Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Something happened to me today while I was playing Jimbob’s Highland Glaciers, something that has (thankfully) RARELY ever happened to me when playing Jazz Jackrabbit 2.

When I played the level, I was confused…impressed…disappointed…incredulous…all at the same exact time.

And fellers, that’s hard to accomplish.

Highland Glaciers is a study in consternation and unexpected surprises. There’s HUGE clumps of ammo littered all over the place. Powerups in plain sight. A boatload of capture points. A seeker powerup with a carrot and a capture point, all of which can be camped upon ‘til the cows come home.

Huh?

The level also made some eyebrow-raising eyecandy choices, with clusters of twinkling sparks in various places, an off-color Layer 8 background, and some water that’s apparently supposed to make the point that this is a glacier, or the very least, a fjord.

It was a tough sell.

Music worked decently well for the level, once it got far enough into the song. I won’t quibble too much here.

Gameplay, on the other hand, was brilliant. The level flowed quite smoothly, and I liked the shape, size and overall structure of HG. That was well executed.

Hence the consternation.

Did I like Highland Glaciers? I guess so…but that’s a VERY tentative “guess so”. There was nothing visually offensive or hard to ignore in terms of eyecandy, and once I got over the initial shock of the amount of weapons, it was reasonably fun to play.

If this qualifies a download rec, then I guess I’ll give it my blessing.

@Flawful: An upload is supposed to be without flaws, as one can betatest it first to remove them. If it still contains flaws after being uploaded, just give the upload a lower grade, it got to do with the skills of the levelmaker.
If people reupload things they improve ofcource but reviewers have to edit their review. This can be annoying when it happens multiple times.
So to all uploaders: Take time in testing your file/map, test it with others too and when you’re sure there are no flaws then upload it.

not very good, and not worth of 7 imo

@jimbob: why don’t improve your level when you notice it has flaws? Are you actually saying you don’t want to ‘optimize’ the quality of your level?

@Zoro: I think by doing this, he means that 8.2 is overrating my level. Sure it’s a pretty good level, but it has some flaws (like too much ammo & campy bases, like everyone is saying), & I was only expecting a rating of around the 7.5 +/- range anyways.

@DarkSonic: I will take your advice in my future levels. Thank you :p

@FawFul: No, I never said that… I was thinking of updating the level earlier today/this week, in fact. I have been busy with other stuff, that is all.

What DarkSonic said.

There is way too much ammo.. there are almost no places without ammo and there are too many Power-Ups. is too much. Also has too many carrots. One Full NRG and one +1 or 2 +1s would have been better. The layout is pretty simple and linear and one way to the base is never good. The eye candy is good but nothing amazing. Download not recommended.

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This level is fine enough. Sure,it has a lot of carrots and ammo,but it’s really fun to play and it has nice eyecandy. Definitely download it and give it a try. Good job!

EDIT: Well,you got your 7.5. Won’t lower my rating,even if it really is for a lower one :D

Try making platforms closer would be good and i advise downloading a few high rated battle levels and try to see how there done it and it give u idears.. more u play the more ideas u will have :)

but still a 4.5 for your effort :)

‘Highland Glaciers’ is Jimbob’s submission to the Domination contest held by Rag. I’ve seen a lot of DOM’s lately and made one myself too, so I guess I can review this well now. Here we go!

To start with: I think this level uses it’s size really well, that’s imo the strongest point of this level. The warps make it fast-paced and the control point-area’s really accessible, which is a good thing. Crossing the whole level isn’t hard. The eyecandy’s nothing special, but at least the whole level is filled up, though some things seem a bit uninspired to me.

This level has plenty of ammo, which is good (nice shapes btw), but way too many carrots, 8 +1’s and 2 Full, with some questionable placement (some for example too close to eachother). Six control points is a lot and sets this apart from other DOM’s. Also, with PU’s/Full NRG’s practically at the control points they’re really hard to control, which I think isn’t really a good thing. A more balanced placement with some controllable points and some points harder to control would’ve been better (you could’ve done this with placing the PU’s maybe a bit further from the points, so players are encouraged to move more).

I hate the fact however that nothing’s really creative about this level. Could be a good level to play with many players anyway, so that’s a good reason to try this out and download it. With a few players it won’t play well I guess, since 6 CP’s let you score points really fast.

P.S. Yeah, the waterfalls are too slow ;) but it doesn’t annoy me in any way, it’s just a minor thing and easy to change.

Yeah! The waterfall are way too slow!
No.. just kidding ;p
Nice big and beautiful map.
Many CPs.
Fun if 4 vs 4 or more ppl on this map.

The waterfall is too slow but no bad lvl.

“Those of you who think the music does not fit” are usually right and you should listen to people’s advice rather than point them the door out.

While I am not a heavy CTF player, I believe these are pretty good levels.

Emerald Forest gives you two versions of the same level: Evening and night. I will talk about them both in general.

The layout is symmetrical for both bases (Some might like this point in a CTF game – Others may not), with a central “Gateway” between the two. The level is easy to navigate. Once I got used to the level , I never felt lost.

Eyecandy is good, with lots of places for the eye to wander. The rain is a nice touch, and it add atmosphere to the level.

I think birdie is somewhat right about the music selection for one level. The first Emerald Forest (aws_Cave.xm) made the first level very enjoyable and completed the atmosphere of the level, which was at night. The evening level (mikko56.s3m) Seemed to lack the atmosphere, and not fit the mood created in the first level.

Overall, I liked the level, and think this would make a decent CTF for any server. Recommended.

There seem to be a lot oddly placed tiles in the walls, also you can’t see the mountains at the top, which gives you a feeling of emptyness. There is just some basic eyecandy, nothing in the foregrounds. There’s bouncy and toaster PU close to each other at the top, and seek at the bottom, and a few +1 carrots. The level consists of a lot of platforms. Worth a try or two. Neither good or bad.

Your name has been taken already again.

not ver good lvl

[Review changed to quick review. ~cooba]

jimbob.. what masterrokusho means (what i think he means) that u just have to start all over again and make an new level.. where you spend much time in it. then its getting better,
uploading and upgrading don’t work if the platforms + gameplay is boring..

You can better classify this level as other, since multiple means more and not different.

Gameplay

Your Gameplay has the same mistakes your last level had. You can only get up easy with springs and the upper part can only be reached by the use of springs. Your level has kind of some dead ends at the top, but when you go down you will see that this level is just a right line down. This makes your level allready very boring. You should try to not make so squared as most of your levels are, but variate the amout of titles your inner titles are from the edge of your level. Also you need to put something interesting in them, not only just things you can walk on, make turrets or sucer tubes, for example.

Eyecandy

You added some foreground in this level which gives it some more sfere. You also decorated the parts in layer 4 below where you can stand on, that was a good move too. Most of the parts of the background looks very nice too, only the part in the upper middle, which is blue, looks quite boring to me. Again, the eyecandy is the best part of your level.

Originality

Again, you didn’t add some original things to your level, which bores me. The only idea in this level that is original is that when you have 20 coins, you can go to the bonus part and score 5 points. To my opignion this is way to overpowered because those coins are very easy to get. Those bonus levels, at first, are at the upper part of the level together with allready to golden coins. This makes the upper part of the level overpowered and even more overpowered because you can only reach it in one space by using a double blue spring. Those 20 coins which are so easy to get because there are many and they give 5 points, which means a 2v2 teambattle game to 10 points would be over within 5 minutes, probably even faster. You just simply can’t defend those coins. Don’t try to make as many levels as possible, you need more time to make them. Spend at least as much time on Gameplay and Originality as you do on Eyecandy and I’m sure you will make some great levels!

Gameplay: 3
Eyecandy: 8
Originality: 4,5

Final Grade: 5,2

Quote: ‘The only idea in this level that is original is that when you have 20 coins, you can go to the bonus part and score 5 points.’