Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Untrue, Sonictth.

Gameplay
Not a typical gameplay you’d expect. You move up, using copters to fly up from tall pits. While that’s relatively original, the fact that copters (and their respawn time being too low) are used quite ruins this level. Especially when they stop respawning, and they will eventually. You can ask any experienced level maker, and they will tell, that copters stop respawning. This is quite cramped, too, and fighting people while waiting for the final copter could be a little less evil and annoying.

Eyecandy
Changing the tileset from Day to Night version was a good move, considering the day version a little boring. However, layer 4 walls are boring as well; just a plain lot of tiles and that’s all. It could be done in a better way, considering the blue blocks being so easy to use. Could use some creativity, too, as this eyecandy isn’t really original apart from textured background which is a nice shade of cyan. And you can’t neglect your level being ugly because levels do not focus on eyecandy.

Eventing
Let’s start with powerups. Seeker and Toaster PUs in teams’ warp rooms, a Bouncer Powerup in a central game room where players pick their choice to attack or defend, EB powerup made to let you get the Bouncer PU. While it may sound a bit overdone, team based Full Energy carrots make up for it. Plus, there are two +15 Bouncer Crates, which would work far better with many +3 Bouncers scattered over the room with Bouncer PU. Now, the level will cause some decents amount of lag. Besides use of +15’s, no major gripes in this section.

Overall
While this is a fairly original level, the way it was done (+15 crates, occasional blandness, COPTERS) downmark it a bit. Still, you should check this level because it’s a breeze of freshness in field of Assault anyway.

I like how no one bothered to replaceJazz Start with a MP start in Deserted Paradise for something like six months.

Just when you thought that Blur is done with making Ground Force levels, he comes and kills wannabe “survivor” levels with survivor prefix. With 5 brand new outrageous levels. \\o/

Updates
All 30 levels use the new (and somewhat superior) Anti-Jazz system. This system is generally more safe than old one (the one using bridges tends to give Divide By Zero errors. Go figure.), and isn’t as complicated. Complicated as in, it’s far more user-friendly in JCS (I doubt I will use it, though). However, someone may not know how to wallclimb, so they are stuck in the Anti-Jazz filter room; while almost everyone should know how to sidekick with Spaz. Other than that, this system is easier to use than the older one (sometimes I kept being pushed into the bridge so I couldn’t even kick in). And we all know, that in multiplayer the easier, the better. ;p

The recent update on most of the levels is the feature, that if you are hit in air enough high, you lose. While it doesn’t really sound dangerous, be aware than it might happen with some lag and seekers. It never happened to me, but still, be aware.

Rants on originality
Most of the levels are a little more than your typical Ground Force level, as in, they’re just more original. The best example would be level 20 (Tower of Death) and 28 (Under Construction). They’re just like something you have never EVER seen before. In “Tower of Death” you must climb up an enormous tower or be hit by Laser Shield (shot out of apparently nowhere. Whee evil forces =D ) and fall down. “Under Construction” features a building made out of Speed Blocks and they have lots of Pepper Spray which destroys Speed Blocks as well. So, if you buttstomp – you are dead.

Those two levels are fine example of this pack’s overall originality, like I already said. While not every level is incredibly original and outstanding, the levels which are make up for it. Check out by yourself.

YaY for Eyecandy!!1 =D
Most of the levels are, simply, beatiful. The waiting rooms are perfectly decorated, yet eyecandy there isn’t overdone. Most of the levels have splendidly used layers, and outrageously designed walls. Everything tiles perfectly, no minor annoying bugs. The remains of destructable blocks are oftenly different than the blocks themselves. but they still manage to look great and whatnot. In levels using official tilesets, eyecandy is very original and isn’t what you’d expect from a level using those tilesets. (That doesn’t really apply to level 6, which is a little plain.)

However, not everything is pink and sweet and curly. (I said that MOST of the levels are great. Don’t blame me if you misread stuff.) Waste Drain (level 3) is just bland. Barely any noticable layer work at all, no real variety between block patterns, etc. The textured background, however, is original and isn’t what you’d expect from a typical Wasteland level. Also “Second Chances” is a little bland in the waiting rooms.

Evilness rux
The levels are hard. Hard as in, it’s difficult to survive in those, especially with a lot of people. This applies to latter six levels (25-30), because they are quite unique losing-wise. (But then, so are levels 8 and 18.) You can make barely any manouevers in “The Sludge Grounds” because warps are evily placed in the ceiling etc. Already mentioned “Under Construction” prevents you from buttstomping. In “Second Chances” walls become (like Blur called it) “evil” when a trigger crate is activated. Someone you fight with in “Avalanche Ranch” might have got an extra life so when he falls and you follow him, he warps back into the arena and thus wins. The reason why “Tower of Death” is evil should be obvious. (The SE version is even more evil, trust me.)

…yes. Truly pure Evil, with capital E.

Did I mess something? I mean miss.
That’s basically all I have to say. The overall score I’m giving it is a 9.5, no more, no less. No more, because some levels lack variety and eyecandy, no less, because of anything else.

Download it and be happy.

Six years later edit: My 13-year old self has learnt what ‘less is more’ means.

How about THIS http://www.jazz2online.com/J2Ov2/downloads/info.php?levelID=1672 instead of that ugly Ihlvindi thing?

(F)

This level is very nice. Despite the too low rating that person gave, just be aware that it’s a good level I suggest you to DOWNLOAD.

I won’t rate it however, as I’m in XLM.
(Flame removal. ~Violet)

…am I the only one who agrees with Winner’s rating and review?

PHT, big rocks are a (crap) decoration FYI. ;p

“R3ptile didn’t mention any of that”

“Blue team has a bit advantage with defending because you can just stand below your base”

“Type: Capture the Flag”

As I’m really unsure how to rate this somehow unusual level, I’ll use something different this time. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, there’s a level which doesn’t even deserve a 1 for god’s sake.

Layer 1
Empty and unused.
Layer 2
Empty and unused.
Layer 3
Being barely used, doesn’t help out awful layer 4 eyecandy.
Layer 4
Being a bizarre mix of tiles, Layer 4 doesn’t really feature anything. It has some wooden parts used at the beginning(with severe event misuse and overuse), and then comes “fun” part – swimming in water across awfully awful sand blocks which don’t even manage to look good being split off themselves. At the very left of the level, there’s an ugly face (made out of sand as well. gg), which you must touch to make this level go ka-boom. Not really fun, unlike the author stated.
Layer 5
Empty and unused.
Layer 6
Empty and unused.
Layer 7
Empty and unused.
Layer 8
Random combination of blocks which do not tile with eachother. As author barely knows anything about layer resizing, layer 8 remains at its default size which is 10 tiles x 7 tiles and looks awful. gg.

[Adjusted to use 1 as rating. ~Cooba]

Eyecandy
Blandest level I have seen for ages. No background eyecandy, barely any sprite layer eyecandy, no foreground; there isn’t much, and what is there, is ugly, like the snow.

Gameplay
You did a good job on providing hurt events. Never put hurt events in multiplayer levels. I’m going to take 0.5 point off the rating because of that. The layout, being also bad (lots of dead ends, don’t put dead ends in the way you did.) downmarks this level a lot.

Eventing
If a player is lucky enough, he will not touch an airboard, and thus he will be more swift. Player must be forced to touch it. Otherwise, he will fall down to the bottom of this level, and he will be stuck. Also I’d take out the Airboards and replace them with Fly Carrot MCEs.

TSF. ;p

Oh well, since my JCS started to twist inbetween 1.23 and 1.24 versions and thus becoming a quadruple quandary, I will review this anyway.

Gameplay
What strikes me here is the fact that it takes less time to get into seeker powerup and the full carrot going from red base. Anyway, it’s pretty easy to get around this level, maybe except some 1-tile wide places, but they’re only one flow issues. However, this level is apparently small, and a little platformy, too. At first glance, it seems to be very random layout, but it grows on you as more you play.

Eyecandy
At last, a Carrottus level without tilebugs! Other than that, this is pretty good eyecandy, although needs a little more green. While there are all layers but 1st one used, there’s not really much green in them, but I can live with it. The background fades into black (bad), and layer 7 eyecandy moves for no real purpose. Yes, I made you think like eyecandy is horrid, but it’s nice. The snow looks splendor.

Eventing
This is somewhat oddly balanced. It’s easier to get seeker powerup going from red base, but it’s easier to get to two +1 carrots for blue team. Red team gets RF PU and blue gets Bouncer PU, but what blue gets is Electroblaster ammo, which may be used to get another RF PU… Somewhat confusing, but manages to work online. What strikes me is the double RF powerup. This could be better with Blaster PU stuck in wall and some Fastfires spread along the level. Or Toaster Powerup. Other than that, this area is innovative.

Overall
This CTF level is, as simpliest to describe it, just good. The balance is original, and eyecandy is nice. Download, because you’d be a stup otherwise.

What level is the first?

I never had problems with the .bat, and I have XP. So WADLEDEE LOSES!!1

According to what did you say, this should get a 10. This is like TT-JJ2 because IT’S BY SAME PERSON.

Okay, time to rate it, after I left this comment lonely. I hope this review won’t be biased because of me being a beta tester.

Legends and Hints
This level was an intro. Well made, too; it’s been done in similar way Hocus Pocus cutscenes were. The eyecandy is about the same, it took a lot of effort to do from what it seems. The concept behind this level is simple – you can change the pages instantly and flawlessly. I barely see intro levels in level packs, so I was surprised that there is one – and I was proud to notice that it’s done well, too.

A Random Castle
This looks just like a castle from Hocus Pocus. Same eyecandy (well, the mushrooms are far bigger), same gameplay, etc. All what makes this different than one of TTJJ2 levels is Toaster ammo spread there and there (which will server a purpose in latter levels), and Spotty the Friendly Ghost instead of Terexin. Otherwise, this is just like a typical (hard) TTJJ2 level. It had switch puzzles, too (one evily placed), AND they’re just like TTJJ2’s. Let’s just get this short: everything you’d see in TTJJ2, is here.

Lack of Marmalade
Here entire thing mixes up. Gameplay here is still Hocus-ish, but actually it’s a little different. This features more jump-from-enemy-filled-platform-to-another-enemy-filled-platform things, and if you fall, the only way to get back is to take a long path with silver key put in (and neat, yet aggrevating lighting effects). After that, you fall to lower part of the level (assuming you got a gold and shiny key) with a well-done Triggered Collapsing Scenery. AND after that “collapsing” bridge appears, you found yourself in same pathway you fell in once. That’s design of this level, quite enjoyable. One coin put in a not so secret secret, some lava to melt your lungs on hard mode, not all that much combination locks, and voila. One of my favorite levels, despite lack of marmalade.

A Cold Day In Foomania
This level doesn’t feature Spotty because he got a cold. In fact, entire castle is frozen over, which is a break from warm bricks+warm bricks monotony which two previous levels had. Design of this level is quite unique, too: it’s divided to three floors which are similar to eachother. You can go between floor 1 and 2 with ease, although you can get back from floor 3 only ONCE if you missed any coins in floor 1 and 2. If you didn’t hit the coin limit after you went back to floor 3, you’re doomed.
All the floors force you to jump from a platform to a platform (with Ravens attacking you from below) with a look at bright textured sky. I’ll admit I like how background eyecandy turned out, because it was quite dull. ;p I don’t like some eyecandy effects though, like remains of destroyable blocks different than the blocks themselves, and collapsing sceneries. The binary code (it’s 666 written there for all of your non-binary nerds) looked a little out of place, too, but I’ve seen worse things looking out of place. Other than that, eyecandy’s good for given tileset.

Plus, this level is one of rare levels here not to feature InstaKill on Hard difficulty mode.

Black Ninja’s Castle
This level was a break from the others, mainly because it was linear. Only first three coins can be taken in random order, latter ones are placed in more or less linear path. After you get those three coins, you can head to Black Ninja’s lair and the coin “he conveniently has”. You touch a somewhat ugly pillar, and are warped to a dark den where Black Ninja himself (a REALLY cool animation which easily beats “SUPER SKATER”) jumps around and tries to shoot you. You can’t hurt him in any way YET, because you must take his weird hackingness out of him. To do it, you must shoot certain brick in the ceiling and a crate will fall, unleashing a way to 4th coin, and setting lighting back to 100% (lighting is set to higher amount than 100%, which looks cool and makes Pulze Lights look funny).

Later comes jumping above a wide pit, and you see Spotty gloriously defeating Black Ninja. The eyecandy made this level look like a (boiling hot and shiny) castle, because of Layer 7’s shape. With eyecandy like that and fun gameplay, this level is overall very good.

The Nature Castle
Now here’s something back-in-the-ordinary. This level, featuring some cool eyecandy (using vertical Greenkiller text as a vine) is completely non-linear and completely non-easy. There are quite a few combination locks, too. In short, pretty much TTJJ2-ish gameplay, again. However, there are some evil twists in the gameplay there and there: this is filled with generators of Floating Suckers, which are EVERYWHERE. Evil. Moreso, there are evil bats placed under the floor so they just fly up and hurt Jazz. Really evil. I advise you not to play this level on Hard difficulty mode, because all the fun will be spoiled over by incredibly hard to pass places. Plus, there’s a place where you’re gonna get killed with an InstaKill (yes, those are back, slow & lumbering as always) because floor is on layer 3. Later you realise that red tiles on layer 3 were supposed to warn you. 2 BAD ITS NOT KEWL =((9 This level would be much more fun if it wasn’t so big and hard. My five cents.

Mellenwah
Tile bosses have always been cool, and this is really no exception. Except there are no bosses, but enemies. Hence the level name, Mellenwah monks block access to vital parts of this level, and the only way to kill them is to use TNT on them. And because you have not TNT, there will be some. Unfortunately, it’s not that kind of TNT you can grab and go crazy nuts on Battle2. All the TNTs are in boxes whichfall down (or in case of one monk, raise from ground), and you must smash the crate so monk will explode. Pretty entertaining. ;p There’s still some playing with combination locks, Cheshire cats and secret warps, all which round gameplay here to be really awesome. And if you thought that’s enough, there’s awesome eyecandy. Layer 2 for a quick example: it gives a cool feeling of a curse or something and still doesn’t get on nerves. There are some translucency tricks such like golden skull blocks. After killing all of the monks and stealing their coins, you’re ready to face your worst enemies: Greenkiller and Fooruman.

Fooruman’s Hologram Machine
Ah, the fiendish level. Violet’s excuse for VERY confusing eyecandy here is “because it’s supposed to be a hologram machine.” This has a little unusual design, too – lots of rooms connected by elevator shafts, with SP Airboards as elevators. It’ll be hard to get used to this level, and even harder to survive. This is chock-full of strategically placed enemies and spikes. And spark generators, which Spotty calls “efil prezences”. ;p Those are everywhere you don’t want them to be, aka literally everywhere. They’re guarding almost every passage, but they don’t guard coins. Because here’s only one coin. To get it, you must collect countless of keys and open countless of passages, and when you’re done, you must face Greenkiller himself. To kill him, you must shoot him A LOT, and he will finally vaporize. He’s also protected with a skeleton generator and sparks generator. And just when you thought it’s almost impossible, all the floor is buttstompable and Bilsy’s fireballs come out from ground. Life is good. When you finally take the 40th coin, you run away with pleased Spotty.

Oh yeah
This, probably most linear level in this pack, consists both of typical FSP gameplay and a couple of storyline screens. What makes this different is that you see credits listed IN FRONT OF A WALL disguised by destructable blocks. Fun. Finally, you stop reading who’s behind this evil pack and get five coins Fooruman stole from you just when you were gonna escape. But, he won’t let you go – he will fight you to death. If you play on Hard difficulty setting, it’ll be your death for sure. ;p What you have to do is to grab Cheshire cats and shoot Fooruman while you fly up. What Fooruman does is walking around and casting Killer spell. Except the effect is a little twisted because what falls down are Tube Turtles. When Fooruman dies, Cloning Machine (which I didn’t mention in review of Black Ninja’s Castle) makes another clone of Fooruman, and you’re told that they will ENGAGE A WAR!!!11

Overall
Ruxors stuff. =)) ++me being in last level. ;) However, some minor flaws which I failed to mention during my period of betatesting makes it so that this doesn’t get a 10. However, I give you a big 9.9 instead which you can play around with.

(Apologies for double spaces in the review, it’s all fault of Notepad.)

This works with Trigger Crates, too, and generally with a lot of objects in JCS.

Reggen : http://www.geocities.com/atlastsome/jj2/shj2.htm

Gameplay
Could use better layout and bigger size. This turns out to be quite random layout, with lot of platforms in the middle, with average flow, and some dead ends. Five, to be exact. This fact could easily kill the rating. Don’t overdo dead ends in multiplayer. And make sure you don’t have to jump too much.

Eyecandy
Looks like typical Inferno eyecandy from what I can tell. Nothing too outrageous, maybe except the lighting, which doesnt work well with bright colors of this tileset. Has some tiling bugs there and there, too; overall pretty average.

Placement
Yet another thing pretty much distorting the rating. Lots of ammo, placed in plain squares, and powerup for only one of all ammo types out there (Seeker). There’s Frostbiter ammo, which fails to have a point in this level (this isn’t THAT dark to require Frostbiter, mind you). Nearby the seeker powerup, there’s Full Energy Carrot. Let me quote Blackraptor at this point:

“Dont place Full Energies unless you know what you are doing. People have 5 hearts in battle, it takes time to kill stuff. Not very fun when you spend minutes shooting someone and they just get a full energy and get all their health back.”

Pretty much explanatory, eh?

Plus, this has a unprotected Plasma Shield in the bottom right corner. Placed in a dead end. Good idea? No. In fact, eventing of this level downmarked this level a lot.

Tips:
Don’t put Frostbiter ammo unless you have some outrageous purpose to place it.

Don’t let player shoot a shield and get 7 free kills. Instead, make it so that you have to buttstomp/destroy it with special move, so player will get 15 seconds, which actually isn’t enough to make a mess.

Don’t overdo dead ends.

Full Energy Carrots in Battle are evil because they let to replenish health after some other player’s hard work to bring your health down.

Alex, Reggen was around way longer than we both, so calling him a n00b is a little inappropiate. ;p

Not having to jump is bad.

My one was even worse. w00t

PHT, next time check level name and its description, so you don’t have to whine like hell.

Accuracy
I can’t thing anything wrong with this. This edit is pretty much accurate, except for three changed things. First of all, it takes more time to destruct a block, which slows gameplay down horrendously. Green springs nearby the copter are put in a pit, instead like they were put between slopes. People barely use those springs, though. And, this has RF powerup instead of shield.

Eyecandy
What strikes me are tilebugs in ground. They’re usual in Dx’s Carrottus levels, and became rather boring quickly. And they’re ugly moreso. Other than that, this features some caves, lavafalls (some fall slower than ones falling nearby, which looks plain ugly), wooden platforms, and some plants. AND a buggy background eyecandy thing which doesn’t look correct at all, because trees don’t tile in some places.

Eyecandy
Not that bad as I expected. A background layer is used, although it doesn’t move at all, and that’s a bad sign. There are some tilebugs, too, and they are actually easy to spot (cavern tiles errors). Entire level looks bland with too less layers and cave tiles used, and diamonds in the grounds were placed in somewhat ugly way.

Gameplay
w00t! The gameplay here is really mediocre. ;| This level lacks of original ideas! All you do is running around and searching for crates, much like in JJ2. Except this feels a bit too boring than JJ2 for some reason. Maybe unbalanced enemy placement? In some spots they’re clumped, and in another spots there are no enemies at all! That still doesn’t change the fact, that this level is plain… easy. (use flying enemies to make levl harder.)

Overall : Below average. Boring and bland looking… eeh. Keep trying.