Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Seeing as Toxin Twister has had it’s first birthday, I thought I’d write up a review to celebrate this. =D

EYECANDY

I have not seen the original version of this level so I cannot compare it to what it looked like before but Cooba has been very creative with everything in this tileset to make very original eyecandy.
The background in Layers 7 and 8 is much more different to what you would normally see (a textured BG in Layer 8). I really love the moving window in the Layers 6 and 7.
Also, another thing original is animating the textured BG to make really cool animations like the green lights you see all over the level.
The textured BG has also been used to make the eyes of the impressive skull seen at the bottom of the level near the Seeker PU.
It’s also the small details that make the eyecandy impressive including the fast flashing lights.
Absolutely NOTHING looks repetitive in this level so I’m gonna give the eyecandy the highest score possible.

10/10

GAMEPLAY & FLOW

The Bases are placed symmetrically, both next to each other. However, they are only accessible by going up through the One Way ceiling down the bottom as the arrows show. You will not be able to camp on Bases for too long as Seekers can be fired at you from up top down through the One Way floor and also through turrets placed on both sides as shown by the Seeker blocks.

9/10

WEAPONS & ITEM PLACEMENT

PUs are placed well, they are not too campy. There are 3 PUs (4 if you count the second Bouncer) in this level. The RF PU is in the middle of the two Bases and can only be accessed by shooting it with Electro Blasters or Bouncers.
There are 2 Bouncer PUs on both sides of the level near the bottom which are not too campy.
The last PU is the Seeker which can be found above the skull which can be accessed only by shooting with Electro Blasters (or Bouncers if you are that good with them).
The ammo itself is spread out nicely and are not placed in boring shapes.
There are 3 Carrots, one Full NRG which is above the Bases and two +1 Carrots which are at the bottom in both Sucker Tubes. Health cannot be regained too easily, you will probably be on 1 or 2 Heart health a lot of the time.

9/10

TOTAL SCORE: 28/30
OVERALL MARK = 28 / 3 = 9.3333333333333333333333333333333
ROUNDED TO 9.3

DOWNLOAD?

Of course I would recommend downloading this. I wouldn’t say N/A if I gave it over 9. So in other words, HELL YEAH!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TOXIN TWISTER! :D:D:D:D

Darn, BB Code didn’t work. D:

really awesome set. didn’t find any flaws, though it will probably become overused soon.

this is the year of tilesets :X

Quite a strong feeling of Deja Vu in some cases, but nonetheless it’s a great tileset, good job Cooba. I feel it will become very popular quite soon.

This is really a great set and i can already see lots of very good levels being made with it.

First impression: Cyberspaz Tileset 2 version 1.5

Really, it reminded me a lot of that set, and with reason; a lot of tile structures can also be found in that set (the tubes look very similar to those in Dethman’s set, and so does the water). Of course, this is not a bad thing, as Cyberspaz2v may have looked fine but never was very usable or complete, while this tileset definitely is. It’s logically organized with tiles grouped by purpose, and seems complete; most tiles which need one have a counterpart with layer 4 background, platforms are easy to complete since all tiles are there, et cetera. Definitely a very good tileset in that aspect.

The tiles look a lot more polished than in Dethman’s set too, and reminded me of Disguise’s Spacey Universe. Everything looks polished and all, though I’m not too fond of the combination of the rock texture and the rest of the tiles. The contrast between the light rocks and somewhat darker “techish” parts is just a bit too high.
What I especially liked were the “block” tiles; the square (and triangular) tiles with the rusty metal look. They are shaded very nicely and the dents in them show convincing depth. The goo dripping from the top in a few variations bugs me though. I don’t know why exactly, but something just seems wrong, like it’s just been pasted on top of the tiles instead of really blended well.

Apart from that it’ll be hard for anyone to find graphical flaws in this set. Everything looks fairly monotone, but the advantage of this is that the palette can contain a lot of different hues of the same colour, allowing for increased detail and amazing textured backgrounds such as the two (!) included in this set. Which brings me to the background scenery, another strong point of this set. The aforementioned textured backgrounds are awesome, and so are the moon and clouds. Then there are some tiles which can be used to add skyscrapers. Though those could have used a bit more variation in my opinion they offer yet more possibilities for background and level theming.

Finally there’s the waste itself, without which this tileset wouldn’t be much of a waste treatment facility. To be honest I was a bit disappointed in this, I would have expected more waste and less generic space-industrial-whatever tiles. There’s the obligatory waterfalls and some layer 3 water tiles, but no barrels of waste, no real processing machinery, just waste waterfalls. Which brings me to my main problem with the set, its complete lack of originality. As said before it really looks awesome but come on, if there’s any theme which has been used to death in tilesets it’s the nondescript industrial-urban-dark-facility one. Apart from looking better than most of its predecessors this set does not really add anything to the pool of sets to choose from.

If you disregard that, however, what’s left is a tilesets that looks really good and is easy to use, and one I would certainly recommend to download. What withholds me from giving a 9+ is the lack of originality, but if you don’t care much about that I’d say go ahead and make some levels with this; they’ll probably look awesome nonetheless.

Bwahaha. Finally, you’ve released this set out in the open, out in the wild to be free and now, other JCSers can make it look bad or good. Well, I haven’t reviewed a tileset in a very long time, and I think last time I did it, I did it as if I was some crazy freak who doesn’t know how to rate stuff (which I am, hey, notice the correlation!). Well, this is the most stupid thing to start a review with isn’t it? Now ignore this and actually read the review.

Theme

I’ll start with theme as I can introduce what the set is like. So, the theme is a waste treatment facility (as said in the title ololololol). This is obviously one of those less natural sets which focuses more on pipes and metal and stuff. What’s even better is that it can be set in so many different environments as long as your creativity reaches those ideas. I’ll start with the obvious, the background tiles allows you to place buildings of different shapes and sizes, and there is also a smaller size which is suitable for layers behind this one. So basically, the author clearly thought about depth and stuff. The main background also has two different textures, atop of some extra tiles which could also be used, let your imagination blow you away I guess.

Possibilities

This was partially analysed in the above passage, but it’s kinda clear that this tileset has so many possibilities as there are so many different tiles that you could possibly work with for the many different aspects and layers of a level you’d be making. For instance, there are quite a few animations you could make and work with. The set consists of rocks, (wierd platform things that I have no idea on the name of, I wanna call them liney things) liney things, metal, rusted metal, dark metal, rocky background, pipes, more pipes, waterfalls everything you name it. The possibilities of this set are endless, as the author very cleverly created many different “types” of tiles that you could work with.

Masking

I took long with this one, but I looked through the set quite thoroughly and found nothing I could possibly complain about. The author has created every type of mask you could possibly need unless of course you’re some needy old hobo that needs stupid things. I love how I can’t say sentences like that, anyway enough rambling. The masks are all there and they are pretty easy to differintiate from what isn’t a mask. I haven’t yet found any tiles with bad masking, and ooh, the textured BG is brilliant. (Subtle aren’t I?)

Usability

This is quite an advanced set, because I know for a fact that you need to be creative in order to use this set to its full potential. I’ve already seen many different possibilities you could create (and not mentioned them, surprise surprise) and I’m sure there are many more. This set is very easy to navigate through as the layout is quite smart and also, this set has every single tile you could possibly ask for (apart from an ode to Rag which is just crucial nowadays). This tileset is also one of the few sets where you probably will never need to use layer 5 at the same speed as layer 4, which gives you an extra background layer to allow your imagination to go even more wild. This tileset isn’t missing any tiles that I would be looking for in a set, so I’m really happy with it. Very very very fun to use.

Originality

I’ve seen sets such as this before, or one set, I forget which, however it was never up to a standard such as this as once again it has every tile you could possibly ask for and more. The pallettes are all very original too as they all have very different themes. This allows even more creativity amongst the use of this tileset, as you could use snow in the “Borealis” pallette to make it look even better. That was just an example, and I’m sure there are many, many more. This tileset looks amazing on so many levels and I still have not yet found anything to criticize… yet (actually I have, there’s no tile mentioning Ragnarok, the greatest, the strongest superhero of them all!!! (Wasnt that action man? (I just wrote in bracket inside bracket, does that mean the 2nd bracket cancels out the first one?)))

Extra

This set is event-friendly, user-friendly, tile-friendly and blahblah. Well, I don’t know what I wanted to include here but if I remember, I’ll be sure to give this an edit.

I hope this wasn’t too bad for my first good tileset review thing person sort of person sort of thing. Well, I’m gonna give you a 9.9. I can bump that up to 10.0 if you just make a tile with my name on it (Im kidding, make a tile with Habib AlHasheed Akhmed’s name on it instead). Great job Coobakabooba.

Nice levels! Very original.

After hosting this level multiple times, I really enjoyed it. It has a conventional layout that reminds me of some blur levels. It requires a lot of jumping, and not every area is totally free, yet the flow retains its smooth feel since the more dead end-like areas aren’t important to the overall flow, and they are accessible only by choice. You can periodically take advantage of certain areas, and you also have enough freedom not to be limited to them.

There’s a small pit at the bottom right side of the level, with a mysteriously floating red spring under a carrot; If you’re evil, you can freeze the spring while a player is using it, so the unfortunate soul can fall in the pit below (Insert player’s hilarious reaction here). The location and size of the pit compared to the layout makes it somehow feel interesting.

The eyecandy places you in a dense forest, and you might also get the impression that you’re actually in a park. The only complaints I have are the black bg (Even though the level would probably look completely different with a textured one) and the ‘tube’ tiles supposedly being tall trees, I just have a hard time accepting that with this particular theme.

Everything else is quite standard, and there’s really nothing else to complain about.

Toxin twister
Looks, high detail
Great. Not overdone.

Looks, low detail
Great^^ Didn’t expect Cooba to put thought into making it work for low detail, but it rocks that he did.

Base-areas
As the level is symmetrical I save time by not having to review two different base situations, yay!

The levels are located close to each other, only divided by a thin wall, perhaps a bit inspired by Zaitox? In any case, this allows sneaky gun9 hits, which is always fun. Staying rts at base doesn’t work for long here, since you will get hit by seekers from the turret/tube, from under or from above, where the fullNRG carrot is a major camp spot, however with lots of space for dodging if the server isn’t too laggy. A bit more successful of a tactic is to camp the area under the bases. Anyway, over all, I really like the base areas, even if they’re not as awesome as for example the red base’s in bblair. In my opinion it’s a bit too hard to avoid getting shot up so you miss scores. So far very good.

Secret Trick Lol:

Carrot placement
There are 3 carrots, one fullNRG and two one heart carrots. It’s hard to get the upper C, since people camp there a lot, and if you go take the lower C, you will have troubles getting back to base, where you rts, safely. I like it – it’s not easy to get C unpunished. People die a lot in the level, so there aren’t too much carrots, and the one H carrots makes the game play not have to be all about the fullNRG, which would be annoying. So far very good.

Powerups and ammunition
Symmetrically placed, definitely fair. Sufficient amount of pickups. Not much to say about it really. Good :)! All Pus are placed for off, except RFs. You really have to prioritize, either get ammo, which takes a long time, or hunt ammo less.

Routes
The level is slightly one-wayed, you just run around in a circle. This could be seen as something bad, but I think it’s rather nice, for some reason. If you want stuff you have to go elsewhere, like getting aforementioned carrots or power ups. You really feel that you’re not where the action if you for example go for the seeker power up.

When rushing from base to base, you win a lot by taking the tube from base, something I hadn’t realized the first games I played. Nice thing. There are alternative ways to run, you just don’t notice them so easily at first. For example there are vertical suckers (or some other event, same purpose at least) which allows you to sometimes be faster than the enemy you are hunting.

Overall rating
8.9. It’s a really good level, and the reasons it’s not given more are:
- A bit too hard to be RTS, even though it’s addicting, I find it too chance based, since you can just get an airhit and end up in the total other side of the level than where you should be when RTS.
- Too one wayed. It doesn’t offer too many variations… learn from semi- or superconductor.

Still, the level is original gameplay wise while still very playable, it has a nice amount of eye candies and is fun to play. Good job, Cooba! I was thinking of giving it a 9, but it just didn’t feel right – so 8.9 it is. Keep making CTF levels, please.

Edit: The symmertricalness makes the level easy to learn, which is good. This doens’t mean that you know it perfectly yet, though – which makes it a good idea to play the level a few more time if you didn’t like your first game too much (which is what happened to me here, when I first played it).

Here we see a few months-old ctf-level from Cooba called ‘Toxin Twister’ getting uploaded with some improvements. Well what was the result? The original one already was a show-off about the level’s tactical gameplay and the creative background at least. Both of them were improved a bit, as well there was some sprite-eyecandy added. And something else?

Like I said, the background here is creative. Though there could have been a little more effort put to design the background in a different way, since layers 6-8 are all used for the same part of it, and so there remains just lots of black area too, which isn’t so good thing. Sprite-layer had the most lackings originally but it looks quite fine now. The solid wall could use some more detailed stuff, especially around the bottom-tunnels.

The base-placement and their entrances bring to my mind ‘Demonic Home’ by Sacrush, although here you are able to reach either base from the same spot. This, and the rest of the layout was designed with care to make it friendly for the player also. Some people might think the bases are left too safe and campable, actually they aren’t, they are more like the most dangerous hang-outs here, except for duels maybe. Seekers can be shot from above, beneath, or through the tubes. Electroblasters also enable shooting from base to another.

The position for the full-carrot was no doubt the best choice. Putting it beneath the bases instead wouldn’t have worked, nor are there any other spots for one, because there are lesser carrots in the bottom anyways. It’s easy to hide in bases with low health in duels though, and just wait for the carrot to spawn. This has been made more risky with the warp in bottom. There are two Bouncy-PowerUps placed in the tunnels near bottom. It should be fine since they are very close to each other. The more powerful Seeker-, and RF-PowerUp are placed wisely as well. However, I have variable opinions about ammo-flocks.

Looks like not everyone appreciates this level that much. Cooba hasn’t done, or at least uploaded any CTF recently yet. Anyway I consider it great, that Cooba didn’t focus on eyecandy, and tried to make the level feel good from a player’s view as well. I can remember the 5vs5 I had here once, which unfortunately didn’t last long. I would say I enjoyed to play it there. I can’t be very sure how does this work in duels yet. I recommend you to download this.

SJ

EYECANDY

The EC in this level was very nice for this tileset. One special thing about the EC in this level is the BG, it is very original. I have never seen a background like it in any level, any tileset. GJ Cooba. I totally disagree with Flash, who said that there is little creativity in the EC in this level. This level has extremely original EC, stuff like making animations out of the Textured Background, hooks/vines etc for EC. I really like the skull at the bottom of the level, it adds too the atmosphere a lot. I think the ground could use a bit more vareity though, it’s a bit plain. Overall a great job on the EC, a huge improvement over the original.

GAMEPLAY

This level has fast-paced, stratigical Gameplay. It is symectrical, so it is balanced. The base placement is nice too, but they are a bit close together, so scoring is quick. There are float ups at the bottom, with tubes on both sides and a Carrot in each. I think they are a bit too close together. Also there is a warp that takes you to the top where there is a Full Energy carrot. But there are 4 PU’s, so it won’t be hard to kill. One of the Bouncer Pu’s should be replaced with a Toaster PU though, because the two Bouncer Pu’s are too close together. There is a good placement of the Seeker PU which is above the pit in a wall, and Electo Blasters are required to get it, so it is not very campy, which is a good thing. I think this level is better for Duels rather than Teamplay.

Pro’s

• Creative Eyecandy
• Good Gameplay
• Nice Placement

Con’s

• Bases might be a bit campy
• Walls need more vareity

I think this is Cooba’s best CTF level so far.

Download: Yes.
Host: This is a nice Dueling level.

hilarious lol

I wanted to review DarkSonic’s pack but since people hated my server (at least they didn’t want to join it) and I didn’t feel like waiting for enough people every level Cooba’s the one to get my annual review this time.

‘t is a nice level. I liked the flow and layout, which just worked and was fun to play in. The level has one full-energy carrot and two energy+1 carrots, which may be a tad too much (especially since the two +1 carrots are close together and near them is a warp to the full energy carrot) but since there are plenty of powerups too killing people shouldn’t be too much of a problem. The bases are fairly close to each other (travelling from base to base will take about 7 seconds) but this is not much of a problem. Partly because the level itself is fairly small anyway, partly because the more interested pickups, apart from the RF powerup, are placed near the top and bottom of the level.

The level is symmetrical and fairly small, with few complex structures and a general division in an open structure with some platforms at the top half of the level and a cave/tunnel system at the bottom. Both are easy to navigate and the springs are conveniently placed just a tile lower than the normal platforms. The eyecandy however is not too great. Everything looks a bit dull and uninspired and though there are some nice twists (such as the giant skull) the tileset has not really been used to its full potential, nor does it do anything (apart from perhaps the aforementioned skull) to make the level stand out from the rest. A little more creativity here wouldn’t have hurt.

To sum it up, |Toxin |||||||Twister is a nice and fun level, but fairly average too, with a nice layout and solid gameplay, but not too interesting eyecandy. Hosting this will guarantee one or two fun games though, with 2 or 4 players being the optimum.

Edit: formatting stuff

Oh well, then I can’t let it work coz I got just the Secret files! and Jazz 2 normal doesn’t open on my PC so Is there one in the secret files ?

[…eh? 1.23 tilesets work fine in TSF and so does this conversion. ~Cooba]

An orange version of the Castle tileset also existed. Could you make it too?

Unfortunately, I’ve got no pictures.

[I had the light yellow version in plans, but I got lazy and it would wind up being a lot of work. The screenshot didn’t have a palette and it was saved as an MSPaint .jpg, and the level shown in it was just… really weird. ~Cooba]

Wow, the Gems sure looked different in the early JJ2. The numbers at the bottom of the screen (lives, ammo) were smaller too. The icon for the Blaster weapon was different also.
Anyway, great work in making an early JJ2 tileset now usable.

EDIT: I’ve just noticed that there wasn’t a score counter.

EDIT 2: Are there any other early JJ2 Tilesets that didn’t make it in the final version?

[Yes. There’s Diamondus Beta which I linked to in the download description, the differently drawn Inferno, and an entirely different background in the Damn levels. Feel free to message me for the screenshots. ~Cooba]

Rating Familiar World

Rating Story: (X1)
It is a good story!
Rating: 8½

Rating Length: (X2)
Three pretty large playable levels (the last is the ending) filled with lots of puzzles. Good!
Rating: 9

Rating Gameplay: (X2)
In the three levels are lots of puzzles, obstacles and bosses at the end of each level. That are the best levels!
Rating: 9½

Rating Obstacles: (X2)
With the enemies, bosses, fire, lava and life-risking puzzles the levels are very hard! But there are some bugs…
Rating: 8

Rating Bonusses: (X1)
The goodies and crystals are good placed!
Rating: 9½

Rating Eyecandy: (X2)
The foreground is good! The background is good and you have created beautiful paths!
Rating: 9

Final Rating: 8,9
Download recommendation: YES!

Starting Comments
Cooba made me do it… And I’m glad he did, too.

Gameplay
The flow of the two levels is just amazing. You just soar through awesome levels. Especially Velocity is a fast level, like a race is supposed to be. Shooting from building to building, dodging trap holes and deep pits. It’s like a race I’ve never raced before. Absolutely brilliant.
Gameplay = Very good

Placements
The placements of ammo and even enemies is quite decent. The ammo is nice (for example the Gun9 in the zig-zag tunnels is handy) and the TNT blows up parts of the tunnel, hindering other players. Very nice. Also, the ravens add an extra touch. If you hit one of the springs in Boomerang, you will be kicked back to the ground, into a pit, with the ravens following you. Even though you just KNOW you’re gonna lose, at least it looked pretty neat!
Placement = Good

Eyecandy
The eyecandy looks like a whole new generation of JCS’ing. The walls and ceilings look like they should, but had an extra sprinkle of beauty-powder. The layers were well used, the background looked nice. There was nothing to complain about, actually.
Eyecandy = Like, dude, yeah!

Music
The music is exellently chosen. Both tracks give you that extra boost you need.
Music =

Originality
Boomerang is an awesome level. After you think you’ve reached the finish, you get stopped by a “?” sign. After you fall in a pit, you’re told you need to go back. When you do so, the track seems slightly slower (Because you have to climb some distance) but still fast paced. Also the seeker ammo shows you where to go in order not to get trapped.
Originality =

Score
I had fun playing these levels and I hope I always will. These levels are a great addition to your host. No doubt you will agree with this 8,5!
Score = 8,5

Bonusses/substractions
None
Added Score = 0,0

Download Recommendation

Further comment
IC ftw y’all!

On first impression: These are well built Race levels. But this is on a design-only perspective. i will have to play the level online to fully experience the action.

Oh and first review & download. In yer face Nostradamus

Final Review:

Since this pack is so humbly amazing I had to find things to critique. I will bring those up now, and then you can continue the amazing storm of PRAISE that I am spewing. Boomerang’s checkpoint gimmick loses it’s steam the instant you figure it out, if it even fooled you at all. Luckily Boomerang isn’t a one-trick pony, and theres more to the level than that. My next complaint goes out to the Citadel: It felt too slow to me. While Noomerang was fast paced, Citadel seemed a tad bit slow. It may have to do with the constant jumping you have to do in the level.
From here I’ll pick at minor details that don’t really diminish much, and then go all out in a final round in which I point out every single reason why you need this.
The ammo in Boomerang, at least in my experience, isn’t all too useful after the first lap. It could just be the motley crew of players, but after the first lap, there wasn’t much change in the order the players were in. Plus getting the Powerups requires slowing down. This is a double edged sword for inexperienced players. If you slow down, theres no garuntee that you’ll make it to the top of the pack. And if you don’t, a more experienced player will probably get it, and use it against you.
Which is a double edged sword for me, since I enjoy unfair advantages but dislike double edged swords.
Next, the presence Electroblasters in Velocity feels forced. Not too sure why though.
Also, the muck pit near the end in Boomerang leads you into the wall. The Muck pit slows one down enough, and does not need this added punishment.
Finally heres the part where I rain down immense praise, mainly because from this point anything negative will be mystically replaced by immense praise.
The dark tunnels and platforming aspects of Boomerang are [COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY WONDERFUL]. I have never seen such [DESIGN IN A RACE PACK]. Probably, because I’ve never played alot of them. While CItadel sufferes from some [AMAZING] [MANDATORY DESIGN CHOICES EVERY GOOD RACE LEVEL HAS], it picks up halfway through and is a highly enjoyable, albeit slow race. Another thing, Boomerang’s checkpoint system is [HIGHLY INNOVATIVE. HOPEFULLY OTHER PACKS WONT BLANTLY RIPOFF THIS KIND OF IDEA]. Plus Boomerang has the immense feeling of speed, and if you’ve kicked into the ‘runner’s high’, the unworking speed shoes will make you feel like you got an extra burst of speed. One of the pits is highly cleverly placed, and deffiently seperates a cluster of racers.

Despite some flaws, this pack is highly enjoyable. Don’t mind most of my negative veiws, I’m just a soured critic.
Download reccomendation all the way.

yo coob its me jamster BB i will be using this in BB hostup very good level ok time to rate it

eyecandy 9
placement of stuff 8
music 7
tileset choice 7
start pos 6.5
background 7.2

[Inappropiate rating (9) removal. No proper reason was given as to why the level was rated this way. – FQuist]

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