Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Note that the famous volcano is actually “Mount St. Helens”, not “Mount Helens”.

This level is completely unplayable. The layout is good, the eyecandy is good, in fact, everything about this level is perfectly fine, except for the fact that it does not work at all. When the leader dies, they score 10-20 points each time. It’s because the CTF bases are too close together.

Since this level is utterly worthless to host (being unplayable), I’m rating it 1. I’ll change this if it’s ever fixed.

Since this has been reuploaded, I’ve changed my review as promised. I will give this a new score once I get a chance to play it again. For now I’m keeping it at n/a. Thanks for fixing it!

It’s always good to see people release single player episodes. This particular one is quite good too, and I found it enjoyable to play. It comes from Snooze, who is perhaps best known for his CTF packs, New Ages I, II and III. This is his first major release that is single player, and I hope it’s not going to be his last.

The best part about this pack it its atmosphere. It is set almost entirely within a series of dreams, and because of that the levels take on a somewhat surreal tone. Snooze does a very good job at conveying this theme, with the eyecandy being a particular strong point. In some places it does get a bit weird, but dreams aren’t always normal and logical. One thing I thought was fairly impressive is how some of the levels have different areas that look very different, with the background transitioning and the style of the foreground also changing. Most people would just start a new level to convey this effect, so having it happen within a single level makes it very neat.

The gameplay is also good, though it does suffer a bit due to a few problems. One in particular that I noticed is that the instant-death pits are often hard to spot. You never know when a drop is going to be fatal, and because of that the levels can be a bit more frustrating than they have to be.

I also find that in an action oriented pack, having a QoB-style level early on is a bit disruptive to the overall flow of the levels. I’m not a big fan of maze levels, and this one in particular is difficult due to a lot of obscure triggers. The goal is to find 10 coins. I couldn’t, so I settled with 5, then hit the checkpoint, killed myself, and grabbed those 5 again. That’s a bit of an exploit, but at least I didn’t have to cheat. Call it an alternate solution to the puzzle.

I also thought that the hell level was a bit confusing. It’s more straightforward than the QoB one, but the layout is very open, and I found myself at times not sure where to go next. Also, at the end you wind up with a checkpoint and a dead end. It turns out there’s a hidden tunnel by there, but I couldn’t find it at first.

The final level is a bit different from the others, in that it is more puzzle focused. In a way it’s similar to the QoB level early on, but it’s a lot more action oriented, and I at least enjoyed it (though it took me a while to figure out where to go).

Other than that all of the levels are quite well designed, fun, and challenging. And, due to the very original visual design, you’ll always want to know what’s next.

Like snooze says in the download description, it’s probably a good idea to play this on easy mode unless you are pretty good at single player.

One additional comment I’d like to make is that I found it a bit annoying how the main character (and narrator) of the episode often comments on what he sees. Sometimes this is alright, but sometimes it’s completely unnecessary, because the player can quite easily see what the level looks like. I also thought it was a bit funny how the narrator sometimes comments on how cool/beautiful a certain scene looks. These comments seem to pop up fairly randomly, and come across as the authour of the level complementing himself. I thought this felt a bit arrogant.

Anyway, this is still a great pack, and I highly recommend you download it as soon as possible, since you never know when it’s going to be deleted in a fit of rage.

I really enjoyed this episode. It’s short, and simple, but it features good level design and it’s fun overall.

The train levels are obviously inspried by the level Devan Express, which blurredd made several years ago. This isn’t such a bad thing, because that was a very good level. The levels here are different enough, anyway, since the train featured is quite a lot taller.

I thought the third level in the pack was lazy, though. It’s just a large empty space with wind, an airboard, and a whole lot of float lizards. Gameplay-wise this level was actually not all that bad, since it posed an interesting challenge, but in terms of level design it’s pretty bad. Luckily, this level is very short and didn’t detract too much from my overall opinion of the episode.

I’m giving this a 7.5. I would have given it an 8, but the laziness of the third level is a bit of a downside.

There is a lot of creativity in this level pack. A lot of ideas are featured here which I have never seen before, and the whole concept itself is something new.

I was impressed with the use of events in this episode, particularly to do with the custom boss, and also the puzzle level at the end. The author here shows a sophisticated understanding of JCS, and despite its flaws, this episode is a definite indicator that the person who created it has real talent.

However, the episode is far from perfect. Overall, the levels felt rushed and in some cases unfinished. The lack of pickups of any sort is particularly obvious: there isn’t even any ammo. Enemies are minimal, but that’s not as big of a problem since the levels still pose a challenge.

The tileset that most of the levels use is creative, but ugly. I liked the idea of a level made entirely of computer code or whatever, but the scenery is far too repetitive after the first level. I would have liked to see more variation.

Story-wise, the episode is interesting, but ends in a strange way, with no real resolution to the plot. I thought this was a bit too abrupt.

I’m giving this a download recommendation because of the creativity featured here, but a score of 4 because I honestly feel that a better attempt could have been made with the episode.

I look forward to seeing what you release in the future, but I suggest that you send it out to people for testing and feedback before uploading, and focus on making the levels more dynamic.

Tools like this have been around for a long time. This is the first to be put on j2o though.

I’d like to warn everyone who thinks of using this, of one particularly important fact. Especially because of this comment:

“ I hope evilmike makes some for his single players.”

Too many episode files will cause jj2 to crash on loading the episode menu. Know this before you think of making a custom j2e, and make sure you put a warning in the description of any episode that contains one. Personally, I advise against making one at all.

Because of this fact, I do not, and likely will never use a tool such as this. I had the option of doing so years ago and I deliberately chose against it.

Lark says that the name of this tileset doesn’t fit, but it’s actually perfect. I was actually surprised to see how much detail is in this tileset and how well it follows the theme of a gothic cathedral. Gothic in this sense does not mean dreary or depressing, it is simply an architectural style which was commonly used in medieval times, characterized by things like pointed arches, large windows and flying buttresses (which are present in the tileset). Most of these churches are anything but dreary.

Overall this is a great tileset. The author is obviously extremely talented, and knows how to make a tileset that is very unique. The attention to detail is what really sets it above most others, but everything else about the tileset is excellent too, including the art style.

Did you really need to upload five files for this

Is there a readme or description or something? Looking at the screenshot kind of gives an idea, but what does it exactly do? Does it just record singleplayer games, or can it do multiplayer too? Is it anything like the demo that plays if you leave jj2 on the title screen long enough?

I like the flaming shaney heads.

This is a fairly solid level pack. It starts off poorly though, only picking up about 3 or 4 levels in. After that the quality of the levels jumps considerably. There are still some annoying elements though (find the hidden crate!!!). The ending left me rather amused since it’s so… unique, so this gets 0.5 bonus points for that.

The level design here is spectacular, with gameplay elements that are unique to this level pack. Some of it does get a bit repetitive, but it never gets boring. It’s too bad this pack is unfinished, which is why I’m not giving it a 10. If this had a proper story and a bit more polish to the levels, it would probably be the best jj2 episode ever.

I had high expectations for this tileset and it turned out even better than I thought it would be. It’s a very hard to use tileset, but luckily it comes with a good example level that showcases everything that can be done with it. This is one of the best tilesets I have seen in ages.

This is a great jj1 conversion, especially since it uses tiles from so many different places. Probably the best jj1 conversion I have ever seen. But I’m not really sure why this deserves a 10, so it gets a 9. Even agama didn’t get this many 10’s.

A note before I get started with the review itself: the zip file includes the levels within its own subfolder. I do not recommend doing this, since it makes it inconvenient to unzip.

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This is an interesting level. The layout and theme here is pretty original, and I can see a fair amount of potential in the authour here. The level seems like it was put together with care. A couple of things, such as the usage of trigger zones inthis level, show a level of complexety rarely seen in levels such as this. Unfortunately, a few critical flaws bring the score down.

Most of the level takes place within a series of narrow tunnels underneath the sand. Navigation through them is slow, but safe. Above them on the surface one may move much faster, but will also be open to attack. The bases are out in the open, near entrances to the caverns. The level is asymmetrical, but seemingly balanced.

I like the look of this level. A lot of detail was put into the eyecandy, without allowing it to become distracting or excessive. The background inside the caves is a bit bland, but not ugly.

Despite all this, the level suffers from a number of mistakes. The most striking one is that all of the ammunition is in crates. Ammo crates are problematic, since after a while they tend to create large dumps of ammo which lag players. It is generally recommended that floating ammo pickups are used instead.

Another problem is that this level has no carrots (that I could find, at least). The level has only one powerup, but even then, there should be AT LEAST one carrot in the level, even if it’s a +1. Without health pickups, CTF games are not not very interesting.

Finally, this level uses a large number of hurt events. These events will ONLY hurt the server. Other players will never take damage from them. This is rather awkward and disadvantageous for the person hosting the server.

The mistakes in this level strike me as “newbie mistakes”. Errors that are made from a lack of experience more than anything. If I had to guess, this level is one of the authour’s first CTF levels.

This level tells me that the person who made it is actually quite talented, and knows how to use JCS with some degree of proficiency. My recommendation to the authour is that he remake this level, fixing the errors in it and improving it where he sees fit. Learn the vital elements of a good CTF level by examining what is popular, and have other people play the level and give feedback in a server. Follow their advice if they seem to know what they are talking about, and it’s impossible to go wrong.

I’m giving this a 6 because of the problems I encountered in this level. With fixing, I could easily see this level as being worth a 7, or possibly even an 8 if the improvements are big enough. Don’t let the rating discourage you: beneath all of the problems, there is actually a very good level here!

This is a very unique level, which is appropriate since it was an entry to a level contest which specifically asked for unusual elements. This level is certainly unconventional, with a number of elements that you won’t find in many other levels. Despite that, the level avoids being gimmicky, which is somewhat of a feat considering that it’s hard to build a level around unusual concepts without relying on them too much.

Three full nrg carrots seems to be a bit high for a level of this size, but the large quantity of powerups plus the death pits might help to offset that a bit. Still, I can forsee some problems occurring because of that. If players take into consideration that the pits are bascially full health in exchange for all your weapons, players without the flag might feel that they shouldn’t grab the carrots. This in turn could lead to flagcarriers being rather difficult to kill, and might encourage camping. People playing this level will need to adapt their playstyle so that they grab the carrots regardless of their position, instead of using a more conservative playstyle where they leave the carrots for the flagcarrier and call out when the carrots spawn.

The coin warp also seems like it might be a bit problematic, since once you get up there, there isn’t much of a way anyone can hit you without them entering the coin warp themselves. And the presence of a full nrg carrot up there means that a player who is determined enough could probably hold that position for quite some time, defending it from other players and using the carrot to heal up. Granted, the warp target is right underneath the carrot, meaning that players exiting the warp should be able to grab it before the person defending the spot, but that’s only if the carrot hasn’t been shot out of the way.

This level gets an 8. Out of the four levels that were being judged, this one was my favourite.

I have uploaded a fix to the problem with levels cycling. If you don’t want to redownload, just jjnxt if it happens.

There wont be one unless this gets more reviews.

This is an overall solid pack. While the levels are very linear and aren’t extremely original, they are well constructed and pretty fun. The lack of a story does lead to some problems though, since this means the pack is just a series of levels with no real point. This can lead to boredom in some areas.

I noticed a couple of fairly large bugs in this pack. Electro blaster can be abused to get powerups, and hit save points (you can skip pretty much the entire last level this way). Also, when you come back from the bonus level, there is no water which means you can touch the bottom of the level.

Event placement is well done for the most part. Annoying enemies like ravens and dragonflies were a bit too common in my opinion though. I also thought that powerups were placed in far too easy areas, and that made the coin warps pretty pointless.

Overall the quality of this pack is roughly on par with the standard jj2 singleplayer. The tileset even has a different pallete for the second level using it, like standard jj2.

I give this an 8.5. Most of these levels are around 7.0 quality, but this pack overall deserves more than that.

I just played through this level, and I have to so that while some parts were fairly enjoyable, others were simply too annoying or confusing. Two areas in particular that bothered me were the sort of “bind maze” area in the start, and then the area where it tells you to “input code” or whatever which didn’t make much sense at all.

Enemies are somewhat sparse, but so are carrots. Because of this the level is somewhat challenging. One problem though is a lack of save points, which means that if you want to avoid frustration you have to save a lot. I don’t really like to use the save feature in the middle of levels, but I found I was forced to here.

The level starts out quite atmospheric, with a nice look to it and lots of layer 3 everywhere. It really makes you feel closed in. Unfortunately, the entire level pretty much looks the same, and it is quite large. The tileset doesn’t offer much, but I’ve always thought that large levels should use more versatile tilesets.

Despite the drawbacks of this level, it does have its merits. The level doesn’t really make you feel like you are on any sort of contrived “path”. The level is still quite linear, but areas branch out enough to make it seem more natural. I also liked the music choise, becuase it successfuly transformed a hellish tileset into something that feels more cold and empty.

I’m giving this level a 7. It’s a decent effort, but the annoyances that can be found in it prevent me from rating it an 8.