Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

BunnyElmer’s love for jumping mentioned in Moonblaze’s post is definitely fact. This level, which obviously draws a great deal of inspiration from Bloodbunny’s “Bloodbunny’s Lair”, contains a heck of a lot of platforms. Generally, I hate platform hopping in Capture the Flag levels, but it isn’t as bad in this level as in some others. Still, I would rather not have to hop from platform to platform. This level suffers from what is admittidely a poor layout. The two capture the flag bases sit on opposite sides of the level, defeating much of the purpose in climbing up and down the perilous “skipping stones” of platforms in order to get to the top part of the level. The only level in which a layout like this really works for me is EvilMike’s “Distopia”, but making a layout like that of Distopia work requires both great skill, a heck of a lot of patience, and a lot more planning than anyone is willing to give a level (except EvilMike). This level’s drawing from Bloodbunny’s Lair is apparent in nearly every single aspect of the level. However, this just ain’t no Bloodbunny’s Lair and you shouldn’t expect it to be that good. The level’s layout is really the part of it that needs the most work, but nothing else about it reaches the high standards that Bloodbunny’s Lair set many moons ago. Eyecandy, while not extremely good, is sufficient enough to prevent the level from looking ugly. Flow, mostly due to the particurally annoying platforms, is bad, especially if you happen to be playing as Jazz. Jazz users will hate this level. Despise it even. This is mostly because of the cumbersome platforms that make it so hard for their bunny to navigate around the level with ease. Double jump really, really, really comes in handy here, and I would recommend playing as Spaz if possible. For Spaz users, layout is probably about average. Nothing to write home about there, unless you are Jazz, of course. Weapon placement is unnotable. There are not too many weapons in this level, which is good, but sometimes there was a bit of a weapon drain. Still, weapon placement was possibly the highlight of this level. As much as my review sounds negative, their are some redeeming factors. It is still a solid level, but nothing more than that. Recommended download and a 6.7 for the CTF freaks out there, but everyone else may want to avoid this Bloodbunny’s Lair-inspired but still borderline average Capture the Flag level by BunnyElmerXD.

I had the pleasure of playing this excellent battle level online and must say that while I am a CTF lover, this is one of those few levels that actually makes me consider playing more battle levels (not that I’m un-lazy enough to get around to doing so.) If you thought that there was no room for battle levels in Carrotus to get anymore (or any less, for that matter) innovative, you may want to rethink your assumpitons, let alone your entire world view. Most battle levels fall into a fairly narrow margin of creativity. A lot of them are fashioned off of the gameplay of Battle1, and these days the sight of one that truly attempts to put some strategy into the realm of battle is a rare commodity. While it does not go as far as to revolutionize the entire gameplay as a whole or introduce some psychadelic funky eyecandy set, it does what it does best: be a really, really, really good and solid Carrotus battle level.

When you first start playing the level, it is hard not to compare it to Every Other Carrotus Level Ever Made. After all, Carrotus levels have been stereotyped more than Michael Jackson has had pretend skin diseases. This level is not predictable in any way, shape, or form. That’s why it is so strikingly different from other Carrotus levels out there (I am not saying the tileset can not be used with interesting gameplay, it’s just that levels using Carrotus often are similar in gameplay – solid but uninspired, much like the tileset). Gameplay is always very good. Weapon placement is one of the two areas, however, that were not perfect and could have been improved if it was thought about enough. While most powerups were fairly well-placed, certain areas had an overkill of powerups that seemed a little too out in the open. While I can’t say that this effected gameplay that much, it still was just one of thost things that annoys me without actually mattering that whole too much. However, WCS (Weapon Clumping Syndrome) is annoying beyond belief, and this level has a very minor case of it. A few weapons moved around here and there would be nice. The second area that could use some minor improvement was eyecandy. Generally, the level looked solid and had sufficient eyecandy to keep you interested, but in many cases there were small overlookings in the scenery. A few tile errors here and there did not exactly help how the level looked, but unless you were specifically looking for them, it probably won’t bother you too much. Since I informally beta-tested it, I must say that I am disappointed that the author did not fixed either of the two mentioned tile bugs after we pointed them out, but nonetheless that doesn’t detract a huge amount from the overall feel of the level. Flow was excellent for a battle level. Flow isn’t as important in battle levels as it is in Capture the Flag, but that doesn’t mean I like to see levels just ignore it, and this one certainally pays due attention to this often overlooked aspect of the battle genre. Another interesting thing which may fall under the “pros” column or the “cons” column depending on personal preference is the use of coins and a bonus coin warp in this level. You don’t see this often in battle levels, since the “roast as fast as you can” additude of battle levels does not exactly lend itself to hunting for various coins to get a powerup which you will probably lose after being killed a minute later. Still, while few people were able to get this powerup, the coin price seemed fair, and its inclusion certainally did spice up the level a bit.

What you have here is an example of a Carrotus level at its best. While it may not echo every other Carrotus level ever created, it achieves the hard-to-garner goal of being new and lemony-fresh without being so revolutionary puritist players who refuse to play anything more revolutionary than Chemical Warfare won’t play it. It bridges the large gap between classic and innovative, and bridges it quite well. While it may have a few quirks, the amazing level of concentration, ability, and knowledge of how gameplay structure works in a new JCSer is about as common as unpoisoned water in Death Valley. Even if you aren’t a fan of battle and aren’t amazed by this rating, it is definitely worth a download just to see the great skill of a new level designed. I seriously recommend you download this pack, and I think that a 8.2 rating, while it may not seem extraordinary, is still quite high. This may be the highest rating I’ve ever given someone’s first officially released level, and I really hope to see future releases from this level’s author. Rockingham II is really that good.

Since you released the tileset about five minutes ago, I consider this a demo level. Here’s my review of the tileset:
Tilesets made in the fairly rudementary Microsoft Paint program normally fall into one of three categories: absolutely awful with no effort, an honest attempt but still not very good, and adequate for a tileset but an amazing masterpiece for an MS Paint tileset. To truly make a worthwhile tileset in MS Paint requires time, patience, and a whole lot more ability to not pull your hair out than I will ever posess. Suberia, which sounds like it could be a planet out of nearly any space game ever created, is a fairly simple tileset. If you have ever reviewed many tilesets made in Paint, you’ll know that simple is what to expect. The entire tileset itself occupies 34 32-pixel lines but is followed by annoying stencil remnants that at least take up double the room the tileset does (removing these to reduce filesize would have been welcome, especially if you are going to host levels with this tileset often.) Included are some nice-looking general purpose colored blocks and ground that suspiciously resembles grandmother’s banana bread. The green sucker tubes look acceptable, but without textures or anything complicated don’t look professional. Blue mountains that look similar in quality (pretty lame but acceptable in MS Paint) to Blade’s mountains in Aztec are there if you so desire mountain-y layer seven eyecandy. Street lights add an interesting touch to the tileset, which is obviously going for a city look. In fact, if you look at the tileset long enough, it almost looks like some cartoony MS Paint version of Toxic Bunny’s War Torn Night tileset (a la Distopia) minus the war torn part. Then there are some Mario-ish transfer tubes that are way to narrow to suffice for anything other than eyecandy. Then there is a block that literally has “warp” written all over it. This is followed by a collection of letters and symbols for printing out your bids of worship to the Snufuss. A shameless clan ad for backgrounds of tunnels that look sort of like spraypaintings adorn the bottom of this tileset, followed by the blue versions of the mountains earlier in the tileset. While I doubt that it will be used much beyond Atomic Clan levels, its not the word MS Paint tileset that there ever was. Still, it’s an MS Paint tileset and not an amazing one at that. I have always had trouble rating MS Paint-made tilesets because they all have that cartoony look, but this one is fairly clear. My rating for this tileset is a 5.7. It may not be graphically amazing or textured like tilesets made in PSP or Photoshop, but it does have a nice homely feel. Worth a download if you’re interested in MS Paint tilesets, but everyone else probably will not be missing much.

LEVEL:
Now, as exciting as a battle in the suburbs of Anytown, USA sounds, I can’t say this battle level is much to get excited over. The level itself is fairly smallish, but does not exactly feel constricting. The top of it consists of land area while the bottom is water (yeah, a lake below a suberb…sounds realistic, don’t you think?) The flow of the level is pretty good in the land areas, but obviously it’s hard to say much for nearly empty water areas. Near the bottom of the water area is a small building (suburban shipreck) consisting of a room with a seeker powerup. Ammo placement is actually fairly good, and whatever layout there is is not bad at all. However, I can’t say that I like this level much, mainly because of its diminuitive size. This is good for a demo level, but not good enough to warrant a completely seperate J2O upload. I give this level a score of five point two. It’s not bad, but really not anything special. It should have been included with the original tileset download instead of being featured seperately. Instead of just downloading this and the tileset seperately, download this and rate the tileset. This is a good example of a demo level, but little more.

Tilesets made in the fairly rudementary Microsoft Paint program normally fall into one of three categories: absolutely awful with no effort, an honest attempt but still not very good, and adequate for a tileset but an amazing masterpiece for an MS Paint tileset. To truly make a worthwhile tileset in MS Paint requires time, patience, and a whole lot more ability to not pull your hair out than I will ever posess. Suberia, which sounds like it could be a planet out of nearly any space game ever created, is a fairly simple tileset. If you have ever reviewed many tilesets made in Paint, you’ll know that simple is what to expect. The entire tileset itself occupies 34 32-pixel lines but is followed by annoying stencil remnants that at least take up double the room the tileset does (removing these to reduce filesize would have been welcome, especially if you are going to host levels with this tileset often.) Included are some nice-looking general purpose colored blocks and ground that suspiciously resembles grandmother’s banana bread. The green sucker tubes look acceptable, but without textures or anything complicated don’t look professional. Blue mountains that look similar in quality (pretty lame but acceptable in MS Paint) to Blade’s mountains in Aztec are there if you so desire mountain-y layer seven eyecandy. Street lights add an interesting touch to the tileset, which is obviously going for a city look. In fact, if you look at the tileset long enough, it almost looks like some cartoony MS Paint version of Toxic Bunny’s War Torn Night tileset (a la Distopia) minus the war torn part. Then there are some Mario-ish transfer tubes that are way to narrow to suffice for anything other than eyecandy. Then there is a block that literally has “warp” written all over it. This is followed by a collection of letters and symbols for printing out your bids of worship to the Snufuss. A shameless clan ad for backgrounds of tunnels that look sort of like spraypaintings adorn the bottom of this tileset, followed by the blue versions of the mountains earlier in the tileset. While I doubt that it will be used much beyond Atomic Clan levels, its not the word MS Paint tileset that there ever was. Still, it’s an MS Paint tileset and not an amazing one at that. I have always had trouble rating MS Paint-made tilesets because they all have that cartoony look, but this one is fairly clear. My rating for this tileset is a 5.7. It may not be graphically amazing or textured like tilesets made in PSP or Photoshop, but it does have a nice homely feel. Worth a download if you’re interested in MS Paint tilesets, but everyone else probably will not be missing much.

The idea of inserting levels into single player rotation is interesting, but most levels that ask you to are pretty much inferior to every single level in the rest of the single player game. Despite the fact that everyone and their gerbil knows how to change the next level setting, the author decided to tell us. I doubt I will follow his instructions, but this is a average to good level nonetheless. The level uses the Colon tileset, a default tileset that ships with Jazz 2 and isn’t that easy to use. The beginning of the level is, as Violet said, by far the best part. Tileset is is OK, though there are some places where the author used layer 3 improperly to make something look correct. The sewer parts have O.K. eyecandy, but again, nothing spectacular. Weapon placement is pretty good overall, and gameplay is above average. The level gets much less inspired as it goes along. Towards the end, it seems a little strained and isn’t as fun and lemony fresh as at the start. Still, one thing that surprised me about this level is how unlinear it is. The level does not punish the player for looking around and exploring, and there are several different paths at the start you an go off from. One, the sewers, is hard to notice (the only method of access is a buttstomp sewer cover.) There are parts of the level where the greenish blue sewer walls clash terribly with the pink ground from the rest of the level, and this significantly detracts from gameplay. There are some elements missing in this level, but it is nonetheless fairly solid. This level may not be as strong in every area as one would hope, but it’s still a fun play. Worth a download, but don’t expect to have hours of joy. I considered for a second adding this to rotation, but I do not think it is worth it. There are parts of this level that may make you have the impulse, but they will be quickly downplayed by the level’s quirks. I give it a 6.2, but no download recommendation.

When a level author claims their level “may work in TSF,” it is pretty much guaranteed that the level will be nothing special. This level is not an exception. The level is something that could be made in five minutes even with very limited Jazz Creation Station knowledge. The level is very small, and consists mainly of a flat surface with some ammo and a path that leads up to a small empty room with a warp at the end. Seemingly randomly-placed background items add to the confusion of trying to figure out what is solid and what is not. However, the more confusing question would be why anyone would bother playing this horrible level. The labeling as a single player level is almost more confusing. The level contains no enemies, nor does it contain an ending position. The so-called multiplayer add-on area is simply a small area protected from the rest of the level by a wall that contains a multiplayer level start and warps into the single player area (if it really is a single player area.) Not only that, but the multiplayer start sits right next to a wall. In other words, this level is impossible to host in multiplayer, and isn’t a single player level at all. Can we even call this a level? This level features no redeeming qualities. Flow is terrible, and so is everything else. The randomly placed waterfalls are almost ugly, even though I never thought it was possible to make the JJ1: Diamondous waterfalls ugly. Regardless, this level is bad with a capital B. No download recommendation at all and the low, low score of one point two. It would be a good idea to try to spend more than five minutes on levels. They often turn out to be much, much better that way.

Oh, yes, and lest I forget: these files unzip to a subdirectory. It always takes me a few mintues to realize what happened when a level does this, and I really, really, really dislike it. The level wasn’t even worth the five minutes it took to find the file or the ten minutes it took the write the review. Then again, this level wasn’t even worth the five seconds it took to download it. Beware of this level. Avoid at all costs.

EDIT: First level or not, this is a bad level. Spend more times on your levels, or you will continue to get grades like this. The truth is most first levels are bad because the authors assume they can slap together something bad and get a high rating. This isn’t true. Even if this was your first level, it is really bad. Spend more time on your levels. If your first level is under a rating of four or so, either you are a really, really bad levelmaker in the current state or you didn’t spend enough time on your levels and didn’t put much effort into them. There are very few cases where someone is truly that bad, so it is probably the later for you.

BR>Spazy: This isn’t the tileset you are rating. This is the level.[This review has been edited by Trafton AT]

At first glance, CelL’s conversion of Medivo is a complete dream come true. However, like many things, the longer you use it the less interesting and more annoying it becomes. It is not that this is a completely flawed tileset, but many flawed quirks make using this tileset range from inconveniencing to downright annoying at points. But first I’ll start out with the good. This is probably one of the better Medivo conversions out there. Jazz Jackrabbit 1 conversions are a dime a dozen these days, so it takes something to put tilesets apart from similar conversions. The general idea with conversions is that the author is supposed to stay out of the way of the tileset, and make the best and most true to the original conversion as possible. This conversion is certainally true to the original, but only at first glance. After in-depth use, you’ll notice some of the real annoyances of the tileset. However, this tileset commits one sin that ranks among the 10 Unexcusable Sins of Tileset Making – it overwrites another tileset. In this case, Ice Wolf’s older Jazz 1: Medivo conversion. This tileset is somewhat of a rarity, and it may take me a while to find it again. Until then, I have to take a bit away from the score for CelL thinking about this possibility first. The rain is another problem area. When animated, the rain changes colors ever so slightly. However, if you are in a level full of rain, this quickly becomes a small but exceedingly annoying quirk, and will tempt nearly every level maker to just drop the rain from his or her level completely. I expect conversions these days to have about ninety percent minimum of the tiles of the original, and while this tileset does make that criterea, it does not go all the way and include every single tile from the original. Another increadibly annoying problem was a white speck on the lamp. While it does not jump out and scream “CONVERSION BUG”, careful eyes will notice this and point it out. Parts of the original tileset that were transparent are now just black. A small oversight, but one that could turn off Jazz 1 fans that demand exact conversion of their beloved favorites. In short, this is an excellent conversion with small quirks that severely effect it’s use ability. If you don’t demand a completely perfect conversion of Medivo and you are just anxious to make a level with JJ1: Medivo, you can not go wrong with this tileset. Sure, some of the tileset are converted in such a way that they are almost rendered useless if you want to use them heavily, but a simple reupload could easily fix these problems. However, anyone who demands exact accuracy in their tilesets might want to wait for another, more improved, conversion to come along. If this tileset was to be reuploaded with the previously mentioned bugs fixed, I would be able to praise it. Until then, I give it a 7.7 and a somewhat reluctant download recommendation. Not bad, but it’s obvious that a closer look and more heavy betatesting could make this work feel a little less beta.

This pack features bitmaps (.BMP’s) of Lori, Spaz, and Jazz but they are, as previously mentioned, all marked as the same. As for Moonblaze’s comment: you must not know of a handy Windows feature that allows you to stretch any image you use as the desktop to fill up the entire area. It does not matter how small the bitmap is, Windows will automatically extend it. The images should all be reuploaded correctly, but this is still a nice collection. I’m not sure if I would use it as my desktop (a previous Jazz Jackrabbit 2 desktop picture is by far the better choice), but it is still worth a look.

This seems to be an update to the Holiday Hare pack, but I can’t exactly say that this should be considered as much as an update as of a downdate (if there is such a thing.) As Violet said, the first levels are completely acceptable, but the rest of the levels just don’t feel “right.” Eyecandy is chararisticly average. The first two featured forgivable eyecandy design errors, but the errors started getting more and more noticable as the pack progressed. On top of that, the multiplayer levels reach new lows. The levels all seem slapped together with little or no regard for perfecting anything. There are so many loose ends in this level, you could have a knot tieing contest. The rest of the levels fall into a range of average to slightly above average, with tedious gameplay and uninspiring eyecandy, weapon placement, and flow. These seems like the creator was at least marginally interested in making a level pack at the beginning, but quickly got bored and slapped together the rest of the pack as quickly as he could. So I give this level a rating of 6.2 and absolutely no download recommendation. These levels may be passable, but they are quite boring and not worth note at all. For this, I give this pack one large lump of coal for Christmas. And a 6.2. There are much better, and more inspired, holiday levels out there than this unexiciting and unpolished pack of mediocre creations.

Eh…Am I the only one to think that jeffrocks and Lean Machine are the same person?

Anyway, this is a fairly rudementary level with not much to note. It apparently falls before the Goblen’s Lair level, which was similar in style to this (maybe because it is by the same author?). Still, this level is OK. Not anything more than OK, though, and I can’t recommend it for download. I will give it a rating, but if this turns out to be the same author cheating, I must say that I am very disappointed. Upload your own levels and rate those of others.

Well, after seeing smilar tilesets in action in the Hocus Pocus conversion pack (and earlier “ancestors” of it in the Foo Races series), I must say that I am a fan of this sort of tileset. The 1.44MB file (the exact size of a floppy disk, coincidentally) contains three files. The first is, of course, the tileset. The second is an average demo level. The last file is “Strider” (strider.it), a catchy and somewhat post-techno (if you have any idea what that means, you’ve been listening to too much Cracking Ice) music file that is good but not my favorite. The tileset itself has a red tint, which I did not exactly expect in a Hocus Pocus-themed tileset (most of Hocus Pocus is blue, purple, green, or a combonation of the three.) The standard Hocus Pocus tiles are there, with the wizard, keys, gems, etcetera, etcetera. The tileset comes with everything you would need to make a good platformer-ish puzzle level (to see a great example of one of these, download Violet’s conversion of Hocus Pocus’ first episode, which I gave a 9.5 and a download recommendation.) Also included is the Fooruman (or any wizard for that matter) wizard tiles, the animation that is used when you kill something (you will have to play Violet’s pack to understand what the heck I am talking about.) If for some reason you have the urge to include EvilMike or FireSworD tiles (a hint that this will probably be used for Foo Races) in your level, this tileset provides them. Also, a nice animation of Spotty exploding is the icing on the cake. A very nice tileset that is another great conversion of Hocus Pocus. I am not sure if it is possible to get sick of seeing Hocus Pocus-themed levels and tilesets, but I can not say that I am anywhere close to sick of these great conversions yet. For this very good tileset, I give a score of eight and a download recommendation. Very nice job.

@Black Ninja: you feeling OK? ;P I don’t think this tileset is a 3 tileset.[This review has been edited by Trafton AT]

“Higher Fragging Rate” was intended to bring some strategy into the fairly strategy-deprived world of battle levels. This is a step in the right direction, but there are a few more steps before battle is truly a strategy-heavy mode. The level may be gameplay-centric, but it is not short on gameplay. It has an elevator-ish background with a foreground that is sort of industrial (it uses 7th Lava Fall by Dethman, which usually ends up either looking like a city or some sort of factory, this time it is a factory.) Weapon placement is good, but not amazing. The flow is good, but there are some places where it is hard to move around. It did, at times, remind me a lot of battle1, with a lot less ammo. It’s definitely worth a download and the eight point two I’m giving it. Great job, FireSworD.[This review has been edited by Trafton AT]

It’s been ages since I booted up Hocus Pocus, but this pack inspired (well, forced so I could do a fair review) me to take another look. The old game was a wonder. It is simplistic but still quite playable to this day. I am not surprised that Violet decided to make a pack inspired by the original Hocus Pocus. To truly appreciate this pack, you must be farmiliar with what kind of game Hocus Pocus is/was. The lengthy readme is a required read in order to understand how this pack works. While Jazz and Hocus Pocus may have similar engines, there are some differences (which are outlined in the readme) that could prove troublesome. The first thing to remember about this pack is that you’ll have to be dedicated to play it. As strange as this sounds, it is true. The readme asks you not to use special attacks since the original Hocus Pocus games’ hero (Hocus) lacked these. There are many “fixes” to keep it as true as possible to the original game that may seem weird during play, but I’ve decided not to detract points for this. Most of the readme is a copy and paste job of the original readme (which is, surprisingly, full of questionable grammar and shoddy spelling) but is humerous and entertaining nonetheless. The readme is long and gives a good idea of the differences to expect (there are quite a few) and how to play the game. Simply put: you must read the readme or you will have no idea what to do during the game. I found that completely disabling the down button was helpful, so I could avoid the temptation of using it during play (all special moves, excluding double jump and copter which should not be used, involve the down button.) The first level in this pack is hocus101.j2l, “Time Tripping Level 1.”

TIME TRIPPING LEVEL 1 (hocus101.j2l)
The first level in the pack was a great start. It put you right into the middle of the action without giving any “training” (another great reason to read the readme!). The level consists of collecting coins to get out. A handy bar at the bottom tells you what the level’s “mission” of sorts is. There are a lot of hatters in the beginning of the level, but more than enough carrots to suffice. It was fairly easy at the beginning. A key was required to go on, which is a great puzzle element that brings back fond memories of many oldschool platformers like Hocus Pocus, and definitely adds to the overall feel of the level. After that, there are three bats (which I didn’t see and was hurt one heart by, but recovered with a carrot that fell from one of them) that are a bit hard to see but still well-placed. The cooridor then leads down to a lava pool with somewhat wide platforms over them. After smiting the hatters that walk on top of them, you can go on. Fairly easy so far. There are then some steps that lead up to another coin, more hatters, and one doggy-dog. Then more bats, another coin, and gems. It is very easy to notice that this level is literally chock-full of gems. It got to the point where my gem count no longer showed – which is pretty darn high. Of course, this is a true port of the original Hocus Pocus, so this makes sense. The level seems to end with a key, but you have to backtrack in order to go get the final coin. This adds some element of surprise and keeps this level more focused on strategy than on not being killed by enemies, and I must say I love it. The eyecandy in this level was flawless. The tileset may not be the most visually exciting or realistic tileset of all time, but this level certainally uses it to its best. Of course, it is a true port, so I’m not surprised.

TIME TRIPPING LEVEL 2 (hocus102.j2l)
Time Tripping Level 2 begins and immediately looks a lot harder. You start surrounded by enemies on every side. So maybe level 1 was a bit of a training level. This level is obviously much, much harder than the first. It has more enemies and many more oppertunities to fall into an assortment of spikes and other unpleasent sharp objects. In about the middle of the level, a wizard that I am having trouble not referring to as Fooruman unhelpfully snipes, “I hope you have found the secret treasure room containing the green gems. You should have found it by now.” I then decided to backtrack and look for the alleged gem room. Instead, I found a room with purple gems containing two gems, which cost me four of my five hearts to find. I’m glad there were two well-placed carrots near by, or I would have been toast (a lava pit that you have to jump accross will pretty much definitely cost you two lives, the other two were lost to hatters I thought I shot earlier.) This level is deliciously non-linear. You can backtrack, get certain coins before others but go back, and do similar unusual play styles without getting punished (beyond the consumption of time that could be spent doing something more productive, but what could be more productive than classic gaming?). In a large, coin-filled room I accidentally stumbled into the last coin and the level ended. That was too bad, because I was thuroughly enjoying exploring the level, which is a rare treat in single player levels.

TIME TRIPPING LEVEL 3 (hocus103.j2l)
Time Tripping Level 3 has a higher coin requirement – seven coins to be exact. I was wondering how Violet would accomplish the effect of blocks disappearing and being replaced by gems when being shot, but I wasn’t surprised that Violet used gem crates that fell when the blocks holding them up were shot. Another example of this pack using methods I wouldn’t have thought of. I was pretty much forced to fall into a Doggy Dog enemy by the sucker tube at one point in the level, which was sort of disappointing, but no pack is perfect. After a fairly long stretch of enemies and gems, there was a coin. The eyeballs in this stretch were very annoying, but challenging, being that they sneek up on you when you have your back turned. It requires some fast feet to turn around and shoot them before they damage you. After taking a while to get the switch combonation correct (it took me a while to realize that the switches actually did anything other than change the position where you were dumped out by a sucker tube originating from a potion), I was dumped into a lava pit (well, onto a platform above a lava pit) surrounded by Doggy-Dogs (yes, that’s their JCS name.) Beware the skull-looking sides of the platforms. These are not as solid as they appear; I feel right through them many times and accumulated 3 hearts worth of damage. After that, there were a series of switch puzzles and coins. The eyecandy in this area seemed less inspired than the rest of the pack’s, but was good nonetheless. Then a wizard with an old beard (67 years to be exact), and then a dead end. I wasn’t sure to do, so I decided to look around. Eventually, I found the passage that led to the final coin.

TIME TRIPPING LEVEL 4 (hocus104.j2l)
This level is actually one of the easier levels for several reason. The first being that there are plenty of carrots in this level. The second is that the level has many plasma shields, called green shields, to help you out. However, there is again a jump in the coin requirement. By this point, you must get nine coins to go on to the next level. It is also full of enemies, so you’d be advised to use the plasma shield wisely. However, I found one quite major bug. The sucker tube at coordinates 141,36 pushed me into the wall, forcing me to use jjnowall/jjfly to get myself unstuck, which was annoying and easily avoidable. This was probably just a bug not noticed in testing, but it can be a pain during play when you have to use the unfunctioning sucker tube to test to see if you have the right switch combonation. If this was fixed, it would be a lot better for the overall feel of the level. In its current state, it forces you to cheat in order to bypass it, something I really dislike doing. I may have been missing something (or already gotten the shield) but one of the wizards told me that there was a green shield when none was there, and I don’t think I had gotten it (I could easily be wrong, however.) Another bug in this level also revolved around a sucker tube to test the switches. In this case, the sucker tube was just one tile wide. Above it was an enemy (Doggy-Dog). While going through the tube, the enemy hurt me, and stopped me from moving so I had to walk in order to get out of the tube. I’m not sure whether this was an obstacle or a bug, but I don’t like it either way. It turned out that I actually had to kill these Doggy-Doggs before going on, and that they were supposed to be dead by that point, but it still is an easy mistake to make.

TIME TRIPPING LEVEL 5 (hocus105.j2l)
Other than a tileset change, there isn’t much new in level five. It still keeps the classic gameplay. However, I noticed some things in this level that probably aren’t direct conversions (fast fires for instance). This isn’t a huge deal, though. This level is hatter-infested, especially at the beginning. I noticed one funny bug that is common among spikes. When I walked into the side of them, nothing happened. No damage – nothing. There isn’t any way to repair this, but it still was a surprise (the spikes blend in with the background and I didn’t notice them until I walked right into the side of them and stopped moving.) The hatters in one area appeared to be trying to shoot themselves more than me, and I quickly cleared through them. Some exceedingly annoying ceiling spikes were hard to notice at first but were quite challenging to avoid. After getting past the small passage filled with spikes, I discovered I had forgotten the key – d’oh. It took some effort to find the key and get the final coin, and this was probably the hardest level of the pack – so far.

TIME TRIPPING LEVEL 6 (hocus106.j2l)
This level started off easily enough. The first two coins of the required nine were pretty close to the beginning, and the hatters were easily fended off using the plasma shield that was nicely provided at the beginning. Some trigger puzzle work was required, but that was pretty easy. The first bug I spotted was a hatter who had decided to walk under a platform that was shorter from the ground than he was, walking right through spikes. Hmm. Another annoyance was when I flipped a switch and about five Doggy-Dogs fell from the heavens right onto me. This damaged me, of course, and also was unavoidable. I dislike unavoidable damage.The rest of the level was pretty much a standard affair. This was the only time in the pack, excluding of course the bug with the sucker tube in level 4, where I got stuck, but this was due to my own stupidity. This wasn’t the best level in the entire pack, but I liked it. Some parts of the level had somewhat questionable eyecandy, and there was one error which I spotted that just looked a bit off. Still, there were no noticable tile errors that I could notice without specifically going through the level looking for them, which of course no one actually does when they aren’t reviewing this pack, so the one bug was excusable. The Doggy-Dogs, however, were way too sudden. Maybe if there was some sort of warning, they would have been more easy to defeat. Still, this is a good level. The final two coins took a while to find, and the end of the level dragged out a bit, but I still enjoyed it.

TIME TRIPPING LEVEL 7 (hocus107.j2l)
“DARN IT! DARN IT ALL!” When loading this level, Jazz Jackrabbit 2 crashed grandly with an illegal operation error. I’m not sure whether this was the level itself or just the general instability of my poor old Pentium II 450MHz-based machine, but this required me to restart the entire thing to retain my previous lives (Mrf.) I tried loading this in JCS to see if anything was wrong, and I could not find anything, so I tried starting the level up again. Thankfully, it worked this time. Sort of. I ran over to the right part of the cooridor at the beginning and ran right into what seemed like a box you see mimes in. While there was nothing apparently stopping me from leaving to the left, I somehow had managed to run through a solid invisible tile, or maybe it was a trap. Whatever it was, I had messed up and had to restart the whole thing yet again. “DARN IT! DARN IT ALL AGAIN!” Yet again, I restarted the entire thing and went to get the coin. Yet again, I fell into the same trap. I will spare you the random keysmashings this time, but I can tell you that there were a lot of them. Well, I finally figured out what was going on, though I can’t say that I was thrilled about it. If you run too far in the passage, apparently you get stuck at the end. I could not tell you why, but this is infuriating. The rest of the level was better, though this trick was not a one-time thing. There were a lot of puzzle elements in this level, and it definitely teaches patience. If you run too fast, you’re stuck and have to do everything over again, and agian, and agian. Mrf indeed. Be careful of this one, or it will quickly become your worst enemy. If a level can be your worst enemy, that is.

TIME TRIPPING LEVEL 8 (hocus108.j2l)
The eighth level of the nine in this pack has a lot of eights. The coin requirement has been lowered (surprise, surprise) to eight, but for a good reason. If you think this level looks easy, that’s because it is. Most of the coins are completely out in the open, only surrounded by a few enemies. The remaining coins are concealed within boxes that require the correct switch combonation to break. This level is sort of a “calm before the storm” if you will. The coins that require the switch puzzle to break are fairly hard to get out (there is a one-in-sixteen chance a given combonation will work) and this level takes a while to beat, but it is an excellent example of a level with great strategic elements, and my favorite so far. Like the level before it, TIME TRIPPING LEVEL 8 requires a large degree of patience in order to beat it. It will take a while to break each box, and after a fairly easy to rush through first part, some players may think that the entire level is just a rush, and these boxes are definitely not easy to rush through. After getting past the Doggy-Dog-covered platforms, you get the final coin and are off to the final level.

TIME TRIPPING LEVEL 9 (hocus109.j2l)
Ah, the final level. The grand finale of a great pack is perhaps the best part. Whether you believe that the journey is better than the destination or have been waiting through the entire pack just to get to the last level, you’ll enjoy this level thuroughly. Assuming you can stay alive for more than three seconds. This level redefines the term hard. The level consists of shooting monks (it appears as if the Citizens for a Better Country council is calling) in order to get coins while dodging a huge amount of traps, lava pits, enemies, and boomarangs from the Tuff Turtle boss which appear to be coming from absolutely nowhere. It is a huge challenge to collect the five coins in this level. If you mess up even once, you are pretty much guaranteed dead. Not only this, but you have to solve several switch puzzles during the level. So, if you aren’t lucky with the combonations and fast in testing them, you are also dead. There are about a hundered ways to die in this level, and very few to live. Be quick on your feet. Though the readme tells you not to ever run when using this pack, I can’t say that it is easy to follow that advice in this level. Follow the wizard’s directions, and avoid getting hurt at all costs. Don’t panic and don’t rush. It will only make it harder. Remember that there is not actually a time limit, though the many enemies and traps make it feel like the level will soon blow up in some sort of armageddon. And, most importantly of all: don’t cheat. It takes the fun out of the level. The real fun comes with the feeling of accomplishment that you get beating this exceedingly hard level (trust me – it can take several tries.) I will not give any more hints above that, but I wish you good luck. This one is a hard one, but a fun one.

CREDITS, YAY (hocus1end.j2l)
There isn’t much to say about a credits level. However, I really like the style the credits were done in. A system of sucker tubes takes you throughout a level that looks very much like it could have been screenshots right out of a normal game. It, of course, lists all the beta testers, the makers, and the original game’s information. I was hoping Violet would make episode two, but the last credit says that Violet is “not about to make episode 2, so don’t ask.” Thankfully, that word about is in there. Let’s hope that means he will do it eventually. There were a few bugs. Out of my two tests of this level, I was damaged once each test, once by an eyeball and another time by a doggy-dog, but this was unavoidable. Even the credits level was great. It’s that good.

NOTES
This is an exact conversion of the original Hocus Pocus (more or less exact, about as exact as it gets.) There are a few things required to make it so accurate that detracted from gameplay, but not significantly. Only one big glitch (the sucker tube one) was found by me, but such a non-linear and complex pack is bound to have a few glitches. I know someone will soon come in and say “HEY WAIT THIS WAS ORIGINALLY BY APOGEE VIOLET JUST STOLE IT SO I GIVE IT A 5.2” or something like that, but they are missing the point. This conversion must have taken a huge amount of work (I would say ten or more months) to accomplish, and there is no possible way to directly rip from it. While the levels may not be completely by Violet, this is the best conversion for Jazz 2 that I have ever seen, and is easily one of the greatest packs ever created. These levels will soon be legendary. An amazing work to say the least, and positively one of the best Jazz Jackrabbit 2 sessions I have had in my entire playing career. For this, I give the pack a 9.5 (up from my original rating of 9.2) and, of course, a huge download recommendation. Classic gaming fans will worship this level, and even if you think Hocus Pocus is something out of an infomercial (Call now and get a free blender!), you will absolutely love this level. The only annoyance other than the sucker glitch was the extra episode. My JJ2 crashes whenever I go to single player now (not this pack’s fault, it was another one that got me above the limit.) Just don’t install the .J2E file unless you are willing to remove another episode. This is an amazing pack. Download it now. You will not regret it. This is truly one of the best packs that Jazz Jackrabbit 2 has ever had. Bar none.

@Aiko: ALL TIME TOP 50 DOWNLOADS IN JAZZ2 HISTORY? I think that it’s easily in the top 20, if not in or near the top ten. ;P

@Violet: I told you the problem via MSN. For those who care, it revolves around how it is masked and only is a problem if you go into the sucker tube a certain way. To get out of it, you (unfortunately) have to use jjnowall and jjfly.

@No one in particular, but I enjoy using the at symbol: Rating raised to 9.7. Great replay. Even better the second time.

-Trafton[This review has been edited by Trafton AT][This review has been edited by Trafton AT]

I’ve never liked it when levelmakers call their own levels “a blast”, but (unfortunately) I have decided to never downrate it for that. You’re right, however, about the level being long. It’s a fairly long level for a single player level. Generally, when fairly new levelmakers make long levels, they end up as really tedious and not worth note. This is an example of this phenomenon, however I must say this level has some bright spots. Firstly, eyecandy isn’t bad at all. I couldn’t find many errors, rare for a first level, and there was enough eyecandy to keep me visually entertained. Nothing went beyond the call of duty, but what was there was sufficient. Secondly, this level is difficult. A lot of this comes from the enemy placement. Enemies are located in the most annoying places. Some are behind layer three, others are just generally hard to see. This in combonation with the heavy use of the rapier enemy, which goes through walls, makes it very easy to be accidentally hurt by an enemy even without being careless. There are few carrots and save points. The flow wasn’t the inner light to say the least. Many of the corridors were just one tile wide, making bumps into walls frequent. This level is an example of a good level for a new level maker. It may have some gameplay flaws, but the author demonstrates good knowledge of how Jazz 2 functions and I can tell that a lot of effort was put into this level. It may get tedious after a while, but if you want to play a simple-ish but challenging single player level, this is where it’s at. No download recommendation, but keep trying. I will give it a six point two. Not bad, especially for a first level.

It’s hard to get very excited over a tileset that is pretty much a complete rip of Castle 1 with a slight change of tint. The tileset theme fits the author’s name – Red. The entire tileset is pretty much now shaded blood red instead of Castle’s original earthy shades of brown. While some may appreciate this, I can’t say that the extra download lag is worth using this tileset. The file size is moderate, but it still isn’t worth it unless you really, really, really have the urge to make a red castle level. But, if you do, this tileset is perfect. It’s obvious there was little effort involved, and the outcome wasn’t very good, so I give it a 5.5 and no download recommendation.[This review has been edited by Trafton AT]

I can’t say that I like this tileset as much as some of the people here do, but it’s still a very good tileset. The ridiculously named “ET’s Planet 1 v2” features a high-tech landscape but is a bit on the smallish side. The metallicly shaded doors look superb and are great examples of textures at work, but the purple ground just doesn’t seem to fit very well. It’s drawn well, but it clashes in color with nearly everything else in this tileset, so it takes some tweaking in order to get levels to look good or how you want them to look. Still, it is pretty good ground. There are some neo-techno colored stuffs, and this tileset is chock full of whatchamadoozles that I am not sure are actually an item, but look good in metallic levels anyway. The green waterfall and grass is almost like that found in MeZmErIzE, but not nearly as well done. Still, they are again perfectly fine. The hills for the background are well-done, but not perfect. This tileset is an example of a good tileset that just isn’t extremely good in any area. If it had been worked on a little longer, it might have became a beloved classic. Still, it is worth an eight and a download recommendation. This is one planet I recommend you inhabit.

I have seen earlier versions of this tileset, and I can’t say that I loved their drawing style. However, with the official release version, I must say that the artwork has improved greatly. The tileset has a graveyard and cathedral theme. It features many Halloweenish tiles matched with some building and ground tiles so you can create a church (but a very evil and depressing one) surrounded by gravestones. Also included is a well-drawn and animated clock tower, some very spiffular sucker tubes (I have to say I liked the one in School v3 better though), numbers and letters in order to print out scary and disturbing messages, an opening and closing animated coffin for the Dracula on the Go, trees that look like they would fit well in Christopher Walken’s front yard, some very demonicly green and threatening hills, swirling background (possibly used for hypnosis?), statues, an organ-playing vampire (who knew wind-based instruments could be so scary?), and, of course, religiously-themed Halloween stuff. The general drawing style is asimilar to nearly everything CraccoBoy does. It is inspired by games like Final Fantasy but also has a pseudo-cartoony effect that makes it different than anyone else’s tileset. This is a very good example of this drawing style. Unfortunately, it seems that some tiles just do not fit. The statue tiles, for instance, look strongly as if they were not drawn by CraccoBoy, but that is forgivable, and is much more preferable to the blalant ripping in some of his earlier tilesets. Regardless of this, the tileset looked good in the demo level I created and was flexible in use. The mask, which has been an annoying problem in past CraccoBoy tilesets, is still imperfect, but has improved greatly. The timing for this tileset is not the greatest. After all, Halloween was almost a month ago, and the first thing you think of about Christmas or Thanksgiving probably isn’t demonic figures or similar Halloween-style tchotchkes that would fit well into a more seasonally appropriate level. However, if you think it will take you eleven months to make a level, by all means, this tileset will be perfect for you. In short, this tileset is definitely worth a download and is probably CraccoBoy’s best yet. I give it an 8.2 and a download recommendation. It may not be a good time to release it, but it certainally is a great tileset.

First of all, I must say that I hate it when people make zips unzip to a new subfolder. I spent about five whole minutes trying to think where the heck the tileset was going. And I have to say, it really wasn’t worth my five minutes unfortunately. The tileset features what looks a lot like a world made of ice. However, there are still “jaggies” left over from the original tileset stencil that could have been easily removed and should have been. Graphics quality is decent-ish, but still are obviously drawn in Microsoft Paint. It all ends up looking really cartoony, which is good in some tilesets, but definitely isn’t good enough in a frozen world tileset, where I expect good-looking and textured ice along with some nice-looking ground and snow. The ice in this is decidedly not textured. In fact, it doesn’t look as much as ice as it does like some kind of frozen yougert-like goo that you might see leaking out of a vat in a school cafeteria. This tileset suffers from not enough time spent on it, a bad drawing tool being used, and the jaggies left behind from the stencil. Simply removing the jaggies would significantly improve many of the ratings, including mine. The sucker tubes, which are animated (/me writhes), look cheesy and are more suited from a 1999 “OMG I MAKE LEVEL IT FLASHY HOTEL I AM COOL” level than a 2002 level that is actually good. Get Photoshop Elements, and I’m sure you could make some pretty good tilesets. However, this tileset is one that could have been and should have been. No download recommendation.

This isn’t really a new gametype technically, but more of a twist on battle (don’t let the fact it’s listed as “assault” fool you – it isn’t assault.) “Trio Space War” is, in fact, a battle level. However, the game is played within three arenas. The red arena, which seems to be the barren landscape of an alien planet with it’s many hills and slopes. The blue arena features a blue-colored planet which resembles the moon. This area has mostly even ground but leads to a hill which eventually ends up at a gap that leads into a small passage below. All three of this lands are connected be a series of warps, reperesented by “bulls-eye” rings that are the color of whatever planet is lead to. This warps, while an interesting idea, are both a good and bad thing. During play, players frequently found themselves falling into warps they never wanted to enter in the first place. You then had to find an appropriate warp to get back to the correct planet. By the time I was able to do that, opponents will probably be long gone. However, this also added to the fun. Play was chaotic. While some people may not like that, it does add to the level’s fun factor. Some games (especially one-on-ones, which this level is good for) end up being some strange hide-and-seek/tag hybrid where players are running around trying to find eachother. I have some gripes with the level’s eyecandy. In some places, it just looks “off”, especially on some of the floors. However, the craters look spifftacular, and most of the questionable eyecandy problems (except for the blue planet’s half complete-looking ground) were related to the crater use in the blue planet. The green planet had the fewest eyecandy bugs. Some passages were way too small, and could quickly become annoying, especially when you are being chased or following many people at once. If two players are going through the opposite way, there will be problems. There are also a few dead ends. For a level with this hide-and-seek-like gameplay, I was disappointed with the weapon placement. There was few weapons, and they seemed to be placed so very few bottlenecks other than near powerups were made. This level is too Jazz-friendly. Make it more Spaz-friendly or Jazz will have too large of an advantage. Other than that, it’s a pretty good back, though not the greatest. It’s a case of a good idea with execution that could have been better. Still worth a download for battle fans, though.

I can’t exactly say that this is worth uploading to J2O. It’s a fairly tedious and short storyline for levels that, well, honestly aren’t deserved of much of a storyline. The story features several trips to “down below” and a group called the “Spazzers” who must defeat Deaven Shell. This really shouldn’t have been uploaded, especially without permission from BlurredD. It’s not a very good story, but it’s a unique effort…I guess. No download recommendation for obvious reasons.[This review has been edited by Trafton AT]