Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

“Beach Party” is not a bad level at all. Then again, it’s doesn’t have anything new, exciting or special, as the other reviewers mentioned before. It’s just a good battle map: the design is circular and fluently playable and there is some nice eyecandy. The weapon placement is also good, and White Rabbit even used the water and pinball event :-)
Conclusion: “Beach Party” is not a must, but a sound download for everyone.

Does J2O have a re-upload function? Does it work? sigh

Hey, this is one of the few advertisement sets in Jazz2 history (right now, i can only remember all that Pokemon cr*p). The tileset is quite small (120 tiles) and simple, but nonetheless very effectful.

As the main theme is the Coca Cola ™ brand, it shows one of those unique bottles, a glass of coke, some logos (which aren’t of perfect image quality, btw) and a few very red platform stuctures. Not to forget standard items like signs, vines, poles and destructible scenery. A red Coca Cola wallpaper for layer 8 is also included. The masking of the tileset is okay (didn’t found major bugs in it at least), too.

Of course, mirrow included a nice little example battle level with very good design and ammo placement. There isn’t too much eyecandy, though.

Unfortunately the included “Orbitus” music (an old but classic ST3 tune :-) doesnt’t play in the level…not good.

The next level setting is also wrong.

To sum it up, i think that “Enjoy Coke” is a stupid slogan is a pretty good tileset, despite its small size and limits. It’s an original idea, well done and therefore A MUST DOWNLOAD on J2O. Otherwise, mirrow, correct the annoying bugs mentioned above and i could think about a 7.5…

Oh, by the way, i don’t drink cola for like 1 1/2 years now…i heard it’s unhealthy (and does anyone remember “Can’t beat the feeling…”? That was my time :-).[This review has been edited by Aiko]

Breathless, thats what i am. Again. Every time again. Apart from the cheap rhyme, i really can’t say much about this because it’s always the same: Blade’s tilesets, levels and the music choices are close to complete perfectness. Everything fits too good to just write a few lines about it. You have to SEE, HEAR and PLAY it.

However, his new tileset called “Forest” doesn’t make an exception: its larger than ever (1010 tiles!!!) and looks incredibly beautiful. Mainly, it shows woody landscapes, trees, mountains, a red flower and so on. The set has all important elements of a high class tileset like signs, vines, spikes, destructible scenery and the whole look gives an impression of a wonderful oilpainting. The masking is, like always, very good (found the “secret” message? :-).

And once again, Blade shows us that he is also an elite level builder. “Firestorm Forest”, “Forbidden Land”, “Greelands” and “Fragile Nature” are the new levels that give us a clear impression of what you can do with the awesome “Forest” tileset. Design, weapon, spring and platform placement and eyecandy are of the same super high quality in all four levels and i really don’t find anything to complain here. Check out those maps if you want to learn something about level design.

The music track “Static Universe” by Mr. Stewe is quite dance/techno based but i think its still close to my beloved demo style…it just sounds tracked somehow (in short: i love it :-).

Well, as this is an “update” to Blade’s previous Battlepack, i can’t rate the other (old) levels (or as a whole pack with nine tilesets, 32 awesome battle levels and eight rocking music files)…if i would do that it’d probably be a 9.5 or something. Anyways, you know it already: —THiS iS A MUST DOWNLOAD FOR EVERY JAZZ2 FAN—. You have to love Blade’s style. He’s by far one of the most talented guys in this little “community”. Let’s virtually bow down to him by download and hosting his levels and tilesets!

Whew!! Another tileset masterpiece from my homelands.
The very colourful “Discofever” tileset contains 400 tiles showing situations from the weekend night life on Carrottus (i guess:-)…Spaz as DJ, Jazz dressed mafia style and smoking and, of course, Jazz, Spaz, Lori and a beaver that wants to be John Travolta dancing like crazy (those animations really rock! Good work!). Apart from that, there are a lot of useful level structures and objects like this reflecting disco thing (my english vocabulary really sucks), semi-transparent lights, walls, stone, stairs and so on…too much to list here.
I only miss some girls and/or drinks :-)
mirrow also included a nice little single player example level in the ZiP archive. It’s quite short, has an okay design and good eyecandy but otherwise nothing really spectacular. Still, it gives a good overview of the elements and the capabilities of the tileset (and that was the purpose).
Apart from that i think that the black and white version (which doesn’t look exactly good) of the tileset is pretty useless (like the 8 bit version of the level, too). The masking is well done, as far as i can see it while i’m testing, and the music fits great (i prefer custom music for custom tilesets, though).

Conclusion: very good tileset, esspecially if you like bright colours and 80s disco feeling (it really is a bit like that). I even fear hotel makers will love this set :-) Anyways, “Discofever” is A MUST DOWNLOAD FOR EVERYONE.

P.S.: “JJ2 community. Stay alive!!!” -> i like that wall painting.[This review has been edited by Aiko]

I guess we are used to it already: Finnish Jazzer Blade is not only one of the most talented tileset makers but also an ace level designer.
“Everlasting Fight” contains three levels (two Battle mode and one Treasure Hunt map) using three different tilesets, namely “Heaven”, “Egypt” and “Egypt Night” by Agama. All three are SUPERB tilesets!!!
The design is of the levels is close to perfectness, like an example level “How to design a level”. Weapon and gem placement, platform structures, everything is arranged to make the gameplay as fluent as possible.
Also, the author tried to use as many elements as possible from Agama’s COMPLETELY BREATHTAKiNG tilesets (definitely some of the best i’ve ever seen!) and that worked out great. The result is some really stunning eyecandy.
Nevertheless, we should not forget that Blade only made the levels but not the beautiful looking tileset (not these ones, at least) so i “only” give out eight points here :-)
On a side note: actually i don’t like it when the music is missing in the ZiP archive. But somehow, Blade gave good reasons in his nice readme file…and the pack just rocks…so i don’t care too much this time :-)

To sum it up, this is a great level pack dedication from Finland to the Czech Republic (from one tileset genius to the other) and i’m darn proud that those two artists are with us on Jazz2. Hope they’ll stay for a long time. This is A MUST DOWNLAOD, without any doubt.

P.S.: Blade, would you mind not posting news and advertisements for your upcoming stuff here? You could use the J2O Forum for that purpose.[This review has been edited by Aiko]

Great program, i will give a detailed review later. Anyways, as long as it is not TSF-compatible (i just tested and somehow, it didnt work), its complete crap (and i wont rate it :-).

(Woohoo! I just love the readme file!)
Well, while he was preparing for his exciting vacation on some dutch camping place and after months of lazyness and mindless midnight chatting, good old pal Jelle finally found the time to create six fresh new levels using all of MEZ’s released tilesets (i think JelZe made one of the first MEZ04 levels at all). And they’re really worth a look.

The concept behind this level is…tiny little levels providing as much as fun as possible (all levels have the same size: one screen=20*15 tiles as far as i remember). Of course, most battle games in one of those “Microbattles” will turn into massacres. But well, i honestly admit that i always liked the idea of small battle levels (not that small, though).
A small technical problem i always noticed with “one-screen” levels is that somehow, they doesn’t fit on the one screen perfectly: there is some weird “bouncing” effect when you are at the very left or very right side of the map (heh, the expression “map” doesn’t fit too good, here). And that is quite annoying…i first realized it when i was making my own “Microbattle” last year (i never released it because i didn’t think it’s worth it).
However, JelZe tried to put as much design and eyecandy into those small levels as possible. It’s not completely amazing or anything but very decent and definitely above the average in all six levels. The weapon placement is okay and there’s not much too complain about at all (except the bug i mentioned above).
About the music choice, that is a bit disappointing, though. For example, the Carrottus music doesn’t really fit for any MEZ tileset. Song14.s3m from Jazz1 is not a bad track but really becomes boring by the time. Personally, i would have used one or more radical, tiny chiptunes for this. Would fit perfectly :-)

Regarding a rating, i have to say that i’m really a bit biased…i know JelZe for quite a long time and he’s one of the real Jazzers in my opinion. But on the other hand, his “MicroBattles” didn’t take too much effort or a long time to make, as he admits himself. However, this is a MUST DOWNLOAD FOR ALL US BATTLE FANS (7 lucky points because MEZ04 was used and because it’s six levels at least).

Oh, did i say i enjoyed the readme? :-)

The idea of using one of Blade’s incredible tilesets is already worth some points. Very good choice, F

Not to mention the level: it has a very playable design (good enemy and goodie placement) and some layer work that’s worth looking at.
A big disadvantage is that the author didn’t include the music in the ZiP file. Actually, i wouldn’t accept that and rate the level as if it had no music but i had to make an exception here: the background tune “Ancient Mystery” made by finnish tracker RAZOREDGE sounds very cool and fits great into the atmosphere of the level.
Oh, and the underwater boss at the end is not my favourite part of the level, by the way (horribly slow even on my super-fast 1,5 GHz PC).

Anyways, to sum it up, “Ancient Aztec” (hmmm, i could swear i heard this name before somewhere…can’t remember) is a MUST DOWNLOAD for all Jazz2 fans, because it’s one of the few very good single player level using one of Blade’s elite tilesets. Good work, F

P.S.:
As soon as you include the music file, i will increase the rating to 7.5, F!re. So lemme know.[This review has been edited by Aiko]

Well, SubStation is a decent battle i’d say. I really don’t have much too say here because i didn’t find anything special in it: the design is okay (but not perfect, there are some very dull and empty looking places, not to forget a whole lot of annoying dead-ends!) and there even is some discreet eyecandy. As i said, not exactly spectacular. About the weapon placement: well done. The water.j2b music fits fine for this level, too.
On a side note, i find the level quite too large (about 210*110 tiles). And the next level setting is also wrong.

Nevertheless, “SubStation” is above the average and may be worth the download. Battle freaks and fans of water levels could have some fun with it indeed.[This review has been edited by Aiko]

Hehe, finally some funky new program. It provides a lot of functions to manipulate your in-game chat messages like colorizing them or using weird ASCii characters. You can also preset text lines (for example if you use to say something very often, like your e-mail-address or the iCQ number). Not to mention some funky effects (like turning the text backwards or adding. It even has an option that allows you to save and load text strings (heh, not extremely spectacular, but hey, why not :-).
Well, “Cool Text” (sorry, very dull name, in my opinion) could be a bit more handy (nothing is really explained) but that doesn’t really lower my rating.

Conclusion: i can definitely RECOMMEND you to DOWNLOAD this program RiGHT NOW! It’s not for every day use, but i’m sure everyone will have some fun with it! (8 points, because in my opinion, it’s a tad better than Newspaz’s “Jazz Walkie Talkie”).[This review has been edited by Aiko]

Actually, i shouldn’t review this: the author forgot to include the custom tileset in the ZiP file and didn’t re-upload until now. But well, the sun is shining on the shores of northern Germany and i’ll give a short review anyways…
Layout and design of “NamekPride” (the actual level name is spelled different, btw) are not really worth mentioning. A tad below the average i’d say. You can run in circles but still it isn’t very open or fluently playable.
I also noticed some approach to create a bit of eyecandy, but, same as above, it isn’t really much (some rain, some objects flying thru’ the screen). Scorpio should just have spent more time on it.
The music is a nice tracked song (Disguise used it for his “Africa” tileset) but it doesn’t fit here at all (“It began in Japan” or a MOD version of the classic “Big In Japan” by german 80s band Alphaville would be more appropiate, i guess :-).
Download or not? I have no idea, it’s very slightly below the average in my opinion. On the other hand, it uses a custom tileset…which is good…just decide for yourself!

Well, because this is pretty much an update of the old “DragonBall Z” tileset by Splash and Payback, i can use parts of my review i made back then.
I still have no clue who or what “DragonBall Z” is but still this is not the right place to give my opinion on japanese TV cr…ehm…comics.
While the “old version” had 540 tiles and already looked good and quite useful, the “new version” comes with 570 tiles and some different themes. Nonetheless, it has a lot of useful tiles like poles, vines, signs, arrows, rain, scenery blocks, platforms and last but not least a whole lot of weird kamikaze style animations (fighting heros of that TV show i guess).
Unfortunately, our two dutch heros didn’t include a nice example (like they did for the old version) so we can only guess from the look of the set how it could be used. I don’t like that fact.
However, i will conclude my review like i did it for the original “Dragon Ball Z” set by the same authors (only slightly changed): this is worth a DOWNLOAD RECOMMENDATiON and for all comic and custom tileset fans it will be a good choice.

P.S.: Actually i wanted to rate this 6.5 but when i saw my older review and the 7 point rating there, i decided not to lower it (that wouldn’t really make sense, would it?).

Oh wow! This breathtaking new tileset release by Toxic Bunny has about 1000(!!!) great “3Dish” looking tiles for custom level building.

“War Torn” reminds me a bit of “Metropolis” by bluez (mainly because it has the same theme…an abandoned, cold city…and blizzards :). But actually what we see here is a new, very own style. I’ve never seen something similar in Jazz2 before. Everything looks very clear and detailed and it simply creates an intense playing atmosphere. Apart from some colourful structures (red, dark green and brown), the dominating colour of the set is stone gray. Otherwise, the variety of “War Torn” is awesome: it has different kinds of 3D tubes (“Worlds Largest Drains” :), rendered background landscapes and even some little animations, not to mention signs, arrows and the like. Too much to list here, you have to see it yourself :-)
Toxic Bunny also jampacked the ZiP archive with two example single levels (the tileset comes in two versions: night and day, but you really don’t see much difference, some minor palette shifting i guess :-). Surprisingly, the levels are quite long and not even bad (remember, they’re example levels that try to show the use of the tileset). Very well done, Toxic Bunny!

All in all, “War Torn” is one of the best tilesets i’ve seen the past few months and if you don’t DOWNLOAD THiS ONE iMMEDiATELY, i really don’t know what you’re doing here anymore.

“Lava Lamp” is another very good tileset creation from Bielefeld, Germany. While the Etna is threatening some italian villages with real lava, this tileset is the attempt of simluating a lava lamp in Jazz2.

The set has 150 very colourful tiles (which isn’t really large, as i have to admit), and most of them use shades of red. It mainly consists of (very useful) blocky stuctrues and some additonal stuff like signs, arrows, vines, poles and mountains for the background. The mask seems to be well done, at least i didn’t find any serious bugs in the short time of testing.

Furthermore, Sklug included a very small example single player level. Which isn’t fun to play but shows some of the basic advantages of the tileset (well, it also has some nice layer work).

As you can probably imagine, i like this tileset a lot. And let me add: it’s definitely WORTH THE DOWNLOAD (read the reasons above).

P.S.:
I hope to see some nice levels using “Lava Lamp” in the near future.[This review has been edited by Aiko]

Yay: german style!
“Slimeset” is another great looking tileset creation by Skulg. It offers 200 beautiful, supposedly self-drawn tiles for use in upcoming ace levels. The theme of the set is, you guessed it, green and purple slimyness (check out the “Other authors” info above :-).

The set has all kinds of useful tiles like poles and lots of platforms. Not to forget a stone covered background and some very slimy stalagmites.
On a side note, the masking is well done.

The pack also contains a very playable battle example map (that has a wrong next level setting, though). For the background music, Skulg used the Jazz1Slugion tune, which fits very good.

Well, i honestly admit that i’m a bit biased here, but i think everyone here will agree that “Silmeset” is a very good looking tileset and therefore definitely a MUST DOWNLOAD for all Jazz2 fans and esspecially the level creators. Get it now and make some fresh maps! I was undecided between 7.5 and 8 but i was in a good mood and it’s by a german Jazzer :-)

P.S.:
EvilMike, your complaints get boring by the time.

I pretty much agree with all previous reviewers: despite the fact it uses boring, old Diamondus, “Treetop Hip Hop” has some fresh race level ideas and interesting obstacle arrangements (trigger scenery and the pinball events are nice, for example). The design is very tight, which i really like. And apart from some minor tile placement flaws, the eyecandy looks great. The difficulty level is pretty high but i really think the level is way too short. 30 seconds for one lap isn’t that much!

But all in all, “Treetop Hip Hop” is definitely a MUST DOWNLOAD, esspecially because there aren’t a lot of (good) race levels these days. I was undecided between 7 and 7.5.

I’m impressed! “Alien Chemestry” is a very, very good Single Player level pack by one of the most active authors on J2O, EvilMike from Canada. The pack includes two levels and one bonus level, where you have to collect coins while falling and falling and…you guessed it.

The two SP levels use the Labrat (the bonus level also uses Labrat) and the Diamondus tilesets and the way they are used here is quite original and creative. The design is superb, both levels are jampacked with secrets, puzzles etc..

Another topic is the eyecandy: EvilMike put a lot of layer work into this. At first sight, it doesn’t seem too spectacular, but when you have a closer look, you’ll discover a lot of keen details.

The difficulty level is very high, but thats not a disadvantage. Au contraire! In my tests, i wasn’t even able to solve all puzzles (but i presume every passionate Jazzer will be able to do so without cheating and when he or she got the time :-).

For the background music, the author chose some nice pieces of tracked music, namely “Almagest” by Stefan Xenos and “space debris” by captain/image. Not super 133t in my opinion but still great demo style music! Good choice, EvilMike!

Conclusion: every Jazz2 fan SHOULD DOWNLOAD “Alien Chemestry” RiGHT NOW (if you didn’t do that already :). It’s quite a satisfying Single Player experience when you made it through all three levels :)

Whew! I didn’t expect something like this. The “Jazz WalkieTalkie” is an extremly useful, very handy Windows program, that lets you pre-define five text strings, that can be displayed as J2 chat lines in the game (while you have “Jazz WalkieTalkie” running in the background). I wish the author had put some more info about it in a readme file, for example (i really wonder if it’s completely selfmade, how it works, how its coded etc.). The user interface looks very tidy and clean, which was a good idea. No useless text thrash and stuff. Apart from that, it only takes 10 KB of diskspace (plus 325 KB of the needed DLL). Pretty cool!

Well, as you may have noticed, i like the “Jazz WalkieTalkie” a lot. Therefore i strongly RECOMMEND you to DOWNLOAD iT as SOON as POSSiBLE! Personally, i’m a very fast chatter but for other people, it may be very useful.[This review has been edited by Aiko]

Horrible event placement (enemies, goodies etc.), a pretty simple design and non-existant eyecandy make this level go far below the average. The length is just average (not too short and easy if i’m honest).
“Fat Chicks Episode Preview level” uses the “Donut Plains” tileset by who-was-that-again and the awesome “Super Mario Land” chiptune by reflex of m0vement (good choices i have to admit).
Of course, there are some nice ideas and arrangements (crates, for example)throughout the level but my overall impression is that it’s still quite sloppy and indeed a bit unfinished. And i really don’t like “preview” or Beta releases of upcoming stuff (except from ShadowGPW :-)…better finish your levels and episodes before uploading them.
Four points should be okay here. Downloading this single player map is not recommended by me, though.

P.S.:
The next level setting is also wrong.[This review has been edited by Aiko]