Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Keep on working on your creativity, friend. Maybe someday you will make a great episode.

Errm… I don’t quite what to make outta this level. It’s kinda cheap. Not shoddy. Just cheap. Music fit it sort of well, but your ideas for eyecandy sorryily [wow, look at these words…], er, unfortunately, stank. The checkered segment was hideous. The colors were not used that incredibly well. The emenies [Don’t mind my seplling, it’s 1:00 in the morning when I’m writing this review—Supposed to be in bed :P] served no purpose, and the spike trap was very hard to master.

I would strongly recommend you go back and fix these things before the reader dl’s it. My verdict: No dl, 3.6

And that’s generous.

Not bad level but it would be necessary to repair the mistakes on him to delete the unnecessary things (turtle)

[Review converted to Quick Review. Please read the Review Rules. ~Stijn]

Mmmmm… this isn’t very good.
I played only the single player part with Jazz2 TSF.

Eyecandy
No, no, no. Awful. Gus’s Multiuse1 can offer lots and lots of opportunities, but you used a really very small part of it. The level is quite flat, even if the backgrounds aren’t so bad. The foregrounds are empty, except for the 3^rd^ layer, that has only technical stuff, like covering the entrance of the secrets. Right about this I noted that they aren’t made perfectly (you can see a part of Jazz’s feet). Also, the last part of the game is full of problems. First, and maybe it isn’t your fault, the villain doesn’t move well here. Second, in the pits you should have placed the CTF Base instead of the hurt event, because you would die immediately, without waiting you to lose all the energy. Third, the StopXscroll events aren’t placed well, because sometimes you may return back and remain exactly on the border, so you can’t move how you should. Only the first problem about the last part is considered in this section (the others have nothing to do with eyecandy, but here I keep them together).
Score: 3.5

Gameplay
Ok, let’s see what does the level contain. First, you start with a dialog between the miller and Jazz/Spaz, in which he says that a villain has stolen his windmill and you have to re-buy it for 100 € (coins); in the second part you start your search; in the last you have to chase the villain and take back the windmill.
Part n°1: I think you only let it go too fast; I would have left less space between the text events and reduced the speed. Nothing particular.
Part n°2: here you have to search 100 coins on your way. Notice that there isn’t any real secret, because you can always see where are the coins. There’s nothing particular until you reach the warp at (111, 46); here you have to zig-zag in order to reach some money and the warp. I don’t like how this part is made: I think you should have placed some rectangles of visible warps instead of walls and some walls at the begin and at the end of that part. After that there’s another interesting thing. Here you have to reach some money by disabling 5 doors: you might choose the right combination. Even if you need some time to realize what is all that stuff, I think it’s made well, except for the way you have to change the combination. Next, you return to the beginning and go in the warp on the villain.
Part n°3: now, you run after the villain without falling into the pits. Here’s another big problem, besides the others: after pos. (51, 9) there’s a sort of gorge to jump over; doing it with spaz is only a matter of luck, because after it there’s a fire column.
Score: 5.8

Originality
Maybe it’s the best thing of this level, even if there are some scratches. Very good the idea of a personal boss, of the tubes in the last part of the game and the “SAFE” in the middle part; also, the blue gem at the end of the level is a good idea. But, as I said, there are also some bad things; for example, it’s difficult that when you go to Holland the first person you meet asks you to re-buy his windmill; it’s difficult for the villain to become a haiku poet (whatever it is ;-) ) if you destroy him, it’s too easy to obtain the money, etc.
However I want to encourage you: I believe originality is the most important thing of an episode/level, and I think you are good in this sphere. If you continue to create levels, the eyecandy, the gameplay, etc. will be better and better; just keep on, don’t stop.
Score: 7.8

Ammo and goodies placement
The ammo is very bad, the goodies are quite good.
The only special weapon you have is the TNT, that helps you with the lots of dest sceneries you find. Nothing else.
The goodies, instead, aren’t bad, because the carrot are in a good number.
Score: 5.8

Enemy placement
It’s okay.
There is a generator for each enemy (and I don’t know why).
The pros are: the enemies are homogeneously placed in the level, and they aren’t in contrast with their evinronment
The cons are: there aren’t any skill settings, there are only two kinds of enemies in the whole level (except for the boss, of course).
Score: 6.0

FINAL SCORE: 5.7

Tip: try to modify your level with the suggestions in the reviews, so you can use it as a model for your future levels.

Dashin’ through the snow in this level the first thing I noticed was the fairly plain eyecandy. It’s not that bad, and there aren’t a lot of tilebugs, but it doesn’t really stand out or anything either and could use a LOT of work. Try adding more decoration, the tileset could have been used a lot better: for example, I spotted only one (1) tree during my whole runthrough.

The level has to be hosted in Race mode, as there is no trigger mechanism to make it work in Treasure (which is what Race is usually hosted in these days). As you need an external launcher to host online in Race mode I’d recommend you to use the trigger system thing next time.

Now, for the racing itself, it’s quite straightforward and the laps are rather short. TNT and freezer are there, but no ammo apart from that. There are rougly three kinds of obstacles: randomly scattered blocks, blocks that appear and disappear following a certain pattern, and warps that take you back a bit. None of those are really hard to avoid or get through (I’d say they are a bit too easy even). The last warp obstacle for example is covered with blocks which actually make it a challenge to fall into the warps, while it should be a challenge not to fall in them.

All in all, this level lacks creativity in most aspects: it’s small, doesn’t have any interesting obstacles, it has rather bland eyecandy and lacks a fun factor. To the author’s I’d recommend trying to be a bit more original next time: try some eyecandy tricks, go nuts with the obstacles, whatever, anything to make it more interesting than this :)

Note- I only played the single player variant of this level, if there are any changes in the multiplayer variant this review does not take note of them.

Windmill Country is a collect-a-thon level tasking the player with finding 100 coins much like the sublime Haunted Castle Manor. The storyline is about a lazy miller who asks you to find 100 euro (aka coinage) to pay off a villain who stole said Miller’s windmill. The process of getting said coins is quite dull and mundane. Unlike HCM which kept things tight and intertwined with twitchy action, Windmill country is far too open for its linear design and the action is dull at best. HCM relied on stock enemies for sure, but Windmill country has you fighting only Tuf turts and fat chicks. Not only is the action bland, but so is the manner in which you find coins. The majority of coins are laid out for you in bunches and rows, and very few require any puzzlework at all. The coins that do offer some interesting objectives but nothing that requires any braincells. Along with the long stretches of nothing interesting and all-too-few “puzzles”, Windmill Country has an extremely short length.

The level’s only saving grace is the quite awesome villain chase at the end of the level. While the concept is far better than the execution, it is still quite nifty utilizing the activate boss event to change the music for a cinematic touch and a payoff doused in absurdist humor. I would love to see Ischa (or heck, any other level maker) flesh this concept out in future packs.

The foreground and tileground eyecandy is quite empty and desolate, and really doesn’t offer much at all. The windmills in the background look fantastic though this more a testament to Gus’ tileset. Also, kudos to Ischa on the choice of music which if nothing else, really compliments Gus’ tileset style.

Windmill Country is hampered by the “Antz” effect of having a far superior product released shortly after it, without which some of the flaws may not have been as noticeable. Still from the few bits of brilliance here, and Chazz’s HCM it is clear that these collect-a-thon levels have some staying power and I’d love to see Ischa to take another crack at this subgenre again.

So let’s see, trick or treat, sounds original.

I’ve seen your level, and I must say it is really original, with knocking on those doors and things like that. But I don’t think many people will play this ‘gametype’. Because it can only be played on coop, so it won’t be played much over the internet.

Well, the level itself (don’t know if I shouldt rate for that):
The tileset doesn’t look that great, but that not’s your work anyway. But I don’t understand why you build it on the basics of a ctf level. Maybe just for showing the gametype or something :S. But the eyecandy is ok.

Anyway, it’s a nice and original idea, but I don’t think it will ever become a popular game for players of Jazzjackrabbit.

I won’t rate for it, but I think the idea is worth a 7,3 and the level a 5,9.

I don’t know what about you, but I liked that.

[Review changed to quick review. – Fquist]

The second I read the description and thought “A minigame compliation, eh?” I knew there was only one controller fit to play them.

Wiimote in hand, I loaded up the level pack and was shocked to find myself dumped into a minigame without a lick of ingame storyline. Come on, this isn’t the ’80s. In this day and age minigame compliations have ingame cutscenes. WarioWare is at the forefront of this, with Rayman Raving Rabbids trailing not too far behind. Even Mario Party has an intro cutscene to explain why you’re running around boards.

The plot we are given also has one gaping flaw (well, two but we’ll get to the second one in a bit): If we’re supposed to stop Devan’s minigames, why are we playing them? Doesn’t that defeat our purpose?

The next flaw is that I don’t see why game companies feel they’re threatened. First off there’s only four games, and they’re all minigames. Even the most terrible minigame compilation on the market has way more minigames than that, and they’re much more interesting to boot.

The first minigame in the game is the “Break a barrel” which is an extremely dull concept to begin with. You’re in an area filled with crates, and only one of them contains an exit sign to proceed. The first level is dull enough with it’s small ammount of crates, but in each world the ammount of crates increases and as they increase, the fun decreases. There has to be a more inventive way to design this minigame past the “shoot! shoot again! look out for that enemy! shoot! shoot some more! shoot!” mentality shown here. The level design is at it’s worst on the Megairbase level where you get stuck in pits you can’t get out of.
Dear level designers: Stop making areas that force me to type “JJK”, it’s annoying and lazy design.
From, n00b.
There isn’t anything redeeming found in this minigame, however if it cut down the number of crates and made me have to solve a small puzzle to get to them or have a crate hold something that I need to access the end crate, this minigame idea could be pretty fun.

One vs. Millions should be renamed “One vs. two, maybe three”. Instead of facing off hordes of JJ2’s more relentless enemies (such as the demons, the monkeys, and the bees) you face off a lizard and a tuf turt, who will respawn after being quickly taken care of. Most, if not all, airborne enemies are in locations where if you don’t jump(which you don’t need to) they will ignore you.
Also, while the airborne enemies change with the scenery, the land team of Lizard and Tuf Turt never change, which added with the fact the air enemies mostly leave you alone, make this minigame another exercise in boredom.
It doesn’t help that DX pulled off this concept much better in his cancelled Jazz X pack, if you can get ahold of the betatest levels, try to study this stage.

Suck Through has the makings of a good minigame, but like the other minigame concepts in this pack the concept is wasted. Jazz is sent hurdling through a large water tube filled with fish and must survive to the end. The first of these shows promise, but it’s far too short with far too little obstacles to avoid. The second level attempts to rectify this by adding far too many fish that are near impossible to avoid, but it’s still the same length so even if you get hit a few times you’ll still be able to make it through the level. Unfortunately, the remaining two variations of this minigame follow the mindset put in place by the second, and still cease to change size. It doesn’t help that you can also shoot down the fish.
This minigame can be fun if the right balance is struck in the ammount of fish needed to dodge, or leaving it at the ammount in the first level mixed in with different kinds obstacles. Also it’s far too short and should be longer.

Out of all the minigames in the pack, Pinball is the absolute worst. All of the levels are essentially the same level where you must get to the top, with the exception of one pinball table in Nippus where you must find the hidden warp. There are no clues as to where this warp may be, and again the pinball table is essentially the same as all the others. This elusive goal is more frustrating than fun, and is worse than the abundant “get to the top!” style pinball levels. The get to the top levels all have the same strategy, and zip by too quickly. There is next to no challenge, and at first you may be confused as what to do since the instructions sign is placed not in the put where you start, but instead on the far left making you have to work a bit to get there. Out of all the minigames in the pack, the pinball ones are the worst since while dull like the rest, there is nothing that can really make the concepts shown in the pack any better. If you’re still interested in making a pinball minigame, I suggest axing the ideas here and reworking it from the ground up.

The bosses while all tile based, are pretty much a rehash of a minigame you already played. While each of Devan’s accomplices are named after a video game star, none of them bear any resemblance to their namesakes. Backman is essentially “Get to the top” only you now have to buttstomp each of his eyes to open up the exit, and the level’s height is drastically shortened. Super Rario is just no frills One Vs. Millions, and Devan just takes the dullness of Break the Barrel to a new low. Ponic is the only one of these boss encounters that show any real promise, and yet it would work much better if he was just a regular Suck Through minigame instead of a boss. You’re supposed to be chasing Ponic, but every time you stop to shoot through blocks (The level’s ‘twist’ over the regular minigame) not only does the high speed chase grind to a halt, but so does Ponic. If he’s just going to wait up then why am I even shooting these blocks down? The ending of this level is also nonsensical, as Ponic runs headfirst into spikes and then blames you for it. If the level worked like the regular suck through levels (I.E. no shooting through blocks, more stuff to avoid) and ended with a fight against a Ponic tileboss, this stage would have worked much better.

All in all, this pack is dull but if tweaked slightly could be entertaining. This could have easily been fixed beforehand if Ischa had someone else betatest the pack. However until a Jazz Planets 3 comes out that hopefully kicks it up a notch in the design and fun departments, I suggest not downloading this.

Review Nutshell!
Pros- Some promising concepts, nontraditional bosses
Cons- Nonsensical storyline, concepts fall flat in execution, bosses are just the same minigames ocassionally with small twists.

good
(Unsupported rating (6.7) removal. ~Violet)

I think n00b has pretty much got everything covered but I might as well review.

Story
I’m not going the lie, this story makes no sense. Devan is making a bunch of mini games so he can buy a new house? Why doesn’t he just steal something or steal a house? I mean come on, he’s a villain. Plot makes about as much sense as Hotel Mario.
1/10

Eyecandey
this can be described as back to basics. While the levels look find with no tilebugs, everything looks boring. Not much is used with layer 3 and the layer 7-5 backgrounds don’t a heck of a lot interesting. Still not much can be done with mountains. layer 4 looks empty at times and it’s boring to look at. Not much else can be said.
3/10
The Games

Break a Barrel:
My god this is boring. all you do is dodge some enemies and shooting barrels until you find a sign. That’s it. As you go one more barrels come into play and more enemies are in, but it’s still boring as heck.

One vs Million:
Don’t let the name lie. Instead of fighting hordes of enemies, dooking it out in an epic STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL WHILE THE ENEMIES NIP AT YOU! Uh sorry back to reality. All you do is fight 3 respawning enemies while waiting for a coin to drop. Once you get enough, you win. the problem is that flying enemies are usually stuck to high so this can boil down to sitting in the corner, pressing the fire button, grabbing the can and repeating. It’s as much fun as watching a video blindfolded.

Suck Through:
Noe this one had the potential for a great mini game. You have to swim through hordes of fish as you swim to the end. The idea is to not get hit. The only problem is that you don’t really need to even try. There’s only the fish. Why not some spikes? You can shoot the fish. the main problem is that it’s to short. You can just swim straight threw thanks to the fact you blink for a short period. As it goes on, more fish are added but it gets to the point where there’s so many you can’t go through without getting hit. even so, you can just swim head first and that temporary invincibility will get you through.

Pinball:
This one is kinda interesting. most of them involve getting to the top of the table while dodging enemies. Like always, it’s boring. The Nippius is just stupid. You have to find one of 5 warps to exit but they don’t give you any hints. you just sit there until you find it. BORING.

Overall: ALL the games are boring and are not worth playing.
1/10

Bosses

All the boses are tile bosses and non of them look like the characters they represent.

Backman:
Boring really. a pinball table where you’re supposed to butstomp his eyes and them go to the exit. It’s not challenging and you can hit the trigger by going under the bumpers really. There’s some dragon flys but they don’t pose a problem that much.

Super Rario
This is a one vs million. Again boring as heck and no challenge. All you do is get 3 coins and then buttstomp the nose.

Ponic
This is a swimming race with Ponic. This is a cool concept, but is ruined because he stops when you stop at the blocks. He also blames you at the end for some reason.

Devan
This is break a barrel. All you do is dodge flys and find the correct ammo to clear the path. that’s it.

The bosses are boring. end of story.
2/10

Final Score: 7/40
Score: 1.5
Rank: F
DR? No. this is a boring and sad attempt and mini games. No download, but keep trying.

It is probably worth mentioning that this is an exact conversion of one of the original Orbitus levels, not personally designed by Ischa.
(And that I made the tileset, not BlurredD, I guess.)

This is quite a good level.

EYECANDY

This looks like an Orbitus JJ1 level as it has the backgrounds like the original and some cool waterfalls. I like the flashing lights and Layer 4 doesn’t look repetitive either. There are just 2 tilebugs I found in the level. There is a flashing light missing at pos 75,7 and there is a tile that looks wrong at 184,11. But other than that, everything else looks OK.

7.5/10

GAMEPLAY

The level wasn’t really that long but I still liked it. I think the vertical moving platforms could use some “One Way” events so the player can jump through them like the original JJ1 Orbitus levels. There some secrets though they are not that hard to find.
I like the way that the blue flashing bounce the player like in the original. There wasn’t that many pickups. There was some food, though not enough for a Sugar Rush. I didn’t see any PUs, I think the level could use a Coin Warp to make someone want to replay the level to find the coins.
Enemy placement was good though there wasn’t really enough to kill me.
The Boss Arena wasn’t that challenging, I thought. There was a re-generating Spark enemy, but I don’t think it appears quick enough. I think a second Spark on the other side would be better as well so that the Boss isn’t too easy.

6.5/10

TOTAL SCORE: (7.5 + 6.5) / 2 = 7.0/10.0

RANK: C = GOOD

DOWNLOAD?

The level has good eyecandy but it is quite short. Still, I think it’s worth a download.

hmmmm, that looks as if you have spent really a lot of time into this project. ;)
But seriously… It isn’t that special. The eyecandy isn’t bad, but it could have been also much more interesting. The cave looks way too linear in my opinion.
The idea of pushing the other into the lava isn’t too good either. Espacially because you can avoid falling down very easy on this arena.. Maybe you could place some traps (e.g. springs that push you into the lava, collapsing or disappearing scenary,etc). And I think it would be better to make more small platforms, so you need to jump from one platform onto the other. Then this gametype would be more challenging and it would offer some more tactical possibilities.

So for now it really isn’t that great as it sounds in the description.

DR? – Not yet, improve your gametype.

To short, to easy, boring, nothing new.

Sonclution bad level

Did you liked it?

The level was ok, it could have been better.

I played the level on hardest, but it felt like just a normal level without difficulty.
Looks:
There was candy and such, but no decerations, no background. Nothing for the eyes, but bad guys wondering around trying to figure out what the meaning of life is.

Bad Guys:
They had no challenge, and they where never in their enviorment. You know what I mean? It’s like, since Jazz is going into the swears, the Bad Guys have the homefeild advantage since Jazz is attackign them, so have it to were they are in the postion of power.

Boss: Nice boss level. He wasn’t hard for me, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be hard for someone else. I would only recommend that you make the fighting room smaller so that there is no where you can go where you could be safe from the boss. Also have two carrots instead of four.

There where two glitches I found in the level as well:
1. Jazz couldn’t reach the gold coin needed for the warp, and that wasn’t cool.
2. On a block that changed randomly and quickly, if you jump above it you hear the boss say “Oooohhhh I’m toasted” which is the same thing he says after you beat him.

Song:
The song got annoying after awhile……….*cough……..

So all in all, I think you should have tested it more before up-loading, or please re-upload with impovments and I will change my rating.
Keep it up.

@barca10: Are you using the TSF version(1.24) or 1.23? You can see what version you are using by loading up JJ2 and looking at the bottom right corner of the screen in the main menu.

hi.
I’d like try your level but I have a problem. I downloaded it and copy into the folder where my jazz 2 is but i can’t try it.
please help me how can I use the download file.
thank you.
barca10

[Rating (7) clearance. I’m sorry, but without checking a file you’re not able to give it a rating.

There are a few ways to be fix your problem. The quickest one is to download Captain Cook from J2O and trying to run the level from there. If you still have trouble running the level, I recommend asking of advice on the JCF. ~cooba]

I don’t feel like making a proper review at the moment, but I must say that is is Ischa’s best level so far. I don’t think this should be your own only level like this; keep this up! It can be improved a lot, but still, this level has a rapid change from Ischa’s old design.