Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

EDIT- Hey other reviewers, could you like, and I’m sorry if this is asking too much, list more than just two things about when you used the program?

As per usual, once a month or so I get an MSN message asking me to review something if I have been on MSN that month for a considerable amount of time. This time the plea for a review came from Gry who didnt specify what he wanted me to review but left a link nonetheless. I clicked the link and was intrigued. I then took out some trash (not a metaphor mind you), came back and got to work on reviewing this rather nifty utility.

Now right off the bat, I’m going to say that this is not idiot-proof. I know so because I’m an idiot. The rundown of the controls does not specify how to move exactly, so when it said “running is left to the keyboard” I assumed it meant the arrow keys (or whatever you use) and the shift key (again, whatever other key you use). Had this been a year ago the neutrons in my brain would have clicked a bit sooner since the actual movement control scheme works much like the way one would have had to rig up a flash platformer for use on the wii before the API came out.

It’s quite simple and intuitive actually once you know how it works. When the mouse is in the center Jazz (or your bunny of choice) stands still. When the cursor veers to the left or right, your rabbit moves in that direction. Moving the cursor upwards on your screen makes your rabbit of choice look up, and likewise moving downwards makes him duck. These can also be used with the right mousebutton (which does jumping just in case you didnt read the instructions) to pull off special moves such as the sidekick or uppercut, and also to buttstomp if in midair. Now that I’ve gotten all the controls out of the way for my fellow mooks, let’s talk about how the program feels during gameplay.

Being a single player JJ2 gamer, my first priority was to see how the program would fare in SP territory. It holds up fairly well, actually. It was quite fun playing through levels using the mouse though movement felt a bit slippery. This slipperiness made it a bit hard to aim making enemies like dragons, fencers, and floating lizards much more of a pain than with just the keyboard alone. Spaz’s double jump felt wonky to pull off which probably affects MP players a heck lot more than it does SP players. All of Jazz’s moves, however, worked fine.

I then attempted a multiplayer game using the program and found that activating and deactivating the mouse mode prompts a little message to appear in the chatstring. I found that nifty, though I guess players used to using programs during MP matches would have already expected it would do that. Unfortunately for me the only server I had access to was the Long RF Jump or whatever it was called. Its a rather popular level where you use rfs and a double jump to propel you as far as possible. I couldn’t turn fast enough to make any real progress in the level, though that may be because of me not moving the mouse quickly enough instead of a problem caused by the program. Since the level wasn’t really a competitive one in the regular sense I couldn’t get a real feel of how the mouse worked in an MP match.

Which was why I later asked Odin to host one for me. The level hosted was battle 1, played in battle mode. I found that, once again, the mouse controls were a bit too slippery to efficiently roast someone (although thats all well and good for something like a public server). There were some major revelations during my playtime however. Well more specifically one- Copters (and theoretically jetboards) play much better with mouse support. If a level extensively used these vehicles (term loosely used, mind you), I think mouse support would be the best play method. Another thing I found during the battle match was that I was longing for a way to utilize the scroll wheel to scroll through weapons. I’m positive that most, if not all, wheels can be clicked and used as a third button and its a shame it wasn’t put to good use since using the keyboard for weapon switching with the mouse feels annoying.

From the time I spent with the program, I found it to be an amusing gimmick but not something that can fully replace the tightness of pure keyboard play save for a few niche situations. Its great for when you’re tired and just want to easily goof around, or the aforementioned copter example, but for anything serious it doesn’t seem like a good match. That being said, the program was crafted quite well and works like a charm. There is no reason not to own it since it is quite nifty initially, though you may find later on that you have little reason to actually use it again. That initial time is time well spent however, and enough fun (while it lasts) to bump the score up to an 8 with a .5 added for the ease of control it adds to flying machines.

Just one question about this utility.
If a client on a server changes the music does it change for everyone else also?

[It doesn’t. ~cooba]

Thanks cooba. :)

Awesome work!

nice program ;)
(Changed to quick review. ~Violet)

Really good work, grytolle. Do you know why I always start in CTF mode when I play Single Player?

Really awesome work, Grytolle. I downloaded it. I hope you haven’t forgotten who I am. Nice work fixing the bugs.

[Review changed to quick review. For more information, see \Review Rules\. – Cooba]

Gry don’t eat me for being two weeks late with this.. please

Visual Appeal – 3 out of 5

Good enough for me. Nothing really got changed in the resize, and the original semi managed to look somewhat alright, too. The author even tried to shrink the machine in the lower right corner (which I presume to be the semi conductor?), which looks quite cute nice.

minisemi2, though, has got some additional eyecandy all over the level, such as layer 4 background bricks (which shouldn’t end with the shaded tiles when not connecting to a wall/ceiling), a better background (nothing too noticable though, except from layer 8 is now textured), and, well, foreground layers at the bottom. They feel a bit overdone and clutter the bottom area if anything. (I suppose Saphir made the eyecandy changes?) Though, next time you resize a level, do align layer 4’s size with the actual level size, because it looks tacky.

Overall, the eyecandy’s nothing too much of a deal here. After all, nobody will really play this for something else than competition, and you don’t really care about the looks in competitive play.. right?

Playability – 4 out of 5

What can I say? The level seems to still function pretty well, balance wise. By jumping out of the base areas (which is the shortest route from and to a base) you can get from base A to base B in about 3.5 seconds, and vice versa, which is kind of fair game for me.

As for other routes.. now you can double jump up to both bases, which kind of negates the other ways of accessing those. Getting down a base and running/jumping up the another does take more time, too, and if you mess up somewhere it may cost you a point.

Other than that, not much is to be discussed here, is it? I really don’t like reviewing level remakes and the changes :(

• Is not all that special, but doesn’t really break anything
• fastar.. gameplay

• Not too memorable
• Could be resized at least..
• Music choice.

Overall
I hate writing this section and I’m experiencing the writer’s block recently, so :) suffice to say this is a good resize. With horrid music.

EDIT: the sun is burning down los angeles

I’d like to know if it’s useful to download this having Jazz 1.23 and TSF. I mean, does this really boost game experience? Or it’s just for hosting servers?

It is works on 1.20?(because 1.20 and 1.23 are very very similar)

the best game ever

[Rating (10) clearance. Please read the Review Rules. ~Cooba]

I had some problem with unfreezing and also it doesn’t want to work with edited anims.j2a, but it seems like everything else works as it has to, which is worth of 10. Plus it’s extremely simple. I mean, this is probably the most useful utility ever done. Bravo.

maybe you changed some sprites in jazz sprite dynamite and you forget to patch your jj2,or you have the 1.24 anims.j2a,in an incredible mode.

i unzipped all the files in my 1.23 folder but it doesn’t work.
it says Anims.j2a is incomplete, corrupt or of an unkwown version.

This is cool pack but how you can to modify Jazz.The source code is not released.Please say me how to modify.My addres mail is “thunderionut3@yahoo.com”

Unarguably the most useful and sweetest patch*(of the very few ones) ever made for jj2, *so far, meaning there is no doubt, that more is yet to come.

First, we have some passive cool features, one of the most important in my opinion is “death on flag”-fix, that is done perfectly, along the other great fixes. I actually tried this in server-side with PC4 Self-Destruct-function which didn’t work, but for what I’ve seen, it probably just needs someone to really roast you to work(as well I’m wondering is it compatable with PC4.)

Then we have the features, that are to be activated, all by your will. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with either server-side or client-side functions, from which I tested approx. half.

Even all this is already very much, as the other patches released had only a few small fixes/added features in past.

The only bad in this seems to be it’s incompatability with those few useful programs. Anyway as this doesn’t really lack of anything important that needs to be added at the moment, and because it’s all done into the exe, without a need to open separate exe-file(s), there is nothing from preventing me to give this a 10. Also as something nice for the Christmas Eve.

SJ

Great improvement for Jazz2… that’s all I can say.

As soon as I start it up and then browse around my comp, I notice that my comp doesn’t slow down. This is in my opinion one of the best bugfixes added in here! I can now just search stuff without minimizing Jazz2.

Also, very nice features have been added. It has most of NeoAC and Forest’ features, and more from even more programs. Even though I can only use client things, this is very helpful for servers. Countdown and stuff, all just minor but they are great features for making gametypes easier to do :) And ofcourse Instagib.

It’s just so easy and stuff. Just unzipping. I can’t say anything bad about this. This only has room for more features and bugfixes :) I haven’t encountered any bugs that made Jazz2 crash.

There should be a way so that the listserver automatically says people need to download this :P It would be better for the game.

1.23+ (XMAS RELEASE)

+Introduction+

Wow Gry, great work with the patch(Including everyone who helped with it) This patch is very easy to work, just unzip everything and put it into your jazz2 folder. It’s that simple. This patch also has alot of fixed bugs.

+Fixed bugs+

Bah, even though this is in the readme i’ll go head and mention a few.

• Fixed warptarget(If NO warp target found you wont crash)
• Run more than one jj2 window.(At last someone has fixed this bug!)
• Server is crash protected.(Pretty much has NeoAc installed in it)
• Teamchat works regardless what socket players are in.
• No seek holes
• Respawn on at all times
  - And a few other I don’t feel like listing.

+Client abilities(All players)+

I will list a few abilites of what every character can do without being the server.=O.

• Weapon change(Have a weapon you want, pick a new weapon that you hate and it doesn’t change.)
• np(type “/np” and you can see what music your listining to or what you want to know you could be listining to.)
• Change music(Change the music of the level without being the server)

- These are all great stuff that you can do without being the server but there is even more abilities you can do being the server.

+Custom game Modes+(Only for the server)

Here are a few game mods that I think are the best in my opinion that you can do in charge of being the server.

• koth(A gamemod called king,of, the, hill.)
• Temabattle(Ctf but instead of capturing the flag you kill people to score points.)
• instagib(1 shot, 1 kill)
• LRS!(One of my favorites. Its when you try to be the “Last rabbit standing”. Meaning you dont have to kill rabbits to win, just be the last rabbit standing.)

- There are a few more game modes that I have not listed but you can find them in “Commans section”.

+Server controls+

Heh, well, this is ment for the server of course. This patch has tons of controls for the server which is great. I will list a few below.

• multiversion(This is very usefull but it can also be very annoying. Pretty much says that other versions besides 1.23 can join. It can be annoying somethimes becasue people that dont talk english join your server and alot of them can be newbies.)
• private(Change public to private)
• servername(Change servername)
• password(Change password)
• rename(=o, I like this one a lot becasue if someone is being an (-) hole you can piss them off by changing there name. Don’t abuse this though.)
• allblue(Makes teams all blue.)
• allred(Makes teams all red.)
• changelevel(Changes to whatever level you want to play next)
• restart level(You know what this means)
• Countdown(Use this in LRT)
• stealthkick(CTO for 30 seconds. Be EVIL!)
• Kill(I love this one. You can kill someone else without being you.=o.)
• spectate(View any player you want. Useful in duels when your just watching.)

-There are so many more to list, im just getting to tired to list them.

+Conclusion+

Well Gry, I have to say you did a fantastic job in doing this. It was a lovly *Christmas* Present for me. Keep up the good work.

+Download recommendation+

Yes, of course, DOWNLOAD NOW!

- *Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.*

~HïTçH

12-26-06

There are a few problems with the patch as I have found out. I know you said it wasnt finished and thats fine but one of the problems is when I host a server between 10-30 minutes the server freezes. I wont change the rating becasue the progam is great but I’m just letting you know this ahead of time.

So what kind of bugs does this fix?

I will make 1.24+ once I have a more final release of 1.23+

Great utility but is there any chance of making a TSF/1.24 version since I mostly play levels on TSF.

EDIT: I love this utility. But the CTF Death trick isn’t working.

@Rionaam: I don’t really know many of the features in 1.23+, but it does allow the music to continue playing even when you get roasted.

@Djazz: I think this was mainly designed to be used in Mulitplayer (MP) rather than Single Player.