Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Don’t ever play this lvl in low detail or without ambient lightning!!!

Quote from Neon PSY’s review:
‘PS: THis lvl reminds me of mirrows Easter Island tileset :P’
Yeah, I completely agree with you but Moonblaze’s tileset is better. mirrow has simply not put enough effort into his Easter Island tileset and it is therefore too small and too simple. Moonblaze’s tileset, though only slightly bigger, has a lot more detail, more eyecandy and lots of interesting animations.

A lot of basic stuff is in the tileset such as destruct blocks, vines, poles, etc. although I really do not like those suckertube wooden bars… they are in the way and you have to align Jazz very carefully and slowly to jump into it, something which is pure suicide when fighting in a multiplayer game. They could be used for bridges over cliffs, though, which is quite a nice touch since it is more solid than JJ2’s own bridges and it looks different. What I like most about this tileset is its feeling of isolation. It has far-away clouds and forests and strange carvings on the walls as well as an old hermit (Moonblaze :-P). The tileset could be used very well in small to medium-sized levels althouh it’s too small to provide variation for big levels.

I don’t want to go into too much detail. I like the tileset’s idea as well as its high quality and Moonblaze’s effort but the tileset is too small to get a super-duper rating a la Discofever or . An 8.2 would be best, in my opinion. Download recommendation.

Btw, sry for pushing your average tileset rating down, MB. :-(

Poor Fawriel has always wanted me to review his single player level pack and it’s been two years since his last request. I haven’t written a single word, but I did play through the whole thing. Of course, two years is a long time so I forgot most of the stuff and therefore I decided to play the whole thing through again. On hard.
Believe me, it is quite an experience to do so…

Before you even think about downloading and playing ‘Some Continuing Episode – Here we go again’ (let’s just call it SCE from now on) you must first understand that Fawriel has made his single player levels very, very special and thus very, very different from your normal playing style. I still have trouble adjusting my playing style to SCE. However, if you think that just because these levels are weird and are made different compared to other levels, then you are wrong. Read on.

Fawriel has done what only very few people have done when creating their own single player episodes: making custom tilesets for his levels. Two famous names in sinle player level making include Kejero (Tomb Rabbit) and Ninja Dodo (The Lost World). Fawriel’s levels, because they use his own tilesets, have a special feel to it. Fawriel is obviously very comfortable with his own tilesets and is therefore comfortable making levels with them. This enables him to, with confidence, create all kinds of crazy levels, puzzles, traps and devious contraptions possible. Heck, I bet that his tilesets are created for the sole purpose of fulfilling his level creation dreams! I know I should only rate the levels in a single player pack, but since these tilesets are custom made specially for the pack, I must give bonus points for the effort, which was not in vain.

I promised Fawriel to review SCE and since it has arrived so late, I’m going to give him a nice, fat one! Each level will be described in detail, its eyecandy, gameplay and difficulty rated as fairly as possible as well as the levels overall quality. I hope you’re happy now, Fawriel! :-D

The Beginning -
Nothing special really. It’s basically an intro level, where the player can read the simple story, see the credits, which only includes one name (guess which name that is!). Fawriel has created all the levels and the tilesets but he really should give credits to the music creators as well, and of course good old Epic. The tileset for this level is used for all other cut-scenes and non-playable levels in SCE.

Gameplay – N/A – There really isn’t much to do here, and it’s just an intro level, so I can’t rate it on playability.

Eyecandy – 2/10 – Three words: Functional, but ugly. People should take a look at Overlord’s Rabbit Honour Guard for inspiration to good intros. This intro is basically just a black screen with white text and a picture of Fawriel. I wouldn’t be too worried about the eyecandy though because people are unlikely to spend much time in this level.

Difficulty – N/A – Unless you don’t speak English there shouldn’t be much problems getting to the next level, besides, it’s just an intro level. There’s nothing to shoot or solve here so I can’t rate it.

Overall rating (not an average) – 5/10 – It’s ok, I guess, and it tells you the story but I wouldn’t stand around to gawp at Fawriel’s picture… Keep in mind that all overall rating of levels, including the rating of the whole SCE pack, is not based on averages.

Get down –
The first level is a short one, which is a shame since it’s actually quite good. It has some very dark areas, mainly in the tunnels, and its puzzles are very easy. I was surprised when I reached the end area so early and the boss killed me easily. He got paid back the next time though. :-P The music is good, but it doesn’t really suit the level. It’s way too futuristic, and you’re playing in a cave, which makes you think of dinosaurs and Neanderthals.

Gameplay – 8.2/10 – It’s really fun running around and shooting stuff in this level. It features the standard single player stuff most people put into their levels such as vines, platforms, hurt events, etc. You don’t get stuck unless you want to and you will always know where you’re going, except in the caves, which are too dark for you to see in. The caves offer some nasty surprises. Nasty, but fun and it requires the player to be on full alert, something he has to do for the rest of SCE.

Eyecandy – 7/10 – This level features some nice underground eyecandy such as lava, stalactites/stalagmites, gems, diamonds and mine shaft lamps. It makes the whole level much more atmospheric, which is nice. There are plenty of lightning effects; sometimes giving you full vision and sometimes making you walk around in the dark without a clue to where the exit is. The eyecandy adds an element of surprise to the level as it helps to hide enemies and surprise you. The tileset doesn’t allow you to put in fantastic mind-blowing eyecandy into your levels, however, since it’s not large enough and doesn’t have the right tiles. This is not the level maker’s fault, but the tileset maker’s fault. Oh, wait a minute…

Difficulty – 7.7/10 – This level is great for getting you going. It’s not too easy and not too hard and is perfect for newbies or people who would rather play a game with progressing difficulty. You need to watch out for a couple of neatly disguised traps and of course the darkness. That’s as much as I dare say, I don’t want to ruin your death by giving away clues so you can live.

Overall rating – 8/10 – It’s short, but it will keep you coming for more. ‘Get Down’ is an excellent way to get going in the adventure that is SCE.

Underground-Hive!!!!!! –
This is quite a weird level. It seems to have two parts, one in a big cave and one in an underground beehive. Unfortunately, I….just….couldn’t….get to the hive! Why, I have no idea. I think there was some kind of misplacement of warps. I couldn’t get to the hive with Jazz, Spaz or Lori, which was disappointing because I was looking forward to fighting in a hive when I suddenly arrived at the level ending. With the robot boss. Huh? Then I got killed. ‘Underground-hive’ is so much longer than ‘Get down’ but the thing is, you only have access to one part of the level. The rest, probably the best part, is lost! Bleh. Fix this Fawriel.

Gameplay – 6/10 – the level is short and it’s much more boring than the last one, due to the fact that half of the level, with all the goodies, is inaccessible. The bottom part of the level, which you are in, is well made but there are no good ideas. The good ideas are all in the upper part, which is inaccessible.

Eyecandy – 6/10 – the animated background is great and it’s kinda creepy. Other than that it’s mostly the same as ‘Get down’. There are also some skeletons lying around, which look nice, but the part I was really amazed at was the hive itself (I looked at it in JCS and used jjnowall to play it in the game). It is very original, I don’t think it’s been done before, and having all those bees fly towards you against a yellow hive background beats most other eyecandy from other levels. Unfortunately, most of the good parts, including the hive, are in the inaccessible area at the top and I can’t rate stuff I can’t see. Boo!

Difficulty – 4.5/10 – ‘Underground-hive’ is way too easy, even on hard. The robot boss is arguably the easiest boss of all because of its lame attack and slow speed. The boulders and the bees prove no challenge and you never get into a sticky situation in which you have to think and react fast. Of course, there are loads of sticky and challenging situations you can get into, and some pretty hard traps too, but THEY’RE ALL LOCATED IN THE INACCESIBLE AREA!!!!! ARGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!

Overall rating – 5.7/10 – I could’ve given this an 8.2 or maybe an 8.5 but most of the level is unplayable, which leaves you with a boring, unchallenging, uninspired area of the level to fool around with. You have to fix this Fawriel, ‘Underground-hive’ pulls the quality of SCE down a lot.

Psycho Hills –
Ahh, now this is much better! Not only is this level much larger than anything else I’ve encountered so far, but it is also much more better, varied and is beginning to show the originality of SCE. This level puts you in a place that is…well, I don’t want to reveal any surprises, so let’s just say that the place is on the border of becoming post-apocalyptic. The music sounds good and it gives the feeling that hope is the only thing not yet lost.

Gameplay – 8.7/10 – I really enjoyed this level, and it features some really weird platforms and maze-like forests. The level structure enables you to use all your weapons, not just the blaster and you must keep yourself on the alert all the time. There are a few places where the bad masking of the tileset can cause movement problems, but I just ignored them and carried on playing.

Eyecandy – 9/10 – This level features one spectacular effect but if you want to know what it is, play the level :-P. The eyecandy is not only visual, but also physical (feetcandy!) with the ground rumbling and a lot of moving stuff that doubles as platforms (but most of the time whatever moves is out to kill you). I especially like the nuclear silos on the barren hills and the dull yellow sky with smog and fiendish-looking clouds. Post-apocalyptic is definitely the right word for the eyecandy. There are also a lot of animations in this level, most of them are of bugs and giant worms that wouldn’t mind killing you or generally making your life miserable. The good thing is that the animations are of mutant-like creatures, something that goes well with the feeling and the general look of the level. Well done, Fawriel.

Difficulty – 8.2/10 – This is a semi-hard level with really cool puzzles and nice, challenging placement of baddies as well as blue indestructible worms (?). You don’t need an IQ of 170 (not even 140!) to solve any of the puzzles, but whatever your skills, they will take time. You can also use your electroblaster to good effect at one of the longer puzzles. The water area is especially hard, because you can’t see properly and those pesky rats will jump at you before you can say ‘uh oh!’. The end boss is trickier than the ones I fought against before but it doesn’t surprise you as much as the earlier bosses (it’s only a minor surprise this time :-P) and the boss arena, which is filled with water, is nice and large and you have to swim as fast as possible all over the place in order to avoid the boss.

Overall rating – 8.7/10 – ‘Psycho hills’ has great eyecandy and special effects, fluent gameplay and challenging puzzles and enemies. It’s way better than the cave levels. Not much else to say really.

Acid Reign –
A pun of acid rain, I think. :-) This is also a long level, not very long though, and it should give you about 30 minutes of entertaining frustration or frustrating entertainment. Choose one. Unlike in the other levels, I didn’t have a single clue as to what I was supposed to do here and where I should go. The foreground rain doesn’t help much either. It’s ugly and it’s in the way, but you don’t want low detail on or you’ll miss the fabulous eyecandy. Being attacked by tonnes of baddies while you’re in frog form doesn’t make the situation better though, but a whole lot more fun!

Gameplay – 6.5/10 – Huh? What? Where? Why? Those are the questions I asked myself when I just started the level. I never answered huh, what or why, but I knew where I was going, at first, because the only path I could take was the one in front of me (duh!). Then the situation got real tricky. I tried to solve puzzles, stomp crates and shoot baddies but I seemed to be running around in circles! There are no signs, no clues and no visible paths (the most vital paths are hidden by the foreground). Navigating in this level is like playing the lottery. Chances are, you’re never going to get anywhere unless you look in JCS for directions. Other than this very annoying problem of direction and navigation, the gameplay is, in fact, even better than in the pervious levels. There’s so much stuff and so much attention to making the whole level as easily playable as possible. Again, I don’t want to ruin surprises, but keep an eye out for mini-games, more monsters and loads of springs, suckertubes and secret passageways.

Eyecandy – 7/10 – ‘Acid Reign’ has good eyecandy, but not as good as in ‘Psycho Hills’. The foreground rain drags down the eyecandy a lot. It would’ve been much better if it was in the background, but I guess that would be in the way of the nuclear silos and hills and nobody would understand the pun acid reign if there was no acid rain. Apart from annoying rain there are a lot of other stuff in the foreground as well, including more blue worms, silos and there are also flowers (?) on the ground. Funny, you would’ve thought plant life would be eradicated, but I guess not. There is variation in the eyecandy provided by red and white, shiny metal blocks, which gives some areas an indoor look, which is always welcomed when you’ve been spending so much time in acid rain, hehe.

Difficulty – 8.5/10 – The fact that you never know where you are going raises the difficulty by 2 points. :-P Solving the puzzles and finding crates is very easy, so Fawriel probably took away all sense of direction in the level. Some players may like this while others will hate it. I think that the lack of direction helps make up for the levels ease, although in a frustrating way. There is also a really fun frog part where you get morphed into every jazzer’s favourite amphibian and have to find the exit. You better hope you’ve gotten the bubble shield when you turn into a frog! Once the exit is found you will come up against a much tougher robot boss, WHILE YOU’RE IN FROG FORM! You have to avoid the robot’s missiles and reach the Jazz-Spaz-Lori morpher in time or you’re toast. I was really surprised by the fact that I arrived in the boss arena in frog form and…you guessed it…I died the first time.

Overall rating – 8.5/10 – Marginally worse than ‘Psycho Hill’ but still an excellent level. The level could’ve been improved by having less frog surprises and more arrow signs (arrow sings don’t exist in this tileset, by the way) for less frustration.

Welcome to the Machine! –
This is really a horrible place to be. You’re in a killer PC, which is kinda ironic because today’s PCs are all loyal subjects to the dark master aka Mr. Gates. This can be quite a tough level at first because, once again, you never know where you are going. Sure, you can just follow the general “flow” of the level, and you will sooner or later reach the exit, and the Bubba boss. The eyecandy in this level isn’t as great as in the levels using the Mad Forest tilesets. The electronic parts are mostly dull grey and green, but there seems to be plenty of organic parts too, and lots of blood. Not to mention our beloved Windows-logo. :-) Many parts of the computer have “evolved” and developed a semi-organic, semi-artificial look. There are plenty of live electrical wires and loads of evolved computer viruses. To get to the exit alive, you must dodge many computer components that have gone berserk, kill plenty of baddies and solve puzzles that range from very hard to very, very hard.

Gameplay – 7.5/10 – The gameplay deserves a higher rating than a 7.5, but, as usual, I am always very confused in this level, and I end up going around in circles and getting killed at the same places before I finally realize that I’ve missed that teeny, tiny little hole in the wall or didn’t trigger that teeny, tiny little crate. Despite this, the gameplay is actually quite good. It’s fast-paced, but you have to take things slowly if you want to survive and there is always something for you to do in this level, whether it is exploring, stomping, shooting, blasting, pushing, dodging, etc, etc. But please, please, please put arrow signs in your levels/tilesets, Fawriel, so we know where we are going!

Eyecandy – 7.2/10 – Most of the level is brown, grey and green, which is a bit boring and I’m not just talking about the colours. I don’t think that there are enough textures in the tileset, which makes everything look a bit plain and the numerous computer associated stuff are well-made and original but they don’t have much textures either. The level, however, has lots of background layers and foreground layers used together, with animated blood dripping out from all sorts of places, which always look nice. :-) There are also lots of computer viruses, skulls, rotating wheels, flashing generators and blood, blood, blood throughout the level, which helps create a very hostile environment despite the lack of textures and detail in the actual tileset. I especially like the DOS screen in the background, which is a neat touch and of course the presence of (un)healthy doses of 666 in the usual binary code of 1 and 0. You could’ve added a 2 as well, Fawriel, but I guess 666 is the most evil number.

Difficulty – 9/10 – If you had trouble getting through the previous 5 levels, then I recommend you start typing jjshield 4 times when you enter this level! The enemies aren’t that hard to kill, it’s the puzzles, traps and the element of surprise that will squish you into oblivion. This level features a really tricky puzzle with a box, an invisible tile, many skulls, a Jazz-Spaz-Lori morpher (here’s a tip, be Lori for this puzzle, it will make your life much easier, but not easy), some belts and a protected trigger crate that will set you free. It took me 20 minutes and 2 lives to solve this one. Maybe it’s just because I’m stupid, I don’t know, but I can guarantee that you won’t figure this out in less than 8 minutes. There is also a very dark area full of sharp stuff and spike balls, which you will have to carefully manage your way through. If you do get through to the end of the level, you will most likely have just 1 or 2 hearts left, which means that the boss will use you to make rabbit stew. Gah. reloads saved game

Overall rating – 8.5/10 – ‘Welcome to the Machine!’ is a very confusing and somewhat weird-looking level. It has some original puzzles/traps but there aren’t many carrots and one of the savepoints do not work (you get stuck in the wall because the trigger scenery is reset when you die). Still, it’s a great, fun, playable level but since it’s so hard, I was relieved to be able to move on to the next level, even though ‘Welcome to the Machine!’ is so fun to play in.

Strongest vs. Strongest –
And I thought ‘Welcome to the Machine!’ was hard! AAARGHH. tears off hair, breaks JJ2 CD-ROM in two, throws out monitor. Ok, I guess I’ll have to write without a monitor now. And steal Unhit’s copy of JJ2, not to mention growing more hair. Ahem. I almost gave up while playing this level but at one point I almost didn’t need to do so because I had 0 lives left and only had to die once more to lose the game. :-( Let’s just say that there are too many traps and way too many puzzles for a trigger-happy gung-ho jazzer like me. There simply are not enough shootable enemies in this level!! :-(

Gameplay – 8.7/10 – Ok, first rule. When playing ‘Strongest vs. Strongest’, and you have arrived at a place full of enemies, spikes and deadly traps, you’ve probably come to the right place. Second rule. Never, ever take Fawriel’s JCS abilities for granted. Never, ever go back to places you’ve been before, or you’ll regret it (you’ll be running around in circles until you die or find the right path). Fawriel has not bothered to block off pathways to trigger crates that have already been triggered, which makes the whole level very disorientating and negates rule number one completely. Once I ended up at the bottom of the level, with no solid tiles under my feet and since I wasn’t Spaz I couldn’t jump back up and I was just stranded there, left falling for all eternity. I had to type jjk for that, which was incredible irritating since I had just gone through a very tough 30 minutes of play (I stopped doing that ever since I finished Tomb Rabbit). Why do I still give it 8.7/10 then, you ask? The answer is because this level is so big, its playable areas vary greatly from mindlessly running around to tiptoeing over the floor (but not literally because rabbits can’t tip-toe). Just like in previous levels ‘Strongest vs. Strongest’ always give you something to do, and since this is one of the biggest levels in the whole of SCE you’re going to have a lot of fun just walking through the level’s many corridors and rooms. I really shouldn’t write about the gameplay in more detail since I would have to refer to some very cool areas of the level, and that would just spoil the jazzing-experience for you. :-D

Eyecandy – 8.7/10 – This level doesn’t use the D*mn PC!!! tileset, it uses H*ll’s PC!!!. H*ll’s PC features even more organic tiles, most of them in the background, and it really reminds me of Zerg (from Starcraft) skin or anything to do with Zerg creatures/buildings. Very gross and very cool at the same time! Apart from the Zerg/computer theme of the level, the stuff from ‘Welcome to the Machine!’ is still here. This level’s eyecandy is one of the best in the whole of SCE and while the tiles in the tileset are still mostly plain and dull, the level itself is a pleasure to the eyes. Only ‘Psycho Hills’ has the special effects that can compete with ‘Strongest vs. Strongest’. But we haven’t reached the last level yet…

Difficulty – 10/10 – I’m very angry and happy at Fawriel for making this level so darn hard. Angry, because it forces me to restart over and over again. Happy, for teaching us all how to make good, challenging levels. I noticed, in JCS, that there are no yellow or red events. So everything is played on medium difficulty, no matter what your difficulty was when you first started SCE. This is good news for veterans of JJ2 but bad news for newbies. No news for the average jazzers. The traps in this level move super-duper fast and you must have superb timing because you can never outrun traps that are heading right for you. You have to dodge them and get over/under/behind them ASAP or prepare to lose a heart or more. Another very annoying thing is respawning enemies. Enemies that come from a green lantern will respawn periodically and you will find yourself getting killed by baddies you thought you sent back to the Stone Age. One very fun and original idea was to put in the blue ghost into this level. The blue ghost behaves like an Eyes/Rapier enemy and exists only in TSF. Sometimes it will just follow you, safely tucked away inside a wall so you can only kill it with electroblasters. Other times it will head straight towards you and you must react quickly to dodge its charge. A very refreshing idea and it’s always fun to meet these ghosts than to shoot endless waves of norm turtles (which, by the way, there are none of in SCE…weird). These blue ghosts ONLY appear in ‘Strongest vs. Strongest’ so you better enjoy them while you can.

Overall rating – 9/10 – Great fun, many original ideas and cool-looking eyecandy. But… AARGH! CRASH! KABOOOM!!!

Strongest vs. Strongest 2 –
A semi-playable level. This level is incredibly short and easy. It pits you against the Jazz clone, which is on an airboard and you must kill him in order to pass. The tileset used is still H*ll’s PC!!! but the level does have some ingenious JCS ideas, something which other single player creators should take a close look at. I, being such a JCS single-player noob, didn’t even know that Jazz-clone boss existed before playing this level! :-D

Gameplay – 1.7/10 – You’re in a 7×20 rectangle fighting against a boss. That’s all. Really boring gameplay and you really don’t wanna move much because the boss will follow you and easily kill you.

Eyecandy – 3/10 – Not much to see here, since the level is so short and small. The tiles used here have all been used in the previous level.

Difficulty – 1.2/10 – This level is a piece of cake, as long as you know the boss’s weakness. I won’t tell you what his weakness is, but I can tell you that you will soon figure it out by yourself, as long as you don’t put too much effort in dodging his attacks…

Overall rating – 5.7/10 – I know gameplay, eyecandy and difficulty is crap but I really like the custom clone boss, which requires some special placement of JCS events. And besides, it’s better than the intro level cause you actually have something to do here and the level kinda keeps the story going. At least the next one will.

What’s happening? –
An interlude level. It explains to you what happens next, after you kill the clone. I don’t really have much to say about this since it’s an interlude level. I won’t even bother rating this because it will not affect you at all although the level IS necessary because you will understand the next level and not be grossed out by the yucky (but excellent) tileset. The music also fits the level perfectly and adds to the suspense and the fear of a sudden and horrible death.

In the centre of evil –
The last fully playable level of SCE!! It puts you straight inside some kind of green creature (possibly the dead clone….or even worse, yourself….!) There are loads of disgusting bodily…erm..stuff in here and it’s animations-galore too! Animations are everywhere! Animated pores, animated cells, animated spikes, animated blood vessels, you name it! The puzzles are much more simple but unlike all other levels, ‘In the centre of evil’ has a very intricate and claustrophobic maze consisting of blood vessels, layers upon layers of spikes and an amazing blood vessel elevator, which sadly enough is severely under-used (it’s only used once).

Gameplay – 9.2/10 – You still don’t know where you’re going but by this time I got used to it. :-P The level has large open spaces, which is good for jumping around in and you can easily kill or avoid most enemies. There are loads of suckertubes, which will take you all over the place and it effectively gives the feeling that you’re just a little rabbit in a big, gruesome thing’s body. This is one of the better levels when it comes to gameplay (although I did get stuck inside the maze, but that was probably just because of bad masking).

Eyecandy – 8.7/10 – What can I say? You’re in something’s body. Every single thing looks like it’s painted with mucus and there are animations throughout the level. The thing is alive (maybe the the dead clone isn’t dead…?) and you’re in it. I love the moving blue spikes (the static blue spikes are pretty neat too) and the elevator blood vessel as well as the red, bloody background. There’s not too much in the foreground, but what is there seems to be blocking certain traps, giving you a limited vision and therefore an even tougher obstacle to overcome. Most of ‘In the centre of evil’ is green and red, but I don’t mind that as it suits the level’s mood. Unlike the other levels, this one seems to be very detailed. You can literally see the pores and blood flowing through the body as well as tonnes of other animated stuff. Sensitive people, watch out!!

Difficulty – 6.7/10 – ‘In the centre of evil’ is surprisingly easy for the last level of such a difficult level pack . I don’t mind that, because it means I won’t have to reload over and over again, but those who were looking forward to a super-challenge will be disappointed. The puzzles aren’t that hard to solve, most of the time it’s about stomping a crate or stepping on a blue pulsating thing…ewww… and then moving on. There are some meatknives (?) to dodge, many, many respawning enemies (Fawriel should’ve made their respawning time to just 1 second to take this level’s difficulty up to the appropriate level) and a very tricky maze. The maze is probably the most difficult part of the level. When you’ve triggered all the blue pulsating things and done everything there is to do (unfortunately, there are no coins or bonus warps…) you can go to the boss arena. The boss is the Bilsy boss, an evil magician shooting fireballs towards you, but the boss arena is so large and even on hard (it adds two spike balls to the arena) defeating the boss is very easy, as long as you don’t get hit by his fireballs or, when playing on hard, any balls. And when you’ve killed the boss, it’s over!

Overall rating – 8.7/10 – This level’s ease was, in my opinion, on the brink of making ‘In the centre of evil’ an anti-climax, but fortunately the superb eyecandy and even better gameplay saves it. There aren’t as many cool moments as in previous levels, but on the other hand, you won’t die as often here. Fawriel has turned ‘In the centre of evil’ into a great and an appropriate ending to SCE, but it could’ve been so much better.

That’s all folks! –
The end level. This level has some nice, cheerful music and explains what happens after you kill the boss. Then comes the credits and finally, you get stuck in a room full of congrats signs but no exit events whatsoever. I typed jjnxt but apparently the next level is .j2l. In other words, you can’t finish SCE…gah…what a shame. I would’ve liked to see JJ2’s final animated movie or at least being taken back to the game’s main screen. Fawriel, just set the next level as ‘ending’ (as in Bad Pitt in the official JJ2 single player episode) to give the player a proper, well, ending to SCE. :-)

SCE – Here we go again! is an amazing single player pack that is not as long or involving as some other single player packs, but is incredibly fun to play in and it was a satisfying experience to finally reach the ending level despite inaccessible areas and some minor (and major) bugs. ‘Some Continuing Episode – Here we go again’ is almost completely made by Fawriel and quality and effort oozes out of it. An excellent piece of work by Fawriel and no jazzer should pass it by.

EDIT: Yay! I got the longest review! :-P

2ND EDIT: Changed Soulfire’s name to Fawriel, fixed grammar/spelling mistakes and edited some texts to make the review make more sense. I care about my reviews, especially the long ones. :-)

3RD EDIT: The above is, hm, not actually true.
[This review has been edited by White Rabbit.]

Finally! A brand new level from Cmdr Dats! It really has been a while since he released his last level but he has certainly not lost his skills and Golradir, though not one of his best creations, is a level you must take a closer look at.

Golradir (it’s a weird name – no idea what it means) is quite large with many open areas as well as some tight and closed tunnels to explore and battle in. The layout consists of loads of platforms that take up most of the level and a smaller area consisting of a tunnel-like place at the bottom. This is nothing new as otside and inside levels have been done over and over and over and over again…etc, etc. The platforms are nicely arranged so you will always be a rabbit hop away from each one and springs are in the right places to reach places quickly and easily. The level has a lot of places you can bump into if you’re not careful, but it is very open, as mentioned earlier, and Golradir lets you navigate through it with the minumum of pain. For even faster movement, easily reached suckertubes are placed all over the level, which gives you an advantage over those on foot. I think that the suckertubes will be vital for pursuit and escape. The bad things about these tubes are that they take up a lot of space and it seems to me that you tend to take the tube rather than travel by foot, much like today’s commuters :). Since you can’t really control your movement while in the tube, these suckertubes spoil the fun of running around and shooting, but not by much.

Weapons placement is good and you don’t have to take huge detours just to get some ammo and most stuff can be reached by spring or by one jump, which smoothens the flow of the level. One complaint I have, however, is that ammo is so widely distributed. There are no large concentrations of ammo in one sinle place, which forces you to scavenge the level for ammo, which is bad news for campers or those who tend to hang around in the same area. Some crates would be really helpful but I guess anti-campers would probably see the lack of ammo as a positive thing.

The eyecandy is, like the weapons placement, very good but, like ammo, is widely distributed. Cmdr Dats have puts a little of this and a little of that here and there but he hasn’t used much of the tiles of the excellent Odyssey tileset, which is disappointing. A big window showing Earth, some lightning effects or more use of foreground layers would be great. And by the way, those great-looking teleport tiles are not used, most likely because there are no warps in Golradir. It’s acceptable when a level does not have warps, but at least use all tiles for eyecandy or you won’t be fully exploiting the tileset.

Despite the sparse ammo and equally sparse eyecandy, Golradir is a battle level worth having, and more importantly, playing. Battle freaks should definitely download this and those that are reluctant to mindlessly blow stuff up should still download and play this because of its great gameplay.

Cmdr Dats has done it again. Download recommendation and a nice 8.2 rating from me.

Few ppl have attempted making instagib only packs, and even fewer have done street-fighting packs, so Candy Wars could be a breeze of fresh air for everyone swamped with CTF and Battle.

INSTAGIB LVLS
Altough the idea of making an instagib and street-fighting lvl pack is good and original, not a lot of effort has been put into these lvls, mainly because they are so small so minimal effort is needed. Street-fighting games would take hours if the lvls were too big. Ppl would just run away because special-attacks are slower than weapons so I’m currently only talking about the instagib lvls here.

Instagib, for those that don’t know, are basically one-hit-one-kill games. It doesn’t matter what hits your opponent, he dies on the first hit (except if you’re using ice). For instagib to be fun, lvls shouldn’t be as small as you have made them. I think instagib should be decided by whoever is the best player, not by the one who has the fastest trigger finger. The lvls are so small that you get many kills just by blasting away everywhere without taking heed of anything. This is just my opinion. Your idea of small instagib lvls may be valid too but since they’re all small, you could have put in some variations (like some big, some small).

The eyecandy is great, but not too clustered around. Most, if not all, eyecandy tiles in the tilesets are used, and all lvls look really nice. Since the lvls are so small you don’t want lots of tiles to get into your sight, because the moment you get confused, you die and lvls in Candy Wars are good-looking, but clean.

Gameplay is similiar to most good battle/CTF lvls. No dead-ends, well placed springs and good platforms, which means that you can take advantage of all your weapons, depending on where you are in the lvl. I like the sucker-tubes because you are less easy to kill inside them, which gives valuable breathing space in instagib games. Of course someone could be standing at the end of one tube and kill you as you come out, but I’ve never heard of 1on1 instagib duels so camping is not much of a problem. The few complaints I have are the small size, but I’ve already talked about that, and the fact that some lvls have big empty spaces, and since this is instagib, RFs, bouncers and seekers rule supreme in those lvls. You never see your opponent, they die before you arrive and there’s nothing they can do, which is frustrating for them, as well as for you, when they do the same thing.

Weapons placement is probably as good as it can get. You won’t have much use of the food since the average life-expectancy of a rabbit in instagib games is 15 seconds but the food is nice eyecandy. :)

Overall, the instagib section of the lvl pack is worth hosting, just don’t expect to survive for long in any of those lvls, however good you are…

STREET-FIGHTING LVLS
Some of these lvls have no carrots, and some do, so I guess that they are not designed for instagib, in which case it’s gonna be hard to get any kills at all in the lvls where you do have carrots.

At first I didn’t understand the street-fighting game type, but after seeing your lvls, I’ve noticed that there are a lot of food in them, to get Sugar Rush, so I assume that the main thing you’re trying to do is to eat 100 food and then touch as many ppl as possible. Sugar Rush lasts only 20 seconds, so the small size of the lvls help a lot.

The eyecandy for the street-fighting lvls look even better than the instagib ones. I especially like The Leprechaun Forest. It reminds me of Rainy Rain Forest and the Waterfall, since all 3 lvls have, well, waterfalls in them. There are a lot of falling food and carrots in this lvl, which is very similiar to The Waterfall, a lvl in my battle pack, but it was designed to be an instagib lvl too (Bobby joined my server while I was hosting this…he roasted everything in sight :P).

Weapons placement is non-existent, but I can talk about food placement, hehe. Food? Well, erm, I never thought I would review a lvl’s food placement, but as far as I can tell, it works. As long as you stay alive, you can get at least one Sugar Rush per game.

Gameplay is very Spaz-biased. There is a morph in each lvl, for Jazzers to become Spazzers and I don’t like that at all. :( Just because Spaz has side-kick. Upper-cut has its uses too, but not in this lvl, so I think it would be a good idea to make it more Jazz friendly (like adding sucker-tubes with pauses so, if Jazz is quick enough, he can upper-cut ppl stuck inside sucker-tubes! Or, by adding places that go inside the ground, like a trap, so Jazz can upper-cut ppl when they try to butt-stomp him. I don’t think this will work without Jazz getting hurt too, especially in laggy games but I really don’t like it when lvls are so biased towards one character. The good thing is that TSF players will be able to use Lori in these lvls since she can cover vast distances using helicopter ears AND fight like Spaz. :)

The street-fighting lvls, though Spaz-biased, are fun and original lvls to play in, and ppl who have them should definitely host them many, many times.

SUMMARY
Before I come to a conclusion, I want to add that you should tell ppl that they need Overlord’s Controller, or somekind of instagib program to play the instagib lvls. Give them the URLs, and of course, credit to Overlord for adding such a brilliant game type to JJ2.

Well, there are a lot of things that could be improved in these lvls, but there are even more things that should be copied by other Jazzers. Great lvl pack but watch out for anyone above you in ALL instagib lvls ;). Download recommendation for everyone. MUST DOWNLOAD for instagib/street-fighting fans.

EDIT: Yay! I got the longest review![This review has been edited by White Rabbit twice]

Thanks to everyone who gave us such great ratings!!! :-D

Ah, it’s always nice to see new additions to J2o’s already very extensive single-player section and this particular one is a level made by Bjossi, a new-comer (I presume?) to JJ2, and uses the tileset D4mn.

The Lava Cave, is Bjossi’s 3rd level. It’s uploaded completely by itself and there is no story whatsoever nor does the player know what to do, apart from getting to the end of the level, obviously. This is ok, but most players like their single-player levels to come in packs and also have a story. That way it won’t feel boring.

The level is quite large and one can immediately see that the author likes big, empty spaces because I would estimate that 60% of the level is…air. There are numerous platforms, bridges, cliffs to walk on and they are very well placed, giving the player a feeling of distance between one place and another. But, apart from that, there doesn’t seem to be much to walk on. However, I can’t see why it matters because the level design is so good that one won’t ever notice the in-efficient use of space in the level. The springs are placed in decent manners and so are the poles, although there seems to be a little too much of them. Variation never hurts. I would recommend using float-ups, more suckertubes, or simply more places for the player to run on.

The enemy placement is one of Lava Cave’s strongest points. Although few, they are placed so that you can almost never avoid shooting them. This adds to the difficulty, but there are simply TOO FEW of them. Also, add to this the fact that there are way too many carrots, way too much weapons and a way too easy to reach bonus warp, an experienced jazzer will be able to complete this in 5 minutes without getting hurt once. The Lava Cave is far too easy to make it fun to play. Add more spikes, more enemies, boulders and perhaps more challenging situations where you have to do more than one thing at a time. For example, you’re running. Suddenly you hear a rumble. Realizing a giant boulder is racing towards you, you sprint towards the nearest cliff. When you arrive at the edge you discover the bottom is full of deadly spikes, and the gap is too wide for you to jump. You notice the swinging vines above you. Climbing onto one of them, the boulder rushes past you. But then the ravens come, swooshing down from above forcing you to jump onto the other swinging vine in order to get to the spring and onto a platform where you can fight the ravens more easily. THAT’S something which people want to see.

Not only is the Lava Cave too easy, the eyecandy is far too average. Although there’s nothing wrong with it, I couldn’t spot a single thing of originality. It’s just plain BORING. Use lighting effects, put more stuff in layer 3, use ALL available tiles in the tileset (I noticed you didn’t use the skull) and be creative! It doesn’t matter where you put it or how you put it, just make sure it looks nice.

The Lava Cave is a very good level for such a new level-creator and therefore I’ll be much more lenient. Let this be a lesson for everybody. Good level design will not make a good level if there is not enough eyecandy and challenges.

A 6.7. Wish you good luck next time![This review has been edited by White Rabbit]

Awesome tileset. I’ve never seen anything like it before! It has heaps of tiles and you will, I hope, never have to use background layer 1 again because you can have practically EVERYTHING in the sprite layer, leaving you with more space to put even more eyecandy!!! :D Mega Megatropolis has got two themes, one country and one city and puts them together so you can make a lvl with a city and some nature together. The eyecandy is exceptionally good, and some of the small stuff that most ppl doesn’t notice are excellent. My favourite are the trains. :) Too bad they aren’t animated, but the tileset couldn’t get bigger, which is obviously not Wisety’s fault.

The tileset’s size may scare away some, maybe even veteran, lvl creators (I’m still reluctant to use this tileset). In the hands of an able and inspired lvl creator, Mega Megatropolis could be used to create awesome lvls! I just wish that maybe you had organized the tiles better or even wrote some kind of Beginner’s Guide to Mea Metropolis but I don’t think I can take away bi chunks of the rating because the tileset is so hard to use. Good job, Wisey. 9.2.

This is a more than worthy last-tileset and even if you don’t want to make lvls with Mega Megatropolis, you should, I’m sorry, you MUST still DL this because you will be stuck for ages trying to DL this beast on JJ2!!!! :-D

EDIT: Raised my rating and added more comments. I didn’t feel like such a great tileset creator like Wisey should have a measly little 8.7 for his grand finale. :-D

INTRODUCTION
After all this praise and celebration of Moonblaze’s new single player pack: The Demon Invasion, such an experienced reviewer like me could not possible resist to test it out himself. (Did I say ‘experienced’? Looks like I did.). So, I sat back, clicked on the Download link and watched as the percentage went up…slowly…slowly…slowly…done. After reading through the rather short and very un-helpful readme I loaded the first level. And with that little double-click I was about to find out if this was the great single player pack that it was meant to be, or if it’s simply another over-rated download.

LET’S GO SAVE THE WORLD! AGAIN!
The story of The Demon Invasion is quite simple and about as original as the usual ‘kill-the-baddies-rescue-princess-get-the-gold’ kind of thing and is, you guessed it, about saving the world…yet again. The game starts with Jazz exiting a secret castle entrance that looks much more like an over-sized piece of rock (which it incidentally is), and discovers an army of Tuf Turts marching into Carrotus thanks to some great trigger work and some nice lighting effects. This kind of beginning is really powerful and it already shows the player that this level pack is going to be good. In other words, Moonblaze makes the player want to know more, just like a good author makes the reader want to read further to find out more about the plot of the book.

WOW! I LOVE IT! NO! I HATE IT!
The Demon Invasion has some very odd but original eyecandy. Most of the levels are crammed to breaking point with it and there are heaps of marvellous things you can see in all the levels, with the exception of the cut-scenes. Wherever you are in a level, you’ll always be surrounded by lighting effects, trees, carrots, rocks, caves, bushes, plants, fire, vines, spikes, lava and bridges. If I was to name only one reason to download this pack, I would say download it for its looks. Moonblaze has obviously done an excellent job and worked very hard. But is it overdone? The answer is, sadly, yes. Although giving the levels great looks, the eyecandy severely handicaps the players in loads of different ways. It blocks the player’s vision, hides enemies, gets in the way, confuses the player and generally speaking, makes the player’s life so much harder but in a frustrating way. Most of the time, you never know if a tile is solid or not or if touching those spikes will hurt or not. This is utterly confusing and it’s not exactly good that the eyecandy also hides enemies so that they’re almost invisible until too late. Less experienced players will find themselves losing hearts for no reason and the only way to get through a level alive is to walk really slowly so you can spot baddies in time. It’s a real pity that such good eyecandy makes the levels so hard to play. This sort of thing makes one develop a hate-love relationship with the eyecandy.

BANG! ZAP! KABOOM! ouch
Moonblaze has made some amazing enemy placement for The Demon Invasion. There are always at least 3 different kinds of enemies in all levels (including spikes and lava). You always have to keep guard and stay hyper-alert which is fun especially if you just came home from a rough day. And believe me, to be able to play through some of the harder levels without getting hurt once will require about 15 cups of coffee and at least 3 sugar cubes to sharpen up your reflexes. What does annoy me is the fact that some enemies are impossible to avoid. You simply have to get hurt in order to move on which is really irritating. Also, at the beginning of the jungle level, you are immediately surrounded by nasty bugs and monkeys and it will confuse you enough for you to lose valuable seconds of shooting. But these aren’t that big problems since I never expect to get through a level without losing a heart or two. The difficulty level is one of The Demon Invasion’s strong points and is a real pain in the back. But it’s not as hard as Moonblaze said it was going to be in the readme. By saving often you can play through all levels without losing a single life but I suppose it will provide a challenge for people who aren’t as good.

OK, WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO NOW?
The gameplay for The Demon Invasion is interesting. Moonblaze has made most levels a mix of puzzle-fight levels where you have to find and buttstomp crates, look for gems and so on which are fun to play but those things have all been done in masterpieces such as Rabbit Honour Guard and Tomb Rabbit. Still, I don’t mind re-using old ideas since they work and it’s always fun to see a good singleplayer level made with Nature’s Ruins. One of the more original levels is Ring of Fire. It consists of Moonblaze doing some magic (I think) and you have to protect him from hordes of enemies. Nothing will happen if the enemies do reach Moonblaze so although it says protect Moonblaze, it means keep yourself alive. It’s awesome seeing all those baddies coming and it feels almost like that scene in Starship Troopers where the humans defend their base against an army of bugs coming like waves. Except the baddies here in Jazz2 move so slow that anyone can kill them in time. Perhaps faster regeneration time? The last playable level of the pack is the worst one because it’s so much more linear, uses a tileset that could easily have been beaten by censored 1 or 2 and has no puzzles whatsoever. It would be nice if there were some boulders to avoid and crates to find. Overall, gameplay is all right but could be improved to make the levels more fun.

WHERE DID THE WEEKEND GO??? OH, IT’S STILL SATURDAY
All the levels in this pack are of very high quality, but they…are…simply…too…short. If you don’t care about the secrets and run around like a headless chicken shooting all over the place you can complete even the hardest level in a matter of minutes. Having seen all the triggers, baddies, ammo and eyecandy you immediately know that Moonblaze has spent a lot of time on every single level but 3 hours work for him means 3 minutes play for us. This is a serious weakness of the pack and shortens its life-time and re-playability dramatically. Once you complete the pack, you kind of get a feeling of just leaving it there and not to play it again. I finished the whole pack in one single day.

CONCLUSION
After going through all the pack, I’ve come to the conclusion that The Demon Invasion is not the great singleplayer pack everyone else thinks it is, but deserves something better than an 8. It has got a boring storyline but amazingly beautiful eyecandy (amazingly annoying eyecandy too), provides a fun challenge for most players and has some really nice cut-scenes (one with my name in it – yay!). I would’ve given this a much higher rating if the levels were longer or if there was more levels. I completed this in one day, as mentioned before.

Pros:
Great eyecandy.
Gameplay should satisfy everyone.
Hard, but not impossible.
Good cut-scenes – keeps the story going.
Good effort put in by Moonblaze.
Good baddie placement can make life hell for the player (in a fun way).

Cons:
Eyecandy is annoying.
Short levels.
Not much re-playability.
A couple of dodgy baddies.
Even more dodgy storyline.

Final rating:
8.5.

Cheers,

White Rabbit.

EDIT: I got the longest review![This review has been edited by White Rabbit]

Good level for duels and 2 on 2s. Nice gameplay and carrot placement… Not so much eyecandy… an 8.2.

The program works great and it’s very neat. User-friendly environment and all that too.

Download recommended. Sry for the short review…

Btw, the 10s are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too high. Just wanted you to know. :-P[This review has been edited by White Rabbit]

ROFLMAO. It’s quite good. :D But, the noises are sometimes a bit weird… and it sounds just…comical. LOL. Download if you want to make a really weird lvl and wants a suitable music. ;)

Hehe, I’ve played this for so long now, yet I have never downloaded it on J2o and haven’t even got the music. :-D Well, it’s time to change all that, because here’s my review.

Distopia is the greatest CTF lvl ever in my opinion. I just love it.

The eyecandy may be of very poor quality, but the gameplay rocks. There are basically two bases, both at the bottom. You can get to the oppositions base by going at the bottom, the middle, or the top, each being slower than the other (so the bottom is quickets and the top slowest) although quickest doesn’t always mean safest since it is very easy to protect both places.

Distopia has also many suckertubes in it making players able to zoom around quite fast but there are many places where you can camp so you’re not invincible against attack inside the tubes. Springs are no problem either, being always at the right place at the right moment. You can either use them to escape or to get someone taking suckertubes since springs are faster (I think). The only complaint I got is the green spring near the red base. If you hit the spring and you’re trying to score, then you have to wait a couple valuable seconds before you fall down. This makes you much more vulnerable and this also gives Spaz the edge.

Fortunately, Jazz has one significant advantage in Distopia. Once he reaches the higher places of the lvl, he can copter to every single place in the lvl and can also reach springs in the air while Spaz has to jmup down and go up again by suckertube.

The weapons placement in Distopia is great too. Unless it’s a laggy server, you won’t ever run out of ammo since the most important weapons, seeker and bouncers, are never more than a couple seconds away. The full energy carrot is also well placed, unless you only got one heart left because it’s also very easy to protect by camping.

Overall, an excellent CTF lvl with great gameplay and lots of different ideas can be used here. Download NOW.

An 8.7.

Cheers,

White Rabbit.

EDIT: Trafton outdid me this time. ;-( [This review has been edited by White Rabbit]

The pack contains only music and tilesets. No rating given.

And why did you make two parts?!

Ah…first download and first review. Can life be better?

Ok, yes it can, but that’s got nothing to do with this lvl has it? ;)

Ahem.

Deep in the Jungle is Saiyan’s second CTF lvl and to be honest, his first one was better, but only slightly.

The name isn’t very original, but the lvl is. Its structure is both open and tight making players need all the skills they have in order to run around in it as quickly as possible.The secrets are very cool and anyone that knows them by heart will have a big advantage over everyone else. The idea of putting bonus warps into a secret is also nice since it gives campers the opportunity to…surprise, surprise…camp.

The gameplay is really good since there are lots of float ups which stops ppl smashing into walls when they’re running at 250km/h (feels proud about coming up with the float-up idea). Whoever, there are a couple places which requires extended jumping but I guess it adds to the originality since it makes ppl more vulnerable. And as I said, the secrets are very nice to have and so are the well placed springs in the lvl.

The eyecandy is good, but has got nothing special. The secret bonus warp room serves both as a room and as eyecandy (you can only see the roofs of the houses from above). I would prefer to have some more leafes and trees in the foreground because there are so much solid tiles in the lvl and you could put a lot of eyecandy inside them. Apart from those things, there’s nothing original. A couple spikes, eyes in walls, trees, leafes and other jungle stuff.

The ammo placement is good and neat. There’s nothing more to say about it except from that sentence.

Overall, Deep in the Jungle is an excellent CTF lvl with funky music and is suitable for duels, 2 vs 2 and especially public servers. I look forward to playing this. Now the only thing that’s missing is a big WR sign inside the walls.

An 8.5.

Cheers,

White Rabbit.

EDIT: I got the longest review. :P[This review has been edited by White Rabbit]

Another Skulg tileset. Great news for all of us, isn’t it? Yes, I suppose so. Where Bad Rabbits Go (obviously, the name isn’t of a very high quality), is a very small tileset based on h3ll and is very similar, almost too similiar, to the D4mn tileset. Not much originality here, as you can see.

Skulg hasn’t forgotten all the neccessary tiles like vines, poles, hooks, destruct blox, spikes and so on.

But, as we all know, every tileset needs to have something else, which is where the eyecandy comes in. Where Bad Rabbits Go has good eyecandy, but unfortunately, very little of it. There’s quite a nice background, bubbles (ripped, so I won’t be giving points for it), fires (also ripped – no points added0, more lava, evil looking lava raindrops and some brown, chocolatey like backgrounds. As usualy, very well made but if you ask me, not original.

As far as I know, tilesets like this has existed for longer than I have played Jazz2. Where Bad Rabbits Go has got really neat eyecandy, well made tiles and Skulg has definitely put effort in it although there is simply not enough originality in it. You can downloads loads of better tilesets of the same theme as Where Bad Rabbits Go on J2o.

A well made tileset with its only weakness being a lack of inspiration. A 7.5. Better luck next time.

Cheers,

White Rabbit.

EDIT: I got the longest review! :P[This review has been edited by White Rabbit]

Unhit, the lvl isn’t symmetrical at all. And if you think 50 coins is too much, then I shall let you know that it was originally 100.

Ok, back to the review.

Lost City is a lvl I beta-tested. I have never, ever given a lvl I beta-tested a bad rating and I won’t this time either.

The lvl has got good eyecandy, though more wouldn’t have hurt and there are also too little foreground eyecandy. I do like the red moon, which only appears when you go to the top of the lvl. The stars, skyscrapers and the lava are also very nice and contributes greatly to the mood.

The gameplay is all right. Nothing special. Just lots of suckertubes, a couple of springs and some float-ups at places where ppl would normally hit walls. Btw, Moonblaze, you missed one out. ;-) Pos 42, 25. Basically, Lost City is an up-and-down lvl because if you fall down, you simply go up again, being carried by either springs or suckertubes.

Weapons placement is quite nice. There are plenty of ammo, coins and fastfires around and you will never run out of anything. However, I would prefer bouncers instead of electroblasters because it will be very hard to find a use for electroblasters here since the walls are so thin and it’s such an open lvl.

There is nothing wrong with the gameplay, weapons placement or eyecandy. It’s just the lvls idea. I’ve seen countless amounts of lvls that has got the same kind of layout.

Still, Lost City should provide most of us with lots of mulitplayer fun. An 7.7. Download recommended.

Cheers,

White Rabbit.

EDIT: I got the longest review![This review has been edited by White Rabbit]

Wowness!! I never thought I’d live to see Piccolo’s update of his tileset! (Alright, maybe I over exaggerated it a bit…) Desperate Cry (remake) is a undescribable good tileset. (It’s only undescribable cause I’ve used up all the goody goody words in my vocabulary ;-P) Ok, so you’ve all read my old review (you have?! fantastic!) and noticed that I put in some criticism. Most of the criticised parts of the tileset is gone in the update although the grass/mud is still there.

The tiles are beautifully (haha! I came up with a word!) textured but some tiles, e.g those red cliff things, could do with some better colouring.

The animations and eyecandy also hold a high standard. There are loads of stuff in this tileset like spikes, vines, mud, or is it grass? (Hard to tell cause I’m writing this review without my glasses on) And there are also those eyes that look up and down at you. Very cool, but also very disgusting.

Also, which is new, there are diagonal, or sloping, tiles in Desperate Cry. Nothing special, you say? Well, it is special because the old version of Desperate Cry didn’t have any sloping tiles at all (I took away 1.5 points for that…hehe…).

Also, the H and V poles are un-masked. Hooray! And there are new, more useful spikes! Hooray! And lastly, there is a hidden SEPULTURA 00WNS YOU!!! message. Hooray for Sepultura fans!

Unfortunately, there are also bad points.

THE GRASS IS SOOOOOOOO DISGUSTING!! The grass/mud looks like someone’s vomited over them. They’re drawn with one of those artificial light green colours and it looks really ugly. If you want to make dead grass, look at some real-life pictures.

Even though the H and V poles are un-masked, there are new spikes and diagonal tiles, the grass is still there. I really hate it. But, it’s only an opinion so I guess I won’t exactly be able to reduce points just because of that.

At last there are diagonal tiles. W0000pee! (D

Download NOW.

An well deserved 8.5 eats Piccolo

Cheers,

White Rabbit.

EDIT: I got the longest review![This review has been edited by White Rabbit]

When I first saw this tileset, I thought ‘It doesn’t look slimy at all!’. And it doesn’t. The whole tileset resembles a forest with vegetiation that has got an excess of chlorophyll.

I most say that Slimy Land really dissapoints me because most tiles of the tileset consists of mushrooms, trees leafes and forests with practically no slime at all (which also means that Slimy Land DOES have life). Also, the water looks more like my Grandma’s chicken soup than gooey slime.

Even tilesets such as Slimeset has got better slime than this. And with its originality gone (the “slime” being the originality), the tileset begins to show off its really weak points. Yes, it has got decent eyecandy and no tile bugs. Yes, the palette looks really cool. But the problem is that everything this tileset got, many other, even better tileset has got too. This makes Slime Land an un-original and very boring tileset. The slime waterfalls are very similiar to the ones in Mesmerize by Dethman, the mushrooms can be found in Psych 1 and 2 plus they’re animated there too, the trees and leafes can be found in Swamp of the Sleeping Jaguar by Agama and the forest stuff can be found in tilesets such as Jungle and Forest by Blade.

This is an un-inspiring tileset and I will probably never be able to be able to make a good lvl out of it. The only thing that stops me from giving Slime Land a bad rating is that the author has obviously spent lots of time on it, and the tiles are made perfectly.

This is a fairly well-made tileset. Nice, high quality tiles but a bit un-original. It’s worth giving a try, but there are definitely better tilesets out there.

A 7.

Cheers,

White Rabbit.

EDIT: It’s a wonder how time can change your mind. :-) Raised rating to 8.7 because the tileset is huge (I, for some reason, didn’t notice that) and it does look really, really slimy!

EDIT 2: I am such a mindchanger, aren’t I? A 10% increase in the rating. :-(

Cell, as a betatester, you should’ve told me! Look how late I am because of this! :-P

Oh well, nm.

Alrighty then…

Galactic Hollow is a not so hollow lvl made with a Mez tileset, or rather Mez03a tileset (yeah, the name is really crap).

There’s nothing great about the eyecandy but I like the way the big, blue, round..er…things are placed (they’re transparent, of course, or else I would’ve taken 2 points off the rating ;-P) in the foreground. They look really cool, especially when you run around real fast. However, you need some time to adjust to it.

Gameplay is good. Real good. Nothing special though. Nice placement of springs. Not too many secrets. Good suckertube positions. The thing I like most, though are the one ways. Just when you hit a spring at fly towards the ceiling at 5000mph, you find that the tiles have one ways on them. Mmm… one ways. A big, fat +1 for that. ;-)

Anyway, an 8.

runs away

Cheers,

White Rabbit.