands there didn’t need to be.. Outlined, still, it’s a good “Intro-before the Action” type level. The eyecandy isn’t much, but I guess it’s enough not to keep you bored.

Rating: 6/10
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The second level, where the enemy killing begins, there’s a lot of uses for the Skeleton guys here, and certainly quite a bit of the Underground mazes, traps, travels and flight that’s needed there, the “Insta-Killing pit” event there is pretty simple to intermediate Jazzers, sometimes uppercuts and speed are needed to access secret high-areas. Which fondle somewhere in the sky, though the placement of some enemies, like directly you get hurt by an enemy once you come onto a platform. It’s rather annoying.. Still, this is a good level for starting out quickly. The eyecandy, as in the background and such is pretty basic, but better than the first level at the very least.

Rating: 7/10
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The third level, from what I remember, is that Egyptian like cave, the Temple they have, it’s rather amazing the uses of events are there, but still, the eye-candy lacks it’s appearances in these levels. The enemy placement in here is OK though. It’s rather easy to beat in Easy or Medium mode for an intermediate. However, this doesn’t mean that you should be rejoicing on the difficulty..

Rating: 7.5/10
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I ain’t good at remembering levels, but if I guess right, the fourth level is the Underground Temple, now THIS level has a good dosage of eyecandy, the problem here are the crashing Spike-balls in this level, I avoided shooting them as the author requested, freezing them was a good alternative however. The enemy placement is very good in here, however it’s also very tricky to the human eye. Sometimes a purple-bat may just appear out of a layer 3 covered corner, surprising the player and taking away one of his lives.

Rating: 8.5/10
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Fifth level, if I remember correctly, is the surface of the Temple again, though it still lacks eye candy, it’s still a strong challange like the Underground Temple level…

Rating: 7/10
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Alrighty.. That’s how much I exactly played, if I remember correctly, now based off this rating, I’d give this.. 9.2

[Unacceptable rating (9.2) clearance. Never rate level packs if you haven’t played them to the end. ~Cooba]

Wow this is great, ill review after some playing.

The Invasion of Deserto is, in my opinion, one of those rare SP level packs that comes around every once and a while, suprises everyone, and becomes a staple pack many users will look back fondly upon. It has a good storyline that is more than just a thin set of ideas to tie the levels together, you are actually playing along and interacting with it most of the time. It is also quite challenging with a variety of obstacles. There are areas that emphasize puzzles, your skills in maneuvering, simply killing enemies, and complex mixes of the three.

A lot of thought went into the placement of everything in the levels and you can tell. There is plenty of creativity that will make the pack refreshing for any seasoned jj2 player but it’s not (usually) too difficult for the newer players either. Sometimes you might get stuck in a certain part only to discover a more counterintuitive method to solve the same problem.

The general theme of the pack is somewhat similar to Tomb Rabbit and Another Story. You’re on a mission to see why Deserto was invaded and stop everything, but there’s a larger storyline going on that doesn’t get to finish (until Episode 2 and beyond). The Deserto tileset, though not seen much and rather unappreciated, starts to get old sometimes, but there is enough variation and the levels are usually just long or short enough. You revisit areas to discover new paths and even get to play some parts backwards. The non-Deserto levels are also particularly well made (though sometimes they just seem to be there so to allay the Deserto monotony). Also, because of things like the revisitting, levels tend to be very large and therefore you cannot save in them. This is abated by save levels right before these, however for those save-whores out there it’s annoying.

I can’t think of much else to say. I was able to beta test the pack and have been anticipating its release. This is a very enjoyable, original, challenging, and even important piece of work. Do yourself a favour and play it how it was meant to be played. Then write a review so that we can see the sequel. With that, I give this pack a 9.5. Packs like these only come around so often.

On a final note, I also encourage people to play the extra level. I got to play it a while ago and was quite impressed – you’ll see some things done with JCS you were unaware were possible.

Heeheeheehee, Evilmike’s level, that is untitled, heeheeheehee, i sound retarded, heeheeheehee, and this review is going to suck, heeheeheehee. Ok, it’s a good level yet again by Mike. I maybe a n00b, but i don’t care. N00bing owns all. Ok, to the review:

Quite a few tactics i will share in this level. Heeheeheehee, ok:
- Shooting bouncers and electro blasters and camping the carrot at the same time.
- Getting the copter at the red base and goin through the suckertube that pushes you away from the seeker powerup.
- Getting the copter at the blue base or going from the “Full NRG” a going into the wall where there seems to be some sort of crystal and warping to the powerup.
- Getting the +1 carrot when someone else in camping the full one.
- Shooting fastfires at full speed and powered up and all full speed.
- Shooting weapons through the constantly used suckertubes.
- Shooting the carrot down and confusing people, like snooze, i did this to him in Distopia, and he thought the carrot wasn’t respawning, and then i did it here, trust me, it’s funny.
NOTE : I hope this comes out right.

Eyecandy:
My rating: 8.5
Comments: Nothing too original, there isn’t something you glare at and adore, but there is noticable eyecandy. It could be better, but I’ve never used this tileset, because i don’t like it too much. No offence to Disguise. The tileset is good, but i don’t like it.

Layout:
My Rating: 9.5
Comments: Nice solid layout, that even looks solid, seems a very little bit platformy, but is solid. The trees would be cooler is they weren’t in the way. Waaaaa >(

Pickup Placement:
My Rating: 9.5
Comments: Ok… the placement owns, but isn’t to my standards! (It is a joke… duh, your too dumb) And also, there is one incy wincy bad thing, the fast fires and powerup, should not be so close to the Full NRG. All i wanted to say.

General Gameplay:
My Rating: 8.5
Comments: I find some parts annoying such as some on the springs in the way, and the copters blocking the way and making a dead-end, causing you to have to wait for it to spawn, but you can be lucky.

Overall:
My Average Rating: 9.0
Download: Yes
Host often: Yes
Learn from: Yes
Duel here: Yes
2v2 or above here: Yes

;/ This is an overplayed level, though i also play in it a lot. Though this level is quite proffesionally made, and nicely solid. There are a few tactics that can be learned easily here, but there aren’t too many: – Shooting bouncers down from the full NRG – Shooting RFs and/or peppermints to get people easily – Shooting through the bridge with seekers or bouncers – Shooting ammo through the suckertubes – Camping like an idiot – Shooting bouncers through walls Oh well, im sure i missed some, onto the review : Eyecandy : My rating : 7.0 Comments : The eyecandy isn’t something you notice when you look, at the level. It isn’t too original, but with what there is, it looks average. I would expect something waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better on a level played this much or rated that high. Placement : My Rating : 10.0 Comments : I’m not really good at rating ammo placement but i can say it is really good, the way the ammo is all seperate and not placed in a bad way. Layout : My Rating : 9.0 Comments : Again, i’m not a good reviewer, but i have to say the layout is nice and solid, and has tactics to it like CAMPING. Well, all the platforms or blocks in different ways or placement is good. Gameplay : My Rating : 8.5 Comments : The level is camping biased, and the suckertubes are irriatating in how you wait outside one and see someone come and then they get annihilated. Well, the rest is good though, because of the tactics though usually really popular levels have more, but i like it like this. OVERALL : Average Rating : 8.7 Learn From : Yes Host often : Yes but as overhosted as it is.

Wakeman rated this upload with two stars on Jazz2City.

Time for a review.
First impressions: A level by EvilMike of OLC and DM, which is underrated imo.
Gameplay: Very Good. This r0x, like R3ptile said. That idea of the level was so original, and the kayout was very original too. Like R3ptile also said, the level has not too many camp places. The size of the level may be quite strange, but I like it. This level doesn’t even need alot of springs. The gameplay is already very good(even without springs). The level seems quite big, and I like that too.
Conclusion gameplay: Pros: Everything.
Cons: Nothing.
Eye candy/Tileset use: Good/Very Good. Nothing really special here, but it’s quite good imo. I think the tileset is used well, and I kinda like it. There isn’t too many, but some places had nice eye candy. Others didn’t have, and that’s probably why the eye candy isn’t perfect or very good.
Conclusion eye candy/tileset use: Pros: The tileset is used well, and there are some places with nice eye candy. Cons: There could be more eye candy in some places.
Pickup placement: Very Good. I love the placement here. There is alot of ammo and there is enough in every place. There is a full energy placed in the middle of the level. There are fly carrots, which prevent you from falling I think. They’re also used for the fun I guess. And the originality. There are 3 Power-Ups, A Seeker, Toaster and Bouncy PU. The Bouncy PU is placed at the left-top of the level. There is less bouncy ammo there then Toaster ammo at the right side(with the PU too). The groups of ammo are mostly placed 5 × 2 or 6 × 2 or 7 × 2 × 3 ammo. There is also ammo on that small platforms, which you can get without jumping. The Seeker PU is placed in the centre of that two PU, where are 5 platforms. And the Seeker PU is placed on the 3rd platform of them.
Conclusion Pickup placement: Pros: Everything what needs to be good.
Cons: Nothing.
Originality: Good/Very Good. Yes, this level is very original. I give the complete 8.5 points for it. First: The excellent layout. Second: That interesting use of islands. Third: The placement of that fly carrots. Fourth: The tileset that’s used. And fifth: The music in the level.
Fun Factor: This level is very fun to play. The bases are easy to defend, but not too easy to kill the opponent after one hit. The RF PU would be nice here, but it doesn’t matter. You can kill he opponent with a RF or Bouncer than too. The full energy is placed on the ground, which prevent it from falling.
Conclusion fun factor: A very fun level.
Others: Host this: Yes.
Download: Yes.
Final Rating: 8.5.
- DarkSonic of XSD, CC and XLM -
[This review has been edited by da man]