Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

This particular level comes from 2006, which was the year of many releases by many prolific JCS people. Even if it wasn’t released until now, it competes against other popular releases (can they be called “classics”, if it’s only been 4 years?) from back then: namely, Helldome, The Chasm, or the IC releases (sorry for being so self indulgent, but come on, those were pretty damn good levels).

This is a mostly vertical battle level, and a unique one at that. The layout isn’t anything revolutionary – it’s basically two towers intersecting at the bottom with surprises at the top – but it utilizes its space well, and it allows for fast action in what may seem like a huge level (100×200). I did wish for a slowly respawning copter, though, for one more fast route from the bottom to the top – useful when you’re chasing your prey. There’s a couple of death pits (one of the first levels utilising them!), they’re nothing to worry about unless you’re really careless. Getting the Blaster powerup (one out of five) may be tricky though.

There’s another powerup that could prove tricky to get. The Seeker powerup requires 100 coins, which may be a little annoying to do with a lot of people in the level, even with the sheer amount of coins in this level. If you get 200 coins, you’ll be awarded with a Water Shield and a whopping 70 seconds of shield time – a definite game changer if there ever was one. With 5 powerups, 4 carrots, and the lingering thought that someone can appear with the shield and dominate everyone, will make playing this level online quite an experience.

While I’m not a huge fan of the Dreamland tileset, I do find this level a very good piece of eyecandy. The background is the highlight: a starry sky behind a series of cascading clouds that feels like taken straight from a Windstorm Fortress level. The upbeat Super Mario RPG music sets the atmosphere – themewise, this level is a 180 turn from the violent and brooding halls of EvilMike’s Evil Fortress, which was a top notch looking (and sounding) level itself. I didn’t get the sequel vibe myself though; if anything, it felt much more like a sequel to the untitled desert level (olcbat03), with its big open spaces and plenty of action (and a coinwarp with a shield :P)

Summing up, this is a very good “forgotten” battle level, and there’s no reason to not download it. It’s big, it’s fast, it looks good, and it’s got the letters MIKE on it. It’s not EM’s best level, or my favorite one, but it deserves a high mark. I give this an 8.2, you should give this a go.

Fun Fact: When EM showed me this level back in 2006, something glitched and all items appeared as double. The image of double seekers in the tunnel at the right was what inspired me to put (deliberately) double ammo in An Uninspired Psych Level. So know you know that it’s not all that uninspired of a level after all.

I’m really not sure why is this not getting attention, because these are pretty solid and original Ground Force levels.

I have to say, these are some of the most creative puzzle/skill things I have seen done in Single Player yet. The turtle shell and bird levels are absolutely great, the airboard dodger and Cruxmas (even if I still haven’t managed to finish Cruxmas) are also good, and Amnesia Box is pretty decent.

It’s a bit of a shame that there’s a 20×15 restriction going on, because if all this stuff was put in one single level then it would probably rival Neobeo’s Firetruck as the best puzzle level. Some of the levels could cheat the contest’s 20×15 restriction too – if the shell or bird could exit the 20×15 box but Jazz couldn’t, it would drive their levels over the top.

Overall, this is very good work, but I’m afraid I can’t give it more than a measly 7.5, especially when compared to Neobeo’s Firetruck or other levels. Still, I haven’t had this much fun in JJ2 SP since finishing EvilMike’s episode 5, so there you go :)

What we have here is BigBobr’s first single player effort, and very likely first JCS effort period(?). As most people’s first levels are, this has a handful of errors, it’s pretty short, it’s very easy (there are only ten enemies overall in this level!), no difficulty level settings are used, only Spaz can finish the level, very little ammo, etc, etc.

Anyone can easily point out the flaws and get away with doing only that, but this level isn’t as bad as ThunderWalker makes it out to be, and for novice JCS users, it’s more helpful, and much more motivating, to point out what they have gotten right, instead of what they’re doing wrong. This level is kind of cool in that aspect that it manages to stuff a bunch of secret areas practically everywhere, which makes it instantly more entertaining than just a straight line with nothing to explore. There are a couple ideas, that don’t necessarily work very well, but they show potential. All in all it’s pretty similar to Castle1 (you can even notice it was built off castle1 as a base, not that it matters), if smaller and easier.

I can’t really recommend to download this, because it’s pretty simple and short and there’s no real replay value, but I can say that as an user’s first level, this is quite good, and shows potential.

Hope to see more from you in the future!

A perfect complementation to Newspaz’s whopper of an editor – which crosses the idea of a level editor and becomes more of a game modification tool, allowing the end user to change many of the game’s aspects. In fact, the actual level making part is probably the weakest part of J1E – not to say it’s bad – if you’re very much used to JCS’ super friendly and familiar interface, you might find yourself a bit trapped.

So what does Violet CLM do? He hacks JCS to make it able to edit JJ1 layouts.

This is slick, elegant, and once again showcases the capability of Violet’s brains. Obviously you won’t find it very useful if you don’t do a lot of JJ1 level design – but for the (very few) people who do, this is the best thing to happen since J1E itself.

Now go make a JJ1 level!

Weird Pipes, as the name says, is comprised of multicolored pipes that form solid platforms and non-solid eyecandy. Unfortunately, that’s all that there is, which makes the set boring. You can’t make a good background, you can’t use the pipes in any creative way other than making patterns in the platforms, the palette events suck. Disrecommended.

A pretty uninspired edit of Birdie’s BattleshipsBL. Some tiles are a nice addition but some are also pretty useless. It’s a decent effort but it would be cool if it was spent on making something original. And it’s not like BattleshipsBL was all that good, as a palette edit.

It’s not very exciting, and takes too many leaves from EM’s book. There’s an original plot going on but it’s pretty cheesy to be honest. The levels start off as pretty linear but become better over time. Apparently CR knows how to make custom tilesets but they need some work to look good. All in all it’s pretty average.

It’s probably not very useful now, anymore, but the background bugging out is simply caused by the level having too many destruct scenery tiles.

A maximum of 48 of this event can be used, and no more than abut 20 should be tried, otherwise you’ll trigger the ‘tilespam’ error, where all tile #0 are replaced.

Otherwise I pretty much agree with Violet, even though I wouldn’t be as harsh really

Again, an excellent JJ1 level editor.

Unlike J1CS, this program is very convenient and user friendly, and not just a proof of concept, either. Once you spend about ten minutes fiddling with the interface and the hotkeys, you’ll be able to create levels in the blink of an eye.

There’s a ton of included features which make JJ1 editing a fun, curious exploration – amongst which are editing enemy attacks, modifying sounds, custom tilesets, etc…

When combined with Doubble Dutch’s swiss-army-knife JJ1MOD, the modification possibilities are basically endless. Those who know how to design will surely appreciate Newspaz’s excellent work.

Even if you’re not exactly crazy about JJ1, you should download this – even if only out of curiosity. But if you do feel like getting your feet wet, then download this right now and get started!

The 2.0 version gives me this error:

Access Denied.
Press OK to ignore and risk data corruption.
Press Cancel to kill this program.

Then it doesn’t detect my JJ2 folder, or something (says that Directory does not exist, which is not the case).

EDIT: I saved PlusLLEdit in my JJ2 folder. It opened correctly when I copied it to desktop, but as soon as I tried to change the installation directory, the same error popped out. It did create a configuration file in my JJ2 folder, though.

EDIT 2: That fixed it! Thanks a ton.

If I may have a feature request, can you add the multiple file selection (with Shift and Ctrl) to the level list? Right now I can add multiple files but not delete multiple files. :P

Outstanding MSPaint skills.

No Orbitus 2 fix?

J2O doesn’t allow using commercial tracks in uploads. Please reupload with a different track.

This set seems to be getting two different reactions… people either like it a whole lot, or like it only a bit. I’m torn between either because this set is really something of a diamond in the rough…

The artwork is exceptional, that’s a given. There’s a massive amount of detail everywhere, which is natural for a primarily handdrawn set (kudos for making most of it in the horror that MSPaint is!). The style is very cartoony, not in the same way as JJ2 is but it doesn’t clash blatantly, or anything. It’s very colorful and vibrant, giving the tileset a properly cheerful, happy, full-of-life feel. It’s almost as if someone sparkled some beauty powder over the whole thing – I mean, how can you possibly walk next to those pretty trees or buildings and not feel even a little bit happier?

How usable is this set, though, is something of a mixed bag – it’s easy as pie to use, the mask seems to work, the somewhat messy layout I don’t mind. However… tilesets like this really make me wish that JJ2 had more than just 3 background layers – personally I’ve always wished for just one more. This is where my biggest annoyance with this tileset comes – as minmay said, it’s very reliant on layer 5. Most tilesets are, and I usually don’t care – but here it feels like a huge waste, which could have been avoided (the volcano is not going to be used too often, for example).

This is a very good tileset. Could have been a great tileset, but it’s nice to have a tileset actually released in the first place. I was going to give this an 8, but then decided to give a small bonus because it’s just so pretty and the theme hasn’t been attempted before. A pretty damn good start to 2010 if you ask me =P

More experimental than fully practical, but the theme works, and it’s a fun exercise to use. And it’s always good to see another LMAT set finished!

This is pretty much okay but also hideously overrated…

Underworld is more or less the regular Xargon fare. It’s supposed to feel as if it’s underground (the vertical layout helps, granted), but it’s a bit vague and transparent. Okay so there’s a dark background, dim lighting (with the huge crystals being light sources), and the music, but this isn’t the strongest theme out there. Really it feels like a generic Xargon level with some details thrown in, rather than a completely new setting.

Gameplay wise it isn’t anything outstanding either, as it’s pretty small and a little bothersome to navigate. There’s all regular ammo types available here – an odd choice since not all weapons will be effective here (for instance, I can’t really see RFs or Pepper Spray being too useful). Toaster + Fastfire as the only powerup, well, I’m not a huge fan of toaster as a weapon but I figure it can work here. At the bottom there’s two warps that lead back to the top – fair enough. All in all a pretty decent levelThe size suggests that it might be good for duels but I wouldn’t really want to duel here.

Deinspirated Mayhem (a really cringeworthy name, IMO) uses Tubelectric – not a tileset you see often anymore. But even though it’s Tubelectric, which I usually like a bunch, this level lacks some sort of spark (hehe). It’s not as interesting or good looking as the tubelectric classic e-Line Circuits, and that came out seven and a half years ago. It doesn’t look like there’s much mayhem going on, or anything going on – it’s a pretty static landscape of bricks. Bricks, and little else than bricks actually. It makes the level look very purple, almost monochrome in fact. There should have been more wooden/green circuit/black parts to break the monotony.

The layout shows that this level was pretty much uninspired – not that I mind a lot to be honest. It’s bigger and more spacious than Underworld, and also more horizontal. RFs and Bouncers work in this layout fairly well, as will Pepper Spray. There’s three carrots, two of which are placed in semi-evil dead ends – not a problem. I did like how the blaster powerup was placed – it reminded me of some older levels. Not sure if being half-secret is the best spot for the weakest powerup out of the three available, but it’s not a huge deal.

This is probably worth a download. Deinspirated Mayhem is the better of the two levels (ironically), but Underworld is not bad either… and then again neither of them are all that spectacular. They’re decent levels, and much better than Eigus’ older works, but still not quite great.

Well, well… this pack right here is definitely something of a small gem.

It goes without saying that you’re probably downloading this pack just for a few levels out of all fourteen. It also goes without saying that most of these have gone wrong in a way or another, either by being full of superficial gimmicks, by an erroneous layout, or excessive eyecandy (or a combination of some of these).

But what’s not obvious is that every single level here had potential to be very good. Some of the levels definitely have their visual moments – Myopia’s stone-and-nature parts, for example, I really dunno why weren’t they used as a common motif. Downtown Maze has this real tranquil, dreamy feel that’s uncommon. Those levels that aren’t outstanding are still good and fresh looking. And unfortunately, some levels cross the fine line between “a lot of eyecandy” and “complete inconsistent mess”. For example, Pleased with Presents had a really cool 70’s disco theme, until it became a chaos of christmas toys with a gay rayman rap track. And I’m not even going to beat the dead horse that FurnFace is…

One thing you’ll definitely notice is that Faw has a soft spot for gimmicks. Almost every level will have some, and almost every one will misuse them. This pack will attack you with fly carrots, freeze enemies, cheshire cats, pinball pads, walls which seekers go through, etc. It’s almost as if Faw tried really hard to make each level unique and original. In case of which, it’s probably slightly ironic that the best (in my opinion) levels from the pack are those which didn’t try too hard to be original. This includes nearly all the CTF’s and hardly any of the battles…

In two levels you can even hear FawFul’s musical skills backing up the themes, this aspect should be probably expanded in the future. It’s really too bad that this pack wasn’t as polished and refined as it could have been – there’s a ocean full of potential here.

Think positive!

Nothing terribly exciting but pretty much OK nonetheless.