Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

While most of the levels are dated and feature questionable design choices (campy Seek PUs galore), the pack nonetheless has an undeniable “cool factor”, and has been an influence on my own CTF levels – Botanica and Stone Ways in particular. The pack may be far from perfect, but there’s definitely some interesting concepts here and there.

Enough talk. Finely produced and put together, Another OLC Battle Pack is definitely worth your time. Both JCS expertise and creative prowess are exhibited. OLC clearly understand not only how follow the standards, but also how to experiment successfully and push the boundaries without going overboard. Highly recommended.

imo buildings in the impossible metropolis are upside down :/

Moonlit Harbor

Gameplay: 9.0/10.0 – There’s a great placement of platforms. You don’t bump on them like in DW. This level has a great flow. It’s hard to camp here and I like it. The best place in this level is on top, it’s so open and only good players will survive there. The only thing I didn’t like is platform on 20,20. It should have had the one way event placed on it.

Pickups: 7.7/10.0 – A lot of ammo on a few places. And everywhere is the same ammo. For me, it’s better to mix ammo instead of adding only one ammo on some place. Carrot is well placed. Hard to camp there, reachable by 3 ways. Power Ups are placed on different sides of level what makes them hard to hog – less camping on a certain PU. Everyone will pick another PU, what makes this level all-round played.

Eyecandy: 8.0/10.0 – Nothing special, saw this before (I think it’s ELC’s level, but not sure). The best part is again – on top. I like the floating island-city on the sea. I see it like that :P. Nice idea, really!

Overall: 8.2

Alienation: Abridged

Gameplay: 9.5/10.0 – Haven’t seen better gameplay so far. Float is excellent, springs are on the best positions. Couldn’t be better. People can camp here, but there is actually no a safe place to camp at.

Pickups: 9.0/10.0 – Better pickups in this level than in previous one. I like the color of pickyps. Fits with level’s default green. It’s really colorful. Makes me feel happy.

Eyecandy: 9.0/10.0 – Original. I guess it wasn’t easy to make anything in this level, because of the tileset, but the eyecandy is just perfect ;).

Overall: 9.2

The Impossible Metropolis

Gameplay: 8.0/10.0 – This is squarish level. I am not a big fan of it. A lot of dead ends, such as the one at 10,40. You can’t go down, so you’re in trap. Should be able to go down at 49,21 too. A lot of “secrets” with springs and tubes. Hard to notice tubes and where are they going.

Pickups: 8.5/10.0 – Not bad at all, but again one ammo at one place. Again, should be mixed. PUs are nice placed ilke the carrots are.

Eyecandy: 7.7/10.0 – Already used in lots of levels. It doesn’t look natural when you’re falling in the pit. Buildings are flipped upside-down imo.

Overall: 8.1

Eye of the Storm

Gameplay: 8.5/10.0 – I am not impressed. Maybe it’s too empty and open, but you probably wanted it to be like that. Hard to notice some walls what makes the momentum stop immediately. I am talking about walls at 108,29.

Pickups: 8.2/10.0 – A lot of ammo, but it’s a battle level! Not sure what is spawntime, but if it’s over 20 it’s good. Otherwise, there should be less ammo. Carrot placement is great. Also the PUs are balanced. top, left and right.

Eyecandy: 9.0/10.0 – It’s good. Could’ve got bigger rating only if there were not those disturbing falling objects in layer 1/2 or 3.

Overall: 8.6

There’s Mithril in Them Hills!

Gameplay: 8.7/10.0 – Good enough to get this rating. I just don’t know what’s for a tile at 39,20. Why is it a hspring at 91,29? I would like to see a normal blue spring instead.

Pickups: 8.0/10.0 – Needs less ammo on more places. I like the placement of RF ammo where the carrot is. Carrot is placed well, but should be able to get it from right side, too. That wall shouldn’t be there.

Eyecandy: 7.5/10.0 – Just a normal background with some buildings or whatever they are. The caves in the ground are okay, but imo, there should be more cave tiles.

Overall: 8.1

Fall Era

Gameplay: 8.7/10.0 – There are nice platforms. You can easily go to another one. It deserves 8.7.

Pickups: 8.5 – Needs less ammo on more places. Just like in the previous level. Carrot placement is great. Easy to camp, but hard to control because it’s too open. I like it.

Eyecandy: 9.7/10.0 – One word: IMPRESSIVE! I like the theme. Foliage on the ground is the thing what is enchanting me the most.

Overall: 9.0

Doomed Citadel

I won’t make categories. The biggest level, the best one. Everything is excellent. Shouldn’t speak more. Try it and you will believe me. I guess this is for 64 players! Can’t be better.

Overall: 10.0/10.0

Overall rate for all levels: 8.7

Music fits excellent in every level, so I give +0.5 on overall rating.

Pack rating: 9.2

Download recommended!

All right, I promised Cooba a quality review for this on the Review Exchange thread, so here I go.

I’ll start this off with Big Apple Beatdown, since that was the first one I played. When I hear about featuring anything related to cities or the like, I think, “Oh, Lord. It’s gonna be another poorly executed Turtleville debacle”.

Thankfully, in this case it was not.

Big Apple uses the Industrius tileset expertly, the level being built in a tall vertical style that evinced the sensation of climbing higher and higher within a city. I liked how I (the player) was constantly moving higher and higher.

Continuing in that vein, it would’ve been really nice to have seen a lot of wide open space at the top, to symbolize having reached the rooftops, as opposed to the current sensation of getting partway up the building and stopping. It kills the mood a little…but not enough to seriously hurt the level. Events are placed well and nothing quirky or stupid was present, so I was, overall, quite pleased with BAB.

And now, for Precinct 83.

Let’s be honest. TechNoir (not many people get the capital “N” right) is a pain in the donkey to use. It’s so limited, the conversions out there right now are incomplete and frustrating, and it takes a skilled levelbuilder to make anything remotely engaging with the set.

That’s why I was so pleased to find Precinct so solidly built and so cleverly executed. While the background does leave a lot to be desired and the eyecandy gets a little monotonous after a while, it’s never enough so to completely turn me (the reviewer) off. Structure is sound, events are pretty well placed, and for a CTF it’s pretty fun.

If you know me, you know that I do very little CTF’ing, so that’s a high compliment.

Anyway, this level was fun, and it made respectable use of a lousy tileset. Definitely a plus in my book.

Perhaps the only real drawback (if you can call it that) is that the musics were…well, not very original. Both levels use the standard TechNoir and Industrius songs, and we’re talking about the standard versions, not some cool remixes. Granted, it was better than using a couple of really dumb or unfitting songs, but it would’ve been neat to see some creativity in that department.

Oh, well. We can’t all get what we want in life, can we?

Is OLC’s Jazz 1 CTF Pack worth a download? I think so. Both levels were playable, fun and clean of major gaffes, so that was good. I had fun playing it, and heartily recommend its download. You’ll have fun. I know you will.

Crimi: It’s supposed to loop to the first level: http://www.jazz2online.com/downloads/3195/olc-battle-pack/

The last level doesn’t loop. Just wanted to let you know.

Impressive!!
Enough said…

Next generation of amazing Battle levels just got uploaded on J2O. Download this now!

Alien Temple ][? Hell yeah.

To all who thought it was too easy to obtain seeker powerup in my level; it was.

I apologize but we accidentally uploaded it with spawntime of 3s instead of 30s. Kinda stupid on my part. Sorry again!

Fixed now.

Here are a couple of levels that I haven’t seen being played at all since a month of their release, despite their good quality. No wonder though, since they haven’t yet been added to any of the Zeal Servers’ levellists. Another one of the levels, ‘Escape from Precint 83’, is actually familiar to me from a JDC event which was much before the release date though.

‘Big Apple Beatdown’ however, is a brand new level to me, thus I’m looking forward to play games there. A level called ‘WHANTIL’, is probably the most popular level known using this same tileset. Comparing to that level, ‘BAB’ is similarly layered into floors, although more diversely. I can suppose most of the action in games here is drawn to the indoor corridors above the bases, which are on the bottom of the floor, being easy to attack to, and hard to defend. Sounds fun, but is it?

I assure a level of this size can fit no less than a minimum of 8 players at once. A few bad things about the level are the few quite campy spots in the level, such as the full NRG carrot, or the Seeker PowerUp. However in a JDC Main Event for instance, such cons would be minimal, if existant at all. The level flow seems to work well with wise placement of springs and stuff, yet it’s not overdone. I like how advanced players are able to use RF-shortcuts,(or walljump cough) which add to the gameplay-depth of the level even more.

I generally have no complaints about the level’s visuality. Nothing distracts the eye, and yet the level’s atmosphere is appropriate in an original way to the industrial theme. Also the pickups seem to fit in well, although I would have personally made the more powerful powerups harder to reach/hog. The shootable carrots-concept seems cool enough as well.

As I’ve experienced before, ‘Escape from Precint 83’ is for now the only decent airborne-combat level I know, which is entirely based on all players being forced to fly. You could consider levels such as ‘Medieval Skycrapers’ or ‘SILWI’ to be mostly based on air warfare, but still in those levels the flycarrots are to be obtained first invidually by players and the most important combat still happens without the flycarrots. ‘EfP83’ however, is all about your flying-skills, and there truly is space to use them.

Considering the overall level size, and the tactical layout, where bases are well separated from each other, I wouldn’t personally try a game smaller than 6vs6 here. If there happened to be a stop during the game with nomovement on, some players could fall a long way unexpectedly from their original position, which could lead to tactical disadvantages for certain players. However it is only a minor problem anyway, since massive games such as JDC events wouldn’t get stopped for a single players’ connection problems for instance.

The amount of ammo(and food as well) is massive, made to suite the big number of players. There could be more carrots though, alike in ‘BAB.’ The tileset used isn’t exactly my favourite one, but it’s bearable. The background is faded and thus can’t confuse the player, yet it adds to the level atmosphere. Overall the level is creatively designed, with innovative airborne gameplay.

This level pack=“electronic style”, as KeeS himself would say. After all it’s clear people prefer smaller games recently, thus most big-to-huge levels are only played in JDC Events and such. However both definitely deserve to get added into both Zeal Alpha, and Duels’ levellists asap. Download recommended.

Applause to OLC & friends.

First of all: I can’t seem to host at the moment, so I was not able to play these online. As such, I am not giving a rating, as I cannot say much about the balance. However, I can still evaluate some things.

Big Apple Beatdown is great. Nothing particularly novel, but very well done – flow is nice and intuitive, the level is good-looking, and so on. The only thing I really dislike about this level is that there are too many powerups and they’re too easy to obtain; you can expect to see powered-up seekers and bouncers flying everywhere.

I am not so fond of Escape from Precint 83. The concept of having all the players permanently flying is a good enough one, but I feel it could have been implemented much better. It’s really easy to get caught on the edges of the many, many ceilings, and the “pits” at the bottom just seem to get in the way. The level also strikes me as looking downright ugly, though I think that’s more the fault of the tileset (someone make a good Technoir conversion already! And then give it a palette swap so it isn’t so hideously pink!). Also, it completely breaks in 8-bit color for some reason; the background turns completely black and my FPS goes from 100 to 30.

Anyway, this “pack” didn’t blow me away, but it’s certainly worth a look.

I got to play an ffa here with some others.

I’m reviewing this through exchange.

What caught my attention first is the eye-candy. It’s quite varied throughout: Some places look solid, others look random and more natural. The eye-candy is well justified by the theme, which is about reveling a rain forest.

While the eye-candy is quite varied, the layout also reflects that. Is that a good thing? – While the level generally flows well with practice, the flow is quirky in some places, and I even got stuck near the seeker pu (you know the pos _ ).

Other game-play related things like carrots, power-ups and even food were placed well. I didn’t have much trouble gaining health; it wasn’t easy to become invincible, but not a struggle to stay alive either. The seeker pu, as far as I know, can only be obtained by using the copter to bypass a ceiling spring while you have a sugar rush. It’s not too hard to accomplish that, and I’m thankful such a power-up weapon takes some effort (and luck) to obtain, as seekers are quite deadly with this layout.

Not much else to say really. I encourage that players should try this level more in JDC events, public servers and ffa.

Ragnarok wanted more reviews for this, and I can see why. The level pretty much oozes polish and quality.

The level is notable for taking advantage of JJ2+‘s capability to have very long respawn times, as well as initial spawn delays. It’s also notable for not abusing said capability.

It’s a fairly typical level aside from that. Powerups, carrots, and ammo are all well-placed. Pits are present, but they honestly feel like they were added for flavor rather than gameplay reasons.

One unusual feature is the seeker powerup that can only be obtained by those with a sugar rush. Whether anyone will ever actually get it or not is anyone’s guess.

The level’s primary selling point is definitely its visuals. It is excellently and consistently decorated throughout, with quite a few creative methods of tileset usage.

What really caught me, though, was the level’s general lack of flaws. There are no usable camping spots, no spammable weapons, nothing of the sort.

Overall, this is a rare gem of a level, and should be treated as such.

An okay battle level, a bit too holed for my taste. Eyecandy is fine. Could be bigger.

It’s been a while since I’ve written a normal review. This will be a short one.

Introduction

Two members of OLC have made a collaboration level using IC-Jungrock1. This was totally unexpected to me, so let’s see if the level is good..

Layout

This is a pretty small Battle level (with the size of 120×64) but it feels a lot bigger because there are different areas. The level has an interesting design, with lots of narrow passages. There are also some dead ends (like in the corners) but they are probably placed for tactical purposes. And there are also some pits (some people would say ZOMGPITS now) but these pits are very clear and well-placed.

Gameplay and flow

The level is pretty open at places (like at the top right) but like I said there are also some narrow passages. There are a lot of vines and a copter (that’s needed to get something, read more about that later) So the player is forced to jump a lot. There are not a lot of springs, but there are a lot of one ways. The green spring at 104,47 might mislead the player because you cannot use it but it’s still there. The flow is still good. There are some small platforms but you can just run over them without falling down.

Eye candy and theme

The tileset used is a bit underused (because I have used it and maybe 1 or 2 other people) but I think this is the 2nd finished level on J2O that uses this tileset. And this level has the best eye candy EVAR (with this set) It’s how Jungrock is supposed to be. The background is also really good.

Placement of stuff

The ammo placement is good. There are only 3 types of ammo: gun9 ammo, Bouncer ammo and RF ammo. So no Toaster, Seeker, Gun8, Freezer and TNT. There are 4 carrots, and they’re well-placed (one of them is in a dead end at the top) The level has a lot of food, which is also interesting but you need it to get the Seek PU (yes, a Seek PU) You need to get the Seek PU with sugar rush (correct me if I’m wrong) The delay is 90 seconds so only few people will get it.. There are three other Power-Ups. A Blaster Power-Up (delay 30 seconds, with initial delay), a RF Power-Up (delay 45 seconds, with initial delay) and a Bouncer Power-Up (delay 45 seconds, also with initial delay) So if this level gets played in an event no-one would have a PU until 30 seconds are over. There are also some fast fires, and they also have an initial delay and a delay of 30 seconds.

Further comments

This level looks like it’s built for events, and I can see that this level will be a lot of fun during the next JDC season. As a single level it’s really good, and I’d like to see more Battle levels like this. There were not enough good Battle levels last year, so hopefully there will be more good Battle levels like this one. I give this level an 8.4 and a download recommendation.

Now this deserves a really high rating, in my opinion, this rules! Here is my review. I had to review this because I love it so much, i may be late but here goes: LEVEL1 EvilMike’s Evil Fortress: My Rating: 9.7 Eyecandy: The foreground and sprite layer eyecandy is great, but the background is even better. It is great! Gameplay: The gameplay is excellent, it is fun and easy to move around in. There is an excellent flow. Placement: Placement is excellent: The 3 carrots, the power-ups, the ammo, One thing that wasn’t here, no coin warp, well none of the levels have them. LEVEL2 Abandoned Toy Factory: My Rating: 9.7 again. Eyecandy: The eyecandy is excellent all around, background, sprite, foreground, no bugs. Just one thing i dont like is the tileset is a bit dull in colors. Gameplay: This level has great flow again and is fun again! Placement: The placement is fantastic just as all the levels in this pack I think. LEVEL3 ??? My Rating: 9.7 yet again! Eyecandy: The eyecandy in the background is plain, but the foreground or sprite is excellent. Gameplay: This level has suckertubes and minor dead ends. The level is fun yet is easy to run through. Thank God! Placement: The placement is good and it is easy to get the power-ups which is good ;) LEVEL4 Cold Cavern: My Rating: 9.7 yet again ;D Eyecandy: The eyecandy is great, great job BR! Gameplay: Again this is a fun level. I love this pack! Again easy to run and not stop i think. Placement: The placement is good yet again and as always I LOVE IT! LEVEL5 Decrepit Ruins: My rating: 9.5 ;( Eyecandy: Rules yet again and it is very original, and it uses a great tileset. :D Gameplay: The curves in the walls are really annoying. Adn there are some minor deadends but there are warps and suckertubes. Placement: Rules again ;J OVERALL: THIS PACK RULES. DOWNLOAD RECOMENDATION: Extremely high!

This is pretty good. The JJ1 tilesets in a CTF level make this truly unique.
But you guys forgot to use JJ1 diamondus and a few others. A very good CTF pack!
(Unsupported rating removal. They already said they didn’t use all of the thirty different JJ1 worlds. Anyway, what about the eyecandy? Gameplay? Placement? Design? Etc? ~Violet?)[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]

Just in case you didn’t notice the text signs saying “(c) 2002”, most of these levels (if not all) where finished two years ago or so, but nobody wanted/were too lazy to put them together in a pack.