Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Nice test the second Gave me some Problem But very nice and Orginally Ideas Make Some more tests :-D

what mike said
8.0

These days, good CTF lvls don’t come often, and they’re very rare too. But somehow, they never end up on the brink of extinction and there is ALWAYS at least one good CTF lvl every year one way or another. Knightmare Castle is one of them.

Unhit doesn’t seem to have worked hard on this lvl since it’s so small and the two sides are almost identical. However, I can assure you that it doesn’t matter. The lvl hasn’t got much originality and eyecandy, instead it relies on pure gameplay. Knightmare Castle is simply a 100×50 lvl with a full-energy carrot in placed in the middle but it’s the structure and ammo placements that makes it so good.

As I said before, the two sides of the lvl (blue and red) are identical, in other words, mirrored. This means that there will be no complains like ‘I don’t know the lvl!!’ since once you learn your side, you instantly learn the other. I can’t really find any disadvantages about this except that the lvl tends to be the same wherever you go. Anyway, the gameplay is really great. Both Jazz and Spaz can use their special abilities to their full capability plus there are lots of knights to shoot at. :-) Also, the springs are nicely placed with no spring at all taking you where you don’t want to go except from those horizontal springs near the two powerups which bounce you away.

Knightmare Castle’s eyecandy is in no way revolutionary but is definitely as far away from boring as it can get. There are knights (which have heads you can blast away – always a fun thing to do for me), drawbridges which can’t draw, plenty of stones and windows and lots of chains. One mayor thing about the eyecandy is that Knightmare Castle doesn’t have any stained-glass windows. No stained-glass windows? Gasp. Panic. Screams. Ppl running across the streets. Ok, this would’ve happen if a giant armadillo 50 metres tall walked into a city, but since all that happened was that Unhit didn’t put any stained-glass windows in the lvl I guess it’s not such a big deal. ;-)

Weapons placement is good. A couple powerups there, another powerup here and a seeker powerup in the middle. There’s room for much improvements but it’s alright as long as the ammo regenerates cause if they don’t, then ppl will have a very hard time since there are only three powerups and very little 3x ammo.

So… to conclude my review, Knightmare Castle is great CTF lvl by the not-so-great Unhit. :D It’s strength is its gameplay and its weaknesses is that the eyecandy makes me think of giant armadillos but I don’t think it happens to anyone else. :) The lvl is probably best suited to 1 on 1 duels or public games.

I’ll give Knightmare Castle a 8.5. And yes, it means that I think Defense of the Paradise is better.

Cheers,

White Rabbit.[This review has been edited by White Rabbit]

O’ course, then you could just rename the level to “battle in the city.j2l,” then it will find itself easily enough. No problems there.

I’m not going to rate this level, considering I haven’t played it yet.

This is pretty much an average level. I tried playing as Lori, and it was very annoying. Not one of Unhit’s best. Sorry.

cool level, i give it an 8.2 for: err… ARGH never mind, EvilMike already said all the things to say about this level…

Knightmare Castle is a highly enjoyable, simple CTF level. It is basically a large, symmetrical room with two warps, two tubes, a few powerups and a carrot. The bases are in each bottom corner, and are easy to find. Although this level is very basic in terms of design, it has a creative layout that allows for a lot of good strategies to be used.

The bouncer and RF powerups are located in an area which you can only access by sucker tube, unless you are skilled with RF-Jumping. They make for good areas to hide if you have the flag, since you can easily see people comming up and shoot them before they have a chance to hit you. The powerup areas are at least a second away from the bases, so they aren’t the best areas to hide at if you want to score a point quickly. There are also several other key points you can defend from, specifically underneath a certain platform near each base, and a ledge in front of each warp. This really makes the gameplay a lot more interesting, and can make the whole map hazardous for the player.

Getting from base to base is an easy task of simply running across a flat surface. However, this is a bit dangerous since there is a seeker powerup right in the middle of the path. Other ways to get to the enemy base are by using one of the warps, or taking an aerial apporach by using a spring or ledge. These methods are a little safer, unless your opponent knows you are going to use them. It is easy to be nailed down with RF missles and seekers, both abundant in the level.

There is one full nrg carrot in the top-middle region of the level, and can be reached by either jumping to it from the bouncer powerup or RF powerup, or by using a green spring to propell you up to it. It’s very easy to be killed while getting the carrot though, creating an intense experience for anyone at low health.

Speaking of springs, the placement of them is for the most part, excellent. They all send you just where you want to go, except for a patch of them near each base, which I found forced you to double jump in one area. It’s a small problem though, and the springs are still well-done nonetheless. Spaz has an easier time getting around in this level, due to a few high jumps, but the level isn’t totally geared in his favour. Because the level is extremely open (as in there is a lot of empty room), jazz can make ample use of coptering.

Ammo placement is fairly good, although there are 2 patches which seem rather useless. They are by the powerups in each top corner (they are the patches arragned in a vertical line). Those two groups of ammo are in places where people will not travel very often. The rest of it is very professionally done, but there doesn’t seem to be enough at times. The selection of weapons in the level is good, and they can all be used to their full potentials.

The eyecandy in this level is superb. It is not too excessive in that it gets annoying, but it looks great. This level has the perfect amount of eye-candy to use, and has its own distinct look. The background in one area looks a little bizarre, but it is a hard to notice “problem”, even if it can be called that.

I reccomend this level for 2 on 2 combat, but no more due to the small size. I played this level with more than six people, and it was a little to intense. When a few people left, the game was very fun, and that’s why I give this level an 8.2. I give any level that I would host online (not for the sake of reviewing, but simply for the sake of playing) a score of 8 or greater, and this level is certainly one I will play in again.

Yep, the level is really musicless… But, let’s review the level.

It’s a normal sized CTFy with OK gameplay. It’s too hard to navigate in it, the bases are on the bottom and you must spring from platform to platform. The eyecandy is very nice.
There are also some PU’s and a Full NRG.
Nothing to say about that.
hgcsfcsuyvckjcasgckgummigummi
I was making a CTF with the name Knightmare.

Overall an ok level. Really Card, this is no 5.7..

Actually, I looked in JCS, and there is nothing in the “Music” box. This level is musicless.
Anyway, this is a medium sized CTF level with great eyecandy and so-so design. One side’s pretty much the mirror of the other. (I typed Mirrow at first)
The two bases are at the bottom, you have to run across a flattish platform to get from one to the other, after getting up to it using the blue springs. If this gets boring, there’s a full energy carrot in the middle, and some powerups up at the top reached by sucker tubes.
The eyecandy’s great. I said that already.
Overall, this is an ok level, but it’s kind of hard to navigate. It also has a few tile bugs. But it’s still worth more then what Magic Card gave it.

OMG.
AT FIRST. THERE IS MUSIC. YOU JUST DON’T HAVE IT!!!!!!
THE TILESET DOES NOT BELONG TO THE LEVEL, WHY DO YOU RATE IT, FOOL?

ADMINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Graphics: This tileset is basically the same as the normal Castle tileset except for a few tiles which aren’t even used in the level. However, I like the darkness effect. Overall: 6

Sound: No music in this level. Overall: 1

Playability: This is a really small level. The players start right at the bases, and the bases are right across from each other. There isn’t much skill involved to score in this level. Overall: 6

Weapon Placement: There aren’t a lot of weapons in this level, which is good. Most weapons have powerups, which is good considering this is such a small level and most people will just go left-right-left across the level capturing and scoring. However, most people may not take the time to go out of their way to get the powerups. Overall: 8

My curve: It’s a small level with no music, ok weapon placement, and cool gfx. Overall: 5

Final grade: 5.2 This level has got some pretty cool stuff, but it’s too small and is lacking music.[This review has been edited by Magic Card]

BarF

Quite nice levels.

Well, the Castle level is bad. It consists of a small room, and lots of passages, that are quite hard to navigate in.
The Mez03 one is about the same, only there’s more eyecandy in the middle room.
Downtown Jungle (which doesn’t use Jungle) has a rather weird design, and too much things in the way to be able to tell what anything is. Uh uh.
Toxic Mushrooms has a weird design, and a couple of powerups that are unreachable as Jazz unless you use the warps at the bottom. Moving platforms do not, repeat, do not work in multiplayer. (This level also has no jazz start)
This pack also gave me an access violation for some reason…

An instagib battle pack? Neat…
I’ve tried making instagib lvls before myself but I never managed to put them into one single pack.

Anyway, at a first glance, this is quite a good battle pack. The lvls are quite small but has got good gameplay, weapons placement and eyecandy.

However, when you look at the lvls more carefully, you’ll find loads of problems and bad things. For example, most of the lvls are very Jazz-unfriendly (bad news for me) and the eyecandy is mostly far too confusing (see Downtown Jungle). The confusing eyecandy makes battling really hard so the result will be random deaths all over the place. Not fun.

I am quite dissapointed with this lvl pack and will give it only an 6.5 but for those that really like confusing eyecandy looks at Cell and instagib, this is a MUST download.

For those that prefer bigger and less confusing lvls, I recommend to keep to battle3, battle2, battle1 and maaaaybe Under Destruction and The Waterfall (both made by me). ;-)[This review has been edited by White Rabbit]

Geat! When I played this online I won 2 of 3 games played. At the 3rd game I pinged out :P Levels are small (as required for instagib), enough ammo, powerups, good gameplay. This gets a 8.5 from me.
Keep on the good work and… be sure to include more levels next time :)

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).

Tileset is hard to use. Full review later.

Yay! I’m the second one to review this lvl!

Well…umm…umm…Defence of the Paradise is a very good and well made CTF lvl. It does use the overused Carrottus tileset but that doesn’t matter too much cause I like the tileset. The lvl’s got good but confusing eyecandy and has got a little too much ammo. The gameplay is OK though, and there aren’t much obstacles around. And also, there was an dead end on pos 79, 17 which I got Unhit to fix in this version. :-D

Since it looks like my review isn’t very detailed the review will now be divided into sections…

Ahhh…sections…

WEAPONS PLACEMENT
There are seekers in this versoin!! + points. There are far too little seeks around!! – points. The ammo is well placed and is scattered neatly all over the lvl. More + points. Too much ammo. More – points. Is this simple enough for you idiots out there? :-P

EYECANDY
Good eyecandy here, Defence of the Paradise uses almost everything the Carrottus tileset offers, there are pumpkins, carrots, vines, spikes, nice smiling flowers and much, much more. What I will give an BIG + for is that Unhit and Songoku didn’t use those red, giant carrots cause they are ANNOYING. But! The eyecandy is sometimes too extreme and can be quite confusing. Also, I noticed that, on the blue base, a vine is blocking Eva’s face!

GAMEPLAY
Good gameplay here. There’s not much to say really. The platforms are well made and the game can go on really fluentlty. However, there are some bad placed springs which makes you bounce up when you want to fall down. I noticed it in a CTF game. Very annoying!

IS THIS LVL FUN?
Yes it is! :-P

CONCLUSION
A very good lvl here by Unhit and Songoku and just because it uses the Carrottus tileset doesn’t mean that it isn’t good. I’ll give Defence of the Paradise (btw, the name is so stupid) an 8.7. Download this NOW.

Cheers,

White Rabbit.[This review has NOT been edited by White Rabbit :-P]

Well, because a lot of people seemingly liked the earlier BETA versions, i decided to give this one a try. And i must say that i was’nt disapointed.
Defense of the Paradise, has a pretty good layout. The level is easy to get around in. Even though you may not notice it that much while playing, the level is devided into a section containing the blue base, and one containing the red base, wich are conected to each other with one pasage.
One thing that sort of anoyed me in the design was that there where a tad to many dead ends, wich could have been Avoided by using suckertubes, springs, warps, one ways or alike.
The rest of the design was pretty good. It plays pretty fluent and circular, all areas are easy to get into.

This level uses the greatly overused Carottus tileset (yawn), but i must say that it uses it rather well.
The levels looks are overall pretty good. A suficient amount of eyecandy was created, maybe a bit more would have been ok, but it looks pretty good.
Background layers where used in about the same way as in any other Carottus level i have seen in my time, but not bad though.
Use of the tileset is good, i have’nt been able to find a big lot of wrongly conected tiles. The plants everywhere look nice too, realy giving sort of a “overgrown garden” feeling. I realy feel that some more stuff could have been done with layers 1 and 2, but maybe that will come in the final release… Lets hope so.

Item placement it another strong point in this level. Weapens where spread well across the map. They have been devided in a way that you are never very far away from grabbing a few rounds of amunition, thus making the chances of having to defend yourself with only your thrustworthy blaster not that big.
Carrots where also devided pretty well. Springs where placed good, but not as good as some other things. A few springs did’nt reach high enough, making going from platform to platform a bit more dificult.
I also don’t totaly agree with the amount of powerups. 6 In one level is a bit too much, and there are 2 of each. I usualy only use one of each in my levels, not 2, but i guess thats just personal preference.

Even though i must say that i did like Carottus Squash more, i think it would’nt be infair to give this level a big download recomendation for battle and CTF fans.

Thanks for the bug report.