Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

(old review removed, replaced with new system)
STORY: None.
Pros: None.
Cons: None.
Rating: 1.0

TILESET/TILESET USE: Very poor. It consists of the author’s name for the background, some bricks, and a malfunctioning fire animation.
Pros: The author used an animation, however poor.
Cons: Nothing interesting, animation done badly.
Rating: 1.2

WEAPON/ITEM/ENEMY PLACEMENT: The level is mostly a bunch of float lizards. Another enemy might have been a better idea, as the float lizards get shot down and walk around at the bottom of the level, harmless. No weapons or items.
Pros: The enemies have the effect intended.
Cons: Not the best enemy chosen, no weapons or items.
Rating: 2.0

ORIGINALITY: Kind of original. The idea is to stay alive while shooting destruct scenery blocks. Think the queen boss, only different.
Pros: Makes for an interesting gameplay.
Cons: Not too original. Feels kind of like a rehash of the Deckstar boss from JJ1.
Rating: 1.7

DIFFICULTY: A bit hard until you get the trick of it (shooting the enemies down, and just stomping on one to get back to the block height)
Pros: Difficult at first.
Cons: Too difficult at first.
Rating: 1.2

REPLAY VALUE: You probably won’t want to play this ever again, assuming you don’t delete it. Unless you like the idea, make a level like it, and check this for research purposes.
Pros: Not applicable.
Cons: Not applicable.
Rating: 1.2

OVERALL (Not an average): Did I mention there’s no way to end the level? The end area events are on the far right side of the level. Apparently the author never beat this, or he’d have known about it.
Pros: Slightly original, kind of hard.
Cons: Rather poor idea execution.
Rating: 1.5[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]

Two single player levels by my fellow terran Unhit. At least, I hope he is.

The first one uses Carrotus, has almost as many goodies as a level made by Blade (I could be wrong.. I haven’t seen one in a while), and has several birds. There are some interesting parts, but it’s really too easy.
The second one, using Medivo, is about the same, only it’s harder.
The eyecandy is fine, although in Medivo the rain (from what I can tell) is in a foreground layer, so it rains inside of the castle.
Basically, you go around, collect the goodies, shoot the occasional enemy, and avoid the various spikes/thorns (that don’t always hurt).

Well, the idea is an old rehashed thing that has been done before. There, from what I can tell, are three differences.
1: Instead of just shooting at it, you have to go around back and attack the tail. No, I agree, that doesn’t make sense.
2: Instead of shooting animated fire balls or something that effect you, it uses the Ice SCE. Half the time the shots go the wrong direction, and they don’t hurt you anyway.
3: It doesn’t work. Actually, this might have not been made to work in previous incarnations, but I think it really stands out that his example doesn’t even work. Sure, you can destroy Tweedle, but it doesn’t help. It doesn’t go to the next level or anything.

So far, I’m undecided on a rating. I’ll come back to this a little later.

Edit: If the thing I want to change is to make it work? :P[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]

This tileset is small enough, I can just list everything in it.
A selection of letter blocks (complete with numbers, ? and !) stolen from Cool Day, by Ice M A N. The author made some copies as well with things like “test” and “NW” on them.
Two grey blocks, stolen from Jazzed Realm by Everlasting, and ET’s Planet 1 by…. you guessed it, ET.
The fire animation from Inferno.
A few screenshots of the various rabbits, not taken at the best times.
Blue sky in various colors, with a small cloud tile in each.
A grim looking smiley face tile, and another one (from the back).
H and V poles.
A spike.. at least, I think it’s a spike?
A lot of signs saying things like “Be Lori” and “Well Done” and “NW” and “Give me money”. (Ok, that last one wasn’t there)
Some undetailed earth tiles tiles with an amazingly tiny tree. Wait.. there’s an extra tile to make the tree taller. So it’s for background eyecandy!
An invisible tile, and a sign pointing to it claiming it to be an invisible tile. There’s also an invisible vine, only without something telling you that.
A sign (attached to nothing) saying Wanted: This Bunny. It has a picture of Lori that you have to think about for a moment before you can tell it’s Lori.
Some elevator tiles.
Two tiles reading “Sauron NW” and “MoonBlaze NW” which might explain Moonblaze’s high rating.

That’s about it. Decide if you want to download this.

Well, not really. You can get through the whole thing just as the bird, without any help. I guess the bird is the one who is supposed to be helping, but I still miss the point of calling it a Cooperative level.
I, choosing to do single player, only saw the bird path, so if the other one was much superior, oh well.
The obstacles all consist of enemies that you can barely/not really avoid, unless you managed to keep the bird escort you got at the beginning.
The tileset use is fine, though in some spots it looks bad, such as in the tree houses.
It’s a minute or two of kind of fun, if you like this sort of thing.

In response to Tublear:
Well, you may, but I have not too much trouble beating it in single player, in less then two minutes.[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]

Well, this level consists of running through a level which the author probably tried to make seem more realistic then anything else.
Most of the obstacles consist of running along, then noticing you passed an entrance. Generally, though, you go in a straight line.
But there’s one obstacle where a flock of birds go up and down in unison, which is more spooky then anything else. They’re solid, but hard to crash into.
The eyecandy’s great, it seems the author can use his own tileset. (I’m pretty sure he made it)
I can’t say I enjoyed this level very much. There’s a point where realism stops being fun and starts being just boring.

Eyecandy: Well, it uses (probably) all the tileset has to offer, which is really very little. It doesn’t look good.
Design: You go into a building, and go to one of four little rooms with nothing to do except look at the various monsters (which could look better easily) shoot lasers at eachother.
Gameplay: Very low. There’s nothing to do at all. (It’s supposed to be a battle, but Battles aren’t supposed to have hurt events, and it’s not built like a battle either..)
Weapons Placement: Also very low. There’s a few bits of ammo here and there, but that’s all.

(Old review removed, replaced with new system)
STORY: Practically none. All I can make out is that you’re in Jazz’s house, only something’s wrong.. and something Did go wrong with this level.
Pros: A slight feeling of mystery is added. Or is that the author trying to explain why Jazz’s house is so terrible?
Cons: There’s no back story, end story, and hardly anything inbetween.
Rating: 1.2

TILESET/TILESET USE: The author uses Castle, but not very well. About eight tiles are used total, half of which are for a closed door which is used as a warp.
Pros: The author took the time to have the background wall be in layer 4, so it’s not all off-speed with the walls.
Cons: Everything solid except for the floor (this includes floating structures) is the single block tile you see used to make secret passages in Battle1 edits.
Rating: 1.2

WEAPON/ITEM/ENEMY PLACEMENT: There are no weapons, no items, and the only enemy is unaccessible.
Pros: Not applicable.
Cons: This level ignores this section entirely.
Rating: 1.0

ORIGINALITY: I can find two original things in this level. The dragon used as a fireplace (the unreachable enemy), and an annoying area where you enter a walled off place with a slow generating gold coin. You must let it generate five times before you can exit, and after that there’s nothing to prevent you from going back in.
Pros: The author has a few interesting ideas.
Cons: They’re not very good, and the rest of the level is just dead.
Rating: 1.7

DIFFICULTY: I can’t beat this. This is because I can’t find an exit, unless it’s at the closed, walled off door in the top right which you can’t get to. Other then that, this level offers no challenge other then to paitence.
Pros: None.
Cons: No apparent way to end the level, no enemies, hurt events, traps, puzzles.. you get the idea.
Rating: 1.0

REPLAY VALUE: About the only reason I can come up with for your wanting to play this again is if you want to see what a hotel mixed with single player looks like. In one of the most memorable areas of the level, you get to choose between three warps to things where are probably supposed to be rooms. They go right back to the doors again.
Rating: 1.0[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]

This level uses the Tubelectric tileset, using probably 20 different tiles at the most.

Design:
Eight minutes, tops, I’d say. It’s composed of a few Pluses made of the yellow blocks, a few small walls, and a floor. There’s a carrot in every corner.
Gameplay:
Well, it’s hard to get around, but I’d say you might be able to get a decent game out of this, if you had some rather open minded people.
Eyecandy:
Well, the background is the red bricks. There’s no background eyecandy. But the yellow blocks are fit together correctly!
Weapons Placement:
Not good. Each of the Pluses has three pieces of Ammo or Fastfire in its corners, and that’s it.
Readme:
Short, simple, and to the point. No rating influence, however.

Design:
There is, as the author said, a big solid X, with passages through each part. In the empty area, the author has placed four identical structures. Two with a carrot, one with some bouncy and seeker ammo.
Eyecandy:
The background is the cave tile, and the background eyecandy consists of one thing only viewable close to the bottom.
Gameplay:
I’m guessing this level wouldn’t great to battle in. Hard to maneuver in, for one thing.
Weapons Placement:
Well, they’re all in one spot, but what there is is semi-decent.
Readme:
Short, simple, and to the point. However, that doesn’t effect the rating. :P

I looked through all three Scraparap levels, but I couldn’t find a big crashed rocket with fire coming out of it. If you would be so kind as to tell me where to find it, I’ll put it into the tileset as soon as possible.

JSZ, I have searched through all three levels extensively, especially the second one, in both Easy and Turbo (to round out difficulties), and can’t find it. Sorry.[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]

This pack contains five single player levels, each with their own tileset, presumably made by the author because he says “Do the tilesets need mor eyecandy?”.
They contain lots of hurt events, some villains, a lot of annoying places, and aren’t really very fun.
The graphics could use work as well. For example, in the first two levels, the layer 4 walls are also background eyecandy, and that’s annoying. And things that do one thing one time are other things another time, making it hard to keep track of anything.
As I think I already said, there are lots of annoying spots, bringing down the otherwise ok design.
The gameplay involves moving slowly, knowing that half the tiles probably hurt, and having to go in secrets to find the next trigger crate. This got paticularly annoying in levels 2 and 4.
The story, I think, involves some area where everything has been hit by a lethal dose of radiation. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Ok, this is one level, copied four times into different tilesets, with no real changes other then that.
The levels start with a start position in a small room. You get thrown into a tube, and a ceilling spring, which puts you in a small passage leading to the main battle room.
The main battle room is around 10×10 or so (I didn’t bother to check) and is composed of a bunch of blocks. This type:
[]    []

   []

[]    []
Each of the blocks has a generating bouncy ammo. The levels use layers 4 and 8, and that’s it.
I’ll give this a 3.2, but only because I’m feeling generous today.[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]

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For basic tiles, we have a dark yellow box, with lots of yellow circles on it. Although it has top, bottom, sides and corners, it doesn’t tile, and looks pretty bad.
It does, in its favor, have all the Blocks. Bouncy, Stomp, etc. The Toaster block has been snipped a bit around the edges, making it look much better. Rather masterful. It also has H-Poles (not V-Pole!). Yes, the plural was intentional. He put in two. They even look exactly the same.
For background eyecandy, you have the option of making a wall with the basic blocks, and putting it in. Not too exciting. Although I can understand the thought behind it, masses of “money” everywhere.
Layer 4 eyecandy consists of three things.
1: A blue, pink and yellow thing that Is supposed to be Uncle Scrooge’s First Dime, in its nice little padded case. Nice try.
2: A money bag. A rounded triangle, with a circle on the top, and a $ sign on the front. It uses the same colors as the ground. But it looks ok.
3: A duck. I think it’s supposed to be a duck. It looks a little like one, I guess. But if I were Bjarni, I would have given up on this paticular bit. It didn’t come out very well.
The background is pure grey, probably supposed to be the inside wall of the money bin. It looks very indestructable.

Although I can see Bjarni put some effort into this, and was quite imaginitive, the tileset is just too darn unusable to recieve a high rating. Sorry.

I don’t feel like reviewing all the levels this time – suffice to say that the levels in this pack are a far better assortment then that of the CTF pack. Except for two Horrible levels called “Cold Day Battle” and “Bobo meets Royalty” that got in there somehow. And there are a few not all that good levels. But mainly, this is a far better pack.

I only saw the level itself, so I’ll only rate it.

I didn’t like this level much at all. Rather little work is put into design and gameplay, the whole thing is just following a long path and fighting the various enemies. On occasion, you can’t tell what’s solid and what’s not, which causes you to fall into the slime, which you can not get out of. You die.
Eyecandy is ok, but I seem to remember better can be made with this tileset. The level just didn’t look all that good, although I saw no tile bugs. Maybe it’s just the awful palette, turning everything black blue.
Enemy and Weapon placement didn’t stick in my head, but although it wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t exactly the best either.

Overall, while this is an above average level.. considering that you said it was the best level so far, I shudder to think of the rest. And as there seems to be something about not rating it that I missed, I shall refrain.

Level 1: Ohhhhhh I’ve seen this one several times before, and I don’t like it at all. How do I make sure (assuming I do get in the CTF server) that I join after this level, anyway? I can’t. I’ll have to trust to luck that I’ll miss it.
Level 2: This one is kind of like Happy Castle CTF in general layout form, only it’s far easier to go between the bases. Two bases near the top, with lots of access routes, and a big battle area beneath.
Level 3: This is always being hosted, and I’ve never seen what people see in it. It’s just an average CTF level.
Level 4: Swinging Jazz. It’s included in TSF, which should be enough reward. Can’t we get some new stuff in here? To actually celebrate Year 4?
Level 5: This seems to be a Happy CTF pack level, so I don’t think it’s new. I don’t like it, either.
Level 6: This, from the dates, is one of the Earliest levels of 2002. Interesting. It’s also divided in half by a huge wall, which helps strengthen the difference between the two teams.
Level 7: One of the better levels in the pack, from what I’ve seen. Kind of a level with a layout that won’t stick in your mind.
Level 8: This one isn’t even all that well done. The whole thing revolves around the guardposts, with little attention spent on anything else.
Level 9: Now This one I Like. Two bases on either side of the level, with small ammo caches, then this huge temple in the middle. And CelL made it, too. Yay.
Level 10: Pretty non-descript platform based level here. It needs some work altogether though, so the main body supports the good ideas.
Level 11: This one seems familiar. I was actually hoping this pack would contain some of the great levels that have been created, but not recognized. But it seems they’re going for stuff hosted all the time. Or something.
Level 12: An ok CTF level, and not one I’ve seen before. I’m hoping this level has a Red base, but I couldn’t find one, so who knows. Maybe if I looked more carefully. And it has this really weird fixing job that is sure to get some people rather confused.
Level 13: This one has a truly frightening design that makes it so there are no short pathes anywhere, and to get to an area seven tiles away, you have to go on a long roundabout route. And there’s some heavy base bias.
Level 14: Believe it or not, this is the level I think of when I hear “Eyecandy”. Given a few seconds. Kind of confusing, but certainly one of the best levels in here.
Level 15: This level is something I am biased against, having not seen it enough to learn it, but having seen it too many times to like it. It can also be confusing, and hard to get around.
Level 16: Kind of confusing. Lots of things I’d expect to be unsolid are solid. But there aren’t any major problems.
Level 17: Here we have a nice little thing, with the bases close enough together that most of the level is for chasing the other players about in. And some really wacked out eyecandy. Yay.
Level 18: I’ve seen this one before, but I actually like it, and can find no bugs. Nice, solid level here.
Level 19: IT DIES.

There. I commented on the selection of levels. It needs work.

Basic Blocks: They are all there, though rather hard to use. I think they’re all there, anyway. The placement got me confused.
Eyecandy: Enough for all the layers.
Tile Placement: I can’t say much for the tile placement. It looks like, once he did a section, he filled up any gaps with bits and pieces of the next section, which looks weird.
Basic Tiles: I’m not sure if that’s a sucker tube or not, but it doesn’t look like one, so I’d say there isn’t one. There are vines, and poles, and I’m not totally sure about hooks.. the set gets very confusing.
Masking: This tileset could use some work in the masking department. For example, the “Blade” block. It’s unsolid, though it’s drawn as a solid block, which makes it not good for level design.

These are ok, but they’re not superb. They need more trigger crates, for example. And there are far too many goodies – I got a sugar rush on almost every level, and two sugar rushes on two of the levels.

The design’s pretty good, very unusual.[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]
(Unsupported rating removal edit. ~Violet)[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]