Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Once again I am quite wary of not only this pack (which barely made a 2 and has zero satisfaction) but also its sole review which for whatever reason decided to comment more on the eyecandy than the gameplay. This speaks volumes in more ways than one, and perhaps one of the reasons I don’t trust JJ2 reviews anymore. I run from A to B and its boring? Really? Great, no really it is. No no don’t go on, I’d MUCH rather hear about the terrible eyecandy, since you know it’s not like I have to PLAY this pack or anything.

Which is actually quite true, there are long stretches throughout JJ2 The Movie where you are not doing anything at all.
In an attempt to make the pack feel more like an actual movie, level designer Krinya forgot the fun and the pack suffers because of it. For example, there is a level consisting of nothing but Jazz falling. This nearly sounds like a half hearted joke, so I will repeat that line again with more emphasis: One level in this pack consists nothing more than of Jazz falling for nearly 45 seconds in front of a bland background while you sit and watch. No measures where taken to make this concept fun or at the very least engaging. Some form of obstacles would have been nice. There are many more instances throught this pack that require minimal work on the players part such as the downhill-roof slide in the first “scene”.

The levels consisting of gameplay are no better being extremely linear and discouraging exploration (the hologram castle warped me to my death just because I felt like exploring a tower a suicidal person jumped off of). They offer little challenge, variety, and half the time I was merely going through the motions not even knowing if the path I took was actually going to lead to the exit. It also feels like the levels were designed with the intention of being a part of a mobile phone game for an extremely low-end phone as there tends to be no more than one enemy on-screen at most times. There are also a few instances where the faulty level design got me stuck without having any plan of getting me back out, a sign of a lack of beta-testing for sure. Theres a “maze” puzzle early on that seems to really nail down the feeling of pack, allow me to describe it to you in case you have yet to play the level. Jazz must retrieve a remote which is in a tiny dirt maze of sorts. The remote is safely tucked in the middle and is easily accessible. There is a burning oil barrel at the top of the maze which requires more effort to get to and does nothing but hurt the player. Forget telling Krinya to spend time on the eyecandy front, Sonicnathan, more time needs to be spent on making levels worth playing.

The dialog during the city levels in scene-1 try to humorously mask the laziness in playing the same dull level repeated multiple times but ultimately fails. Unlike in Haunted Castle Manor where humorously pointing out bees don’t belong in an old castle was fun because the bees added to the gameplay, the minor additions to the second and third repeats of scene 1 do not. Not only that but the plot is completely inane and doesn’t seem to follow any sense of logic at all. Jazz despite signing up for a movie doesn’t seem to know the script. The director seems more concerned with killing Jazz for whatever reason instead of making a competent film. When Spaz shows up you really get the feeling this is some elaborate snuff film. Not to mention that despite being called “Jazz Jackrabbit 2: The Movie”, the movie’s plot doesn’t seem to follow anything from the actual game.

As if the poor level design (which breaks simple rules such as “You won’t have paths leading to bottomless pits at the level’s bottom”) and nonsensical story (the broken english wasn’t even that bad, the problems lie mainly with a broken plot) weren’t enough, the pack’s eyecandy is atrocious. Ahaha, did I say eyecandy? I meant Eyesore, shield your eyes kiddies Uncle n00b has just set his review phaser to “scathing”. Rocks float magically midair, poorly done backgrounds, tiles that don’t even finish connecting to anything, a mentality that only uses tiles to barricade you onto a single path, a hologram level that actually hurt my eyes while playing (no joke), and the god awful concept of an “invisible bridge”. You can probably make a bridge using Top Secret 3, its been a while, but I’m positive. If you can’t, just make a walkway. Invisible bridges are the level equivalent of closing your eyes falling back and expecting a complete stranger to catch you. I may be over reacting, but still, it bugs me.

All in all JJ2: The movie feels a lot like an old pack I made back in ’04 but never uploaded called “Operation P.I.G.” simply because the pack was meant for my entertainment, and my entertainment only. As I am prone to do, the pack was made completely terrible on purpose set to the story of a rather bad essay I read in class about an invention that makes pigs fly. The only difference between Operation P.I.G. and this pack however, is that JJ2: The movie isn’t an elaborate joke (at least not that I’m aware of) and doesn’t even include all the tilesets needed for the levels while nonsensically including tilesets prepackaged with JJ2 and TSF. No less than four times and perhaps a bit more while playing the pack I had to stop and hunt for the next tileset JJ2 said was missing like I was running errands for a pregnant women who got a new bizarre food craving every few minutes. I’m not sure if any of you have done that, but rest assured if the stories I have heard are true it is not fun. But I did unzip the tubelectric tilesets that came with the pack just in case my old ones deleted themselves (Read: Sarcasm)! More time needs to be spent on fleshing out the world in which the level is set both gameplay-wise (this comes first- remember that.) and eyecandy-wise, and the plot needs to at least have some kind of logic applied to it. I really never felt like I was actually acting in a movie outside of scene 1, it really felt more like Jazz wandering movie sets on his own accord while cracking one liners as the director followed him around with a cellphone camera.
Even without fancy mathematical algorithms, I can tell this pack is worth a 1.7 and nothing more and perhaps quite a bit less.

Jazz Jackrabbit 2 the Movie is a interesting concept that fails to get 2 stars.

Eyecandey:
I’m sorry but this is just bad. There are some interesting eyecandey parts like the disco room and traffic lights but other then that there’s nothing new. There’s tilebugs in almost every level and in the city levels you tried to put all the background tiles in one layer. It comes out in a sloppy, looking weird way that makes no sense. Plus in some cases you used 1 tile for a maze or for a pit or something like that. Other times there’s just no enough eyecandey. Like the base level. Top Secret has over 500 tiles and you used about 50 of them. The level looks boring to look at and just plain rushed. There’s also little foreground. Sorry but 2 months may sound like a lot but for a pack this big you may need a year before you really get it good. I’ve been working on a pack for about a year and I’m still only about half done. Finally most levels are empty. So overall the tilebugs and back background just suck and by todays standards that’s just not acceptable.
2/10

Gameplay:
Bad. Most of the levels involve going from point a-b with weak puzzles and couple of enemies along the way. Half levels don’t take you to the next and one of them doesn’t have a tileset for it. Some levels have no puzzles and just involve running from point a-b. Also one of the levels involve re-doing the level which was annoying. There were no coins warps and almost no secrets. Overall the levels are just boring to play.

1/10
Enemy placement:
Very few. There wasn’t a level I could dye on. There are so few enemies that it’s almost impossible to die. Not enough to come even close to killing me.
1/10
Pickup placement:
No carrots, extra lives and very few carrots. (Which aren’t needed) I mean come on! A full energy carrot in a level with no enemies? Almost no food and empty levels are included!
1/10

Final Score:5/10
Total: 1.7
Rank F
D/R? No but keep trying. I hope the second movie will be better.

il review later , good job on stealing the music from madness combat 4 ;p , and useing it for the movie intro :P

Hey man, this level pack has a many lot of bugs (as you said)! For example, in every level it is possible to fall down and get trapped in the bottom, which makes you cheat or restart to go back. Also, there are some levels which you can’t win (Electopia Sector 2, Falling in the Time…) because you keep falling all the time, or because there ISN’T an end level zone!!! I think you should fix all the bugs (or at least these ones) before uploading your levels. I wouldn’t recommend people download this, because of all the annoying bugs. If you fix them, it can be a better level pack.

-

I ca`nt even see the levels, there`s an password at jcs AND when i want to test them, it gives an Access Violation straight away…so, i ca`nt really say anything more, and that sucks…

[Rating (1) clearance. Do not rate an upload if you don’t know what it is like. ~cooba]

Average lvl.

Hmmm, interesting concept but the Eyecandy and gameplay lets it down. 302 downloads in the last 4 days? :O

EYECANDY

The background has a strange animation in the speakers which does look weird. The foregrounds used were interesting but they obstruct the view of where you are supposed to go and I couldn’t see most of the enemies in Level 2. A lot of the space in each of the levels look empty.

3/10

GAMEPLAY & OBJECTIVES

The objective here is to destroy the viruses (enemies) that you will come across.

I will review the Gameplay for each of the 4 levels (one at a time) including the Boss.

LEVEL 1

The first thing you do is to go through a Sucker Tube that changes direction but is too easy to get through. Next you’re in a maze of Sucker Tubes but there is an annoying bug here. You can end up getting stuck by going too fast in the tube and you will keep going around in circles until you hold down that Shift key and keep going left.

After the Sucker Tube maze you are in a room where you have to keep shooting rats until the way out opens up. The Full NRG carrot placed re-generates too quickly making this part of the level too easy.

After getting through the rats you have a choice of two routes. One will take you to an area of 15 Normal Turtles which are easy to kill due to the fact that the shells will kill EVERYTHING. The other route is to go through a Robot which doesn’t activate or try to attack you. All you have to do is run under it.
Once you get pass the enemies you move on to the exit to Level 2.

All these puzzles were too easy overall. Also, it is possible to fall off the level.

3/10

LEVEL 2

Here, you start off the level by going left through a cool sucker tube. Then you end up on the floor with lots of enemies which you can’t see due to the obstructing foreground. Here you just run right to the exit on to Level 3.

1/10

LEVEL 3

There is hardly any gameplay in this level. All you do is just run right shooting the many Normal Turtles that appear until you reach the exit to the Boss Level.

1/10

LEVEL 4 (BOSS)

All you do here is keep shooting a Robot Boss with the very fast re-generating Toaster ammo. Also, the +1 Carrot re-generates too quickly.
After beating the boss, you move on to the credits level which has no exit. But I won’t review this level as I feel there isn’t any point.

1/10

TOTAL GAMEPLAY SCORE: 6/40

PICKUPS PLACEMENT

There is hardly any pickups in any of these levels. No food can be found anywhere. There is some useless TNT by the Robot in Level 1.
There are also some Carrots which re-generate making the levels too easy.
There is some re-generating Toaster Ammo as I mentioned before in the Boss level.

1/10

ENEMY PLACEMENT

The enemies are too easy to get through. Placement is poor in Level 2 as you cannot see where they are.

1/10

OBSTACLE PLACEMENT

Aside from the the changing Sucker Tube and the Sucker Tube Maze there isn’t many other obstacles.
There is the wall that you have to get through by shooting severall rats.
There is no destruct or buttstomp scenery.
There are the doors that you run through on Level 2.
However, all these obstacles are too easy to get through.

2/10

TOTAL SCORE: 13/70
OVERALL SCORE: (13 / 7) = 1.8571428571428571428571428571429
ROUNDED TO 1.9

EXTRAS

The text events used here are cool. I liked the one after you defeat the boss. +0.1

FINAL SCORE = 2.0

DOWNLOAD?

The only redeeming feature in this pack are the cool text events but other than that the pack isn’t that great.
I cannot recommend this level pack for download, but don’t let that put you off making levels, Krinya. Keep trying and it may turn out great. :)

EDIT: Grammar correction :P

LEVELS 6/20
Well, lets start out with a fact:
The levels were very short.
Every level was too ease.

The virus bin was annoying, because of the large enemy group. Putting many enemies in a little place is not very fun.

Quality is more important than quanity, but it’d be good to have something to play.

EYECANDY 5/20
Well, what could we say, the layer wich moved with the player was cool, but there was nothing new. Totally black one would have been better.

On the other hand, there wasn’t muvh eyecandy to see. I didn’t see any tilebugs, but still it looked quite empty. Not good.

GAMEPLAY 8/20
It well it is quite buggy, you are able to fall of the level or get stuck in suck.

Too much enemies in too small area.
Try to improve it.

BUGS 4/20
Two:
You can’t leave the suckertube in one of the levels.
It is possible to fall of the level.

PICKUPS 1/20
There’s not much to say here, There actually was no pickups except the tnts.

TOTAL
6+5+8+4+1=32

3,2 points.
No Download recommendation.

Note to self- Include every regular JJ2 tileset in next upload, then hope sonicnathan finds no antidote.

Every so often, a level pack comes along that begs to be bashed and taken to the curb. This is not one of those packs, this pack is so short, so incredibly simple and so incessantly easy that it just has to be a joke. People trying to bash this pack for “humour” or whatnot are, in fact, the ones being duped. The pack, entitled with B-movie gusto as “Battle with Viruses!”, has very little storyline. Stuck in a B-movie esque computer, Jazz (or the rabbit of your choice) takes on Licensed Game esque objectives. Though there is a nifty bar effect at the top and bottom of the screen, the eyecandy leaves much to be desired. The eyecandy however is the last thing Krinya needs to focus on. The level design is horrendously ghastly and leaves behind such flaws as walkways into bottomless pits and obscuring part of the players view with the aforementioned eyecandy bars. Not to mention that two of the three levels consist of “hold direction button until you fall down and need to change direction, or hit end sign”. There is an included endboss which is a robot boss, and it suffers the same fault as every robot boss out there: the arena is nothing more than a flat stretch of land. Matters are made even worse with the unlimited supply of toaster ammo given. The first level is somewhat longer than the rest, but is still just as dull. Unlike Sonicnathan, I found no puzzle solving elements (perhaps his brain was melted after being poisoned by the tilesets?), however I did find a robot boss that did not activate as I stealthily slipped by to the exit. Now I may have just outlined many flaws in the pack, despite saying it shouldn’t be bashed. Hear me out, I am not bashing this pack. For starters, it’d be a waste of effort since the pack is, like, 10 seconds long, and because if I just said “Download this pack for this one really brilliant bit” no one would find this review helpful. Now as mentioned, there is this one really brilliant bit that redeems the whole pack, and since the pack takes 10 seconds or so to beat, you’ll agree with me this one bit was totally worth the effort. I’m not spoiling it, but when you defeat the endboss there is some very inspired writing that should make you chuckle at the very least (be sure to note that there is text at both the top and bottom of the screen). Also the credits have a neat equalizer animation.

Overall, the pack is broken on many faults but it’s short length and downright awesome writing make it worth a download.

I always remove all levels when I install jj2, including their tilesets, so it’s a good thing that you include them just in case. Don’t listen to him.

One note. DON“T include tilesets that come with Jazz 2. That’s poison to people like me.

Note: There is little to no story so I’m not even going to talk about it.

Eyecandey:

Sorry but this just doesn’t cut it. All the levels look very identical. (minus the pallet changes and level layout) The levels look empty and the background is noting I’ve not seen before. There were these weird pieces of floor in the background and foreground that move faster than Jazz. It was confusing and had no reason to be there. (other than covering some useless things like an arrow that serves no reason for exictance and hiding baddie’s with is unfair and anowing.) Plus most of the levels were made up of about 20 tiles out of the whole tileset. (That is sarcastic but if looks that way. There’s no veryity.) It’s also worth noting that the level has a lot of useless animations in it. Lots that make no sense. Also the speakers have tile bugs in them and have a weird animations that looks bad.
3/10

Gameplay:

Level 1:

Gameplay:
Boring. There’s some puzzle elements but there all to simple to solve. (20 seconds at the most.) The level was only about 2 minutes and theres this survival thing with a fast regenerating Full Energy carrot making it to easy. (As if it’s not easy enough as it is.) Also at the end you have 2 choices to make to get to the end. ! is to take on tons of turtles but there so close together hitting one of them kills them all because of there shells. The other one is a showdown with a robot but the robot doesn’t even activate and you can go underneath him to the exit. Also you can fall of the end of the level. Meaning you have to restart the level to continue playing.

Enemy placement:
Couple on enemies. Almost impossible to die because of to little enemy’s. At the survival area theres 3 rats the respawn. You can stand at 1 corner and just keep shooting to win. Next question.

Pickup placement:
Carrots: There’s a couple of carrots but there’s so little enemys that they have almost no use. Also regenerating carrot in the survival area re-spawns to quickly.
Ammo: # sticks of TNT. That’s it.

Total:2/10

Level 2:

Gameplay:
Go to the left, fall down into a pit of enemies covered up by the foreground, got though some opening and closing gates, end of level. About 2 minutes. At the gates if you hold right you’ll take damage but you’ll get to the end.

Enemy placement:
Some enemies at the bottom of the level that makes is so you always get hurt. Also makes is hard to get past the gates without getting hit.

Total: 1/10

Pickup Placement:
No items!

Level 3:
Gameplay:
Run to the right shooting re-spawning turtles. All you need do is run to the right while constantly pressing the fire button. About 7 seconds long.

Enemy placement:
Re-spawning turtles on a straight path. That’s it.

Pickup Placement:
No items again.

Total: 0/10

Boss:
Some re-spawning toaster ammo and a a robot boss. noting special.

Final rank: F
Total 6/40
1.2
DR? No.

Here we go again

Eyecandey:
I have to say I kinda like the eyecandey. The background is textured which is good and I like the penguins in the background. There’s a little eyecandey in layer 4 which is good. But there’s not enough to make the level look interesting. (Ok the disco room looks cool)
2/10

Gameplay:
This level has little to do even though the author tried to make it look like other wise. There are stores that you can buy stuff in but that’s of no use as there’s no enemys. There’s a nice flying test in which you get 110 coins if you win. (It pretty easy) There’s also a pinball table. There’s lots of rooms but in almost all of them you don’t do anything in. Not good. There are warps everywhere that are indicated by flames. Wierd. Speaking of warps when you get to the shop’s when you go though the warps in some of them you get stuck in the wall! Really not good. Ow and for a little more of a plus there’s a exit.
2/10
Enemy placment:
There’s no enemys so no points
0/10
Item placment:
Bad. There’s no food and theres hardly any ammo. There coins that respawn in. (Why do the coins always spawn in on hotel levels?) Theres also lots of gem when you go though one of the coin warps which is not good.
1/10
Replay:
Since there’s almost nothing to do in the level you will not want to play it again.
1/10

Total
6/50
score:1
Rank F
Download Recommendation?
No.

EYECANDY

This looks like it was rushed as the eyecandy is not very good. It does have a Layer 8 BG, and I do like those little moving penguins in Layers 6 & 7 but the Layer 4 eyecandy needs improving. It looks repetitive as the same blue tile is used a lot.

2/10

PLAYABILITY

There is a shop where you can buy weapons, carrots and other items. Unfortunately, the warps are right in the corner, meaning that the player gets stuck. NEVER place a warp in a corner, next to the wall or 1 tile under the ceiling. Place the warp AT LEAST 2 tiles AWAY from the wall. There was also a jet pack game using the Air Board where you avoid the obstacles although it was a bit too easy. I liked the loading % at the beginning of it. Get through this and you get 110 coins.
But there wasn’t much fun to be had anywhere else. There was also a Disco, Pizza Parlour and other places to see but they weren’t very good.

2/10

TOTAL SCORE = 4/20 (2.0)

RANK: F = Bad

DOWNLOAD?

No

hfghfgh
(Rating (5.2) removal. ~Violet)

I agree with Janus aka Jahari for some parts, but it’s definetly not worth a 1.

Gameplay:
not that good, not realy a storyline, sometimes very confusing lights, and don’t forget that if you drop down from the lower rope, only a spaz-player can get up with douple-jump. I can see you didn’t use much layers, i think only 8 for the background, 4 ofcourse and maybe 5.

4.0

Eyecandy:
Very bad. Like i said, the lightning is very confusing. Make some ricochet on those pipes, it looks more real, let enemies walk! give them some space.

2.3

Tileset use:
Try to use another tileset next time. Tube electric is used SO many times I won’t be impressed of it. The use isn’t that great eather. Check everything twice before you upload. don’t let a pipe ‘just’ end. doesn’t look great.

4.6

Conclusion:
Far from a great level, eyecandy is very bad. try to make more levels. After some while you know how to make a real nice level. If you have something like that, you should upload it. But this is only your second upload, so I won’t rate that heavy.
Good luck with building!

4.0

Download recommendation: NO

I have to say, this really isn’t very good. You need to work on adding more eyecandy to your levels. Also, you shouldn’t make the level frustrating for the player. Dark rooms full of baddies are one of the things I hate most. Also, I really didn’t appreciate that warp that sent me to the box with no way out. It was utterly pointless and stupid. That was when I turned off the game.

1. Work on making more eyecandy.
2. Make the level less frustrating and more fun.
3. Choose better music next time :<

Rating Voltage Village:

Plus:
Nice background.

Min:
You can complete the level in no time, there are some bugs and the placements are not good. The enemy-placement is bad and the bonus-placement is also bad.
The worst thing from the Bonus-placement is the coin-secret at the end of the level. The bird is useless, because you will not have it anymore in a next level. (in JJ1 you will have it)

Conclusion:
Worse level, but there is at least one plus, so this is no 1,0. But I can’t call this a Download Recommendation.

Mark: 1,6
Download recommendation: NO!

Hey!

Somehow i like the level in some way :O!

Eyecandy

There answer is at the other review’s. It’s very bad, try to use all the layers in different ways.

Gameplay

Very bad, at the beginning you will get stuck (sometimes).

There’s is’t much flow or any fun stuff

Ammo

Is there ammo in the lvl?

5.0

[Unsupported (5.0) rating removal. You provided no reasons why you liked the level at all – FQuist]

Sorry but I dont like your level. First:

Eyecandy- bad, bad, bad. I would give 3 but the background looks nice, so… 5

Gameplay- boring. just boring.
… and sometimes I was annoyed. Too many enemies, too many X and Y poles, too many goodies. BUT your lev is quite interesting. 4

But don’t give up! ;-)