Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

I saw some very minor good stuff, but I also saw one thing which prevents me from rating this. Bare in mind, the line between inspiration and outright theft is crossed here. Now I feel like playing QoB

Violet is biased in Mono’s favor D:
(Power abusive grammatical alteration. ~Violet)

Lizard Base is a relativly long, above average single player level, based in the labrat tileset. It’s mainly just going from group of enemies to group of enemies to group of enemies.

Gameplay: Monotonous. Today is the modern age of level making, and you’ve got to show flare when you make your levels. What is supposed to be there that makes your level stand out among the rest? Well, in this case, nothing. This level basically has really really easy puzzles that I actually didn’t notice on my first run through sometimes. They usually involve geting ammo from one cornor of a 10 by 10 room and running back to destroy something with it. There are a good number of enemies here, making it so you have to creep along and shoot at the large forces ahead. However, there are 2, count em, 2 1up crates, both of which are really easy to acsess. Carrots are placed evenly, so you’ll never go below 3 hearts. Coins are thrown about, sometimes better hidden then others.
Pros: It does good at what it does.
Cons: It dosn’t do much of anything special. 1ups and large amounts of carrots and enemies make the level very easy.

Design: Winding around a large base area. It has a veried feel to it. In some parts it plays like a pro did it. In others it’s more along the lines of “What was he thinking?” For instance, the rediculous sucker tubes. It’s not good to take control away from the player for more than a moment or two, but sometimes when you use a sucker tube you can sit back and relax for about 10 seconds. And you aren’t even looking at anything! Just tubing through a wall. Also, some rooms are really cramped while others are nice a spacious.
Pros: Some very good parts.
Cons: Some weird or poorly designed parts. Strange use of tubes.

Eye candy: The eye candy is average or worse of a level using Labrat tileset. There could always be more stuff, and stuff is good. However in this level, eyecandy is sometimes used rather sparingly. There are no uses of foreground layer eye candy, and unoriginal uses in background layers. I won’t be too mean though, because Labrat dosn’t have much in the way of eye candy, but then again, you weren’t too inventive either.
Pros: Well, it dosn’t look awful
Cons: It still looks pretty bland though. Add more stuff, you didn’t even touch the little tubes with liquids in them or anything.

Overall, a slightly above average level with some great flaws in difficulty and such. It does show a very competent creator who needs to learn some pit falls to avoid though. Good job.

D.R.? Your call, you’re not missing much.

As I see it, this is one of those tilesets you’re going to love yet hate at the same time.

Pros -
Huge variety of eyecandy. This is the sole reason that I love this tileset. All the stuff you can little the ground with is great. Unfortunantly almost all of that variety is on the tops of platforms, meaning the walls and stuff are left with nothing. I’m sure it can be worked around a bit by placing ledges in the walls, but it makes it rather annoying.

Theme. Comeon, it’s islands with piraty stuff. How can you resist? I think most people are missing the point and saying that the theme is only pirates, whereas I see it as more of the island aspect. Besides, if you want to make anything at all on an island, this is gonna be your only choice.

Cons-

Man, is this tileset difficult to use. You’re almost forced to sacrifice a background layer right from the start to make some areas peice together right. Even worse is the technical aspect of peicing platforms together, which becomes a real chore. Often time you’ll either have to scrap that spot or the solution ends up being just two rows aboce were you were looking…in the middle of the Eye-candy section. The end result is very nice, but getting there is nerve racking. You have to practice alot with the tileset, and even before that you have to have a mastery of working with tilesets to begin to make something with this.

Walls are bland. No texture, no shading, nothing. Just a flat color. At least the caves are alright.

Overall-

This tileset is so cool! But the process of making a level with it is so frustrating. Bit it’s still a mighty good tileset, and the end result can be amazing.

If the auther didn’t make the tilesets, why did you rate them?

JCS Version 1.20 never existed so I assume that it’s either OEM CS or that old JCS that had a different name. 4 letters or something. Anyway, because of lack of existing I asumme that this level dosen’t exist either.

Shields aren’t suck if used properly i.e. Flame Shield that you’re forced to buttstomp.

EDIT: I find some of these comments completly unneeded. Calling a level the worst CTF level in the world regardless of wether it was true or not, is very discouraging. Honestly, remarks like those are the things which make people never touch jcs again.[This review has been edited by Inf. Spaz]

…

Don’t rate your own levels.

I would find this level pack a LOT more fun if whenever I pushed the wrong button jj2 didn’t crash.

Story time. I had recently moved to a new town. I deicded to check out the local restaurant. Expecting little but hoping for the best I ordered a hamburger. I took one bite into it and realized that it was sadly under-cooked. Enough metaphor, let’s get to the review. Look: It’s kinda like tube-electric. Except it’s much lower quality. It has thankfully, all of the basic tiles. It has something that cought me way off gaurd. A textured background. Made in paint. And it looks great. Only two animating tiles, but that’s lot more than some tilesets out there. Water is included, but looks out of place in an industrial tileset. Overall: The tileset looks…paintish, but dosen’t look flat thankfully. Some out of place tiles. Nice BG. Ease to use: Sort of easy to use. Some of the tiles can look like others, so you may use the wrong tile in places and spend a minute or two trying to figure out why it looks that way. The invisible block isn’t invisibile D=. It can only be used when in a certain background. Some tiles…I just how no idea what they are. Overall: Sort of easy to use. Diversity: Hmm, it’s bascially…industrial. Red based with grey ness or grey based with red ness. Dosen’t get more different than that. Overall: Not very diverse.

FINAL NOTES: Technos had a good first impression, but when you got down to the details it dosen’t preform well. 6.5

OTHER NOTES: In case some people are wondering, the Diversity category has very little affect on the overall rating. A diverse tileset would be something like Top Secret, in which I’ve been able to make space bases, underground facilities, fleets of ships…it goes on.

YAYAYAYAYAYAY WISET!

Anyway, Bored set is a rather…interesting tileset.

Let’s start off shall we? Look : Well let’s see. Bored set has a lot of diversity with tiles. 3 types of backgrounds, 2 types of normal ground, and transitions through each. All neeede tiles are included, and I must say that the sucker tubes are possibly the best I’ve seen in any tileset for sucker tubes. Mountains are nice, in fact the general look of the tileset is great. However, there foreground eye candy is completly gone! Overall : Diverse ground types, all needed tiles are present. Next to no foreground layer eye candy possible. Ease to use : Very easy to use. I could easily make levels whithout using layers 5/6, but I won’t because it would look stupid. The point is, all tiles have a way to transition from one to the other. Overall : Very very easy to use. Diversity : No tileset is perfect right? I have to say that Bored Set using levels are basically never going to be much different than the example levels. An even mix of Castle areas to Nature areas. Otherwise, the author can mix and match ground types and backgrounds so that one area never looks exactly like another. Overall: Eh…

FINAL RATINGS : Not a bad tileset, but not the greatest tileset out there. It’s actually quite good, and I can expect a mad rush of Bored Set CTF’s to arrive in about 2 weeks. I know I’m using it. 7.7.

Gameplay:

I liked this level at first, then I began to play more into it, and I can’t say I’m crazy about the spring work. The two blue springs at the top of the level are so evil, I really don’t like tediously moving back and forth in mid air. The level is symmetric, which is fine I guess. I’d wish that the warps to the full nrg were better marked. Also, the springs are aggrivating if you’re going to wrong direction that they were intended for, but I’m usually going that way because of the symmetric layout. Overall : Average game play but various flow issues.

Eyecandy/Tileset use :

Nothing great nothing bad. Average seems to describe this level. One great great hint I can give you, and this goes for everybody. MAKE YOU’RE TEXTURED BACKGROUNDS AUTO SCROLL. Sorry for caps, but I need everybody to see this. It takes no layers, but makes the level look so much nicer, and when you stop moving the level dosen’t die! Plus it’s usually realistic. Tileset use is good, using a wide variety of ground types and backgrounds. Overall : Average eye candy but dies when you stop moving. Good tileset use.

Originality :

Nothing spectacular here. Just a run of the mill (symmetric ;-;) ctf level.

Placement :

Because of symmetry, naturally both sides are equal right? So balance is perfect in a sense. Full nrg is impossible to camp, but you’re still able to move it out of the way taking people off gaurd. Powerups are a pain to get. Seeker powerup is especially annoying because of the springs required to get up there. The Bouncer and RF would be nicer if you had given us some electro instead of bouncers to get them. Overall : Average ammo and carrot placement.

FINAL RATINGS :

Overall an average level with minor flow issues, average eyecandy. Naturally a level so average deserves and average rating. 6.0

Final notes :

I can only reiterate. MAKE YOU’RE TEXTURED BACKGROUNDS AUTO SCROLL. The creators show promise, but still have a while to go before making good or possibly great levels. I suggest getting beta testers to help you in the early stages of development. There is nothing wrong with forcing a friend who knows good level making to beta you every step of the way.

Host? :

Sadly not. Then again, basically 8 and above are the only levels that are ever played spare the creators own servers.[This review has been edited by Inf. Spaz]

Waddle Dee don’t rate stuff you beta test.

(Reply from an administrator: There is nothing wrong with doing so. -Trafton)[This review has been edited by Trafton AT]

I’ll release part 2 by christmas.

Nothing deserves a one. I havn’t downloaded this but I’m sure that its above 1 quality.

I just love
How annoying
Spay’s
Review
Was.

Anyway, this is kinda like Mike’s level except it is public. Not much else to say, except it would be so much more fun to fall into a pit of warp targetless warps.[This review has been edited by Inf. Spaz]

I wanted really hard levels, so thats the reason why there are so very few carrots. Plus you can get them by killing enemies

FORGOT TO MENTION: THERE IS A SECRET LEVEL CONTAINING MANY TOASTER AMMO AND A 1UP Ok im done

Another thing: I didn’t copy blurs method of death. I already knew what to do, but blur semi told me how to implement it.[This review has been edited by Inf. Spaz]

The reason you are seeing diamonds is becuase you are in single player. Now next time you review i want you to play the level over the internet.

This level is average, maybe even good, but definantly not a tip worthy thing. The layout feels fairly random and ammo is sparse in some spots, while jam packed in others. The coin warp is hidden, and the carrots are also very close. The eyecandy is just enough to make it not boring, but its not beutiful.

Pros:
Not a bad level

Cons:
Not a perfect level

Overall:5.5 (Dead average)

Btw: The snow annoies me.

Edit: The carrots are very close together. It’s easy to get 2 hearts very quickly.[This review has been edited by Inf. Spaz]

Nice.

This is a pretty good platform based, wide open battle level. The weapons are fairly well placed, and their are enough weapons for a level this size. Suprisingly, this level is only 70 by 70 but feels much larger. Even though this is one of those place random things around and call it a level, It could easly be considered a battle level. However, the eye candy is hurting in some spots. Well, it uses mez 01 so i wasn’t expecting anything amazing, but some spot’s eye candy could have been much better. The music didn’t really work for me. Anyway, I’m done now so…WHEE ARGH.

Pros:
Good number of weapons for its size.
Cicular disign.

Cons:
Random layout.
Eye candy was kinda akward in some spots.

Overall: 7.0

Btw: Odd music choice…Next time have a set idea for a level in mind…You got lucky with this level.
Uber coins warp turns you invincible.