Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Loving the graphical style.

EDIT: Lowered the rating on a retrospective re-evaluation as the tileset has almost no flexibility at all despite having a large number of tiles on offer.

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While this set lacks any versatility, the grainy graphical style works out well, does not look ugly at all, and fits the cartoonish theme of JJ2 quite well. The mountains especially looked impressive. People probably won’t use this though, because there is very little that can be done with this set that the example level din’t do already.

A bunch of poorly made, slapped together tilesets with little to no usability (Right Red Turn On is a just bunch of coloured lines!), gaping flaws that show lack of testing (the textured background in Green doesn’t work), and bad design choices (why couldn’t you take the whole Carrotus and make it that palette instead of removing the background?)

Quite a large battle level that is well suited for public servers and events. It’s solid all round, however it’s kinda generic and has aside from the size has nothing special about it, so it doesn’t quite deserve an 8 but it’s still pretty damn good.

An okay pack, however quite overrated. The general quality is fairly good but these levels are nothing too special and QQ’s central tube is infamous for it’s consistant annoyance to players. Don’t get me wrong, this is a decent level pack but is just lightweight and doesn’t really have anything that makes it stand out amongst other packs.

Really cool, a bit too gimmicky and kinda wack but still cool.

Prupel jaz sez:

LEVEL IS GUD AND STRONG

..Need I say more?

Haha, nice joke.

n/c

This is one of those levels which due to it’s horrendously low quality it has a legendary status in the community in terms of bad quality levels. Although it was probably not intended to be made as so, this was the level that started the idea and trend of “joke levels”.

Firstly, let’s look at the level. You get barely any time to look at it as it’s all over in a few seconds. What you do get are a flash of about 100 blue gems, a black background that as the infamous “cloning” effect in SP which occurs when there are no tiles in the background layers, a few random ground tiles, some random lizards, and an exit. Yeah, that’s it. It’s kinda amusing how all the reviews written at the time of release take this level seriously and find it as an offense to the JCS scene. While I’m not saying they’re wrong, nowadays if this was uploaded it would not be taken seriously and would provide some lols, as this level was the one that unintentionally gave the idea of creating a deliberately bad level as a “joke”.

Although I expect most of you have downloaded this already, if you haven’t I suggest so as you’ll get a few lols out of it.

[Sorry to break your theory, but this level IS a joke level in itself. ~cooba]

Top marks for the eyecandy and theme. This level feels very metallic, using Desolation in a unique way to create a great atomsphere. I love the “bottomless” pits. The layout was nothing too intuitive but still good. Flow was decent. The ammo was very sparce though which is a big pain considering that this level seems to be suited to large games.

Pretty much the same issues as the previous pack. This one is a little better, but not by a whole lot.

Perfect example of how a pack of a few good levels is so much more enjoyable than a pack with several bad ones.

A random mess of poor, linear level design, complete lack of replayability, very little effort spent in making the levels look pleasing, all topped up with a weak storyline.

Good theme, also nice to see someone using this palette of the tileset. Not too keen on the layout though, from the looks of things it seems a bit red biased due to being so much easier to defend than the blue base, and tunnely layouts like this are a bit cliché, however it was fairly fun to play despite being a bit confusing at first. D/R.

(Review part of a review exchange. Yes, this review is very late, I apologise.)

Dubbed Marine is the latest effort by arising level creator Crimiclown, who continues to improve, which is shown clearly in this level. This uses the steadily becoming overused WTF Borealis, although this level seemed to be a breath of fresh air in the looks department. The theme is a clever idea and is well executed, instead of the usual “factory” approach with the eyecandy made with this set, Crimi used the tileset in a more clustered way that gives the feeling of something more organic and lifelike; rather than something really neat and organised; yet it still retains the feeling of something man made, however you still get a feeling of decay in the environment as many things begin to lose their shine; like with the brown rotting areas in the walls and the falling ice flows. Combined with the music, you get a very ambient level which stays true to the idea of a lost submarine in every aspect. Bravo Crimi, top marks in this area. =)

Speaking of clustered, this stays true in the gameplay too. The whole level is tightly packed, which although is part of what makes the theme so great, it sacrifices gameplay a bit as with anything with more than 4 players will be horribly claustrophobic, trust me. A bit of a shame really, as the layout structure seems better suited to that of larger games, which unfortunately will get rather messy since there is little room to dodge bullets. However, it’s still a very solid level with an intuitive layout and design, so if you decide to play this level (which I highly suggest), play in 2vs2s.

Moving on to placement and layout design. This is a symmectrical level; although a popular layout type in CTFs today this one felt different from a lot of generic CTFs I see being made today, despite having a seemingly standard design. The carrot situation is fairly normal, a Full NRG in the middle and a +1 in each of the upper corners. Nothing overly creative, but no real complaints so no problem here. The Power up placement was pretty interesting here. This level has 3 of them; 2 Bouncer and 1 RF. The RF PU is in the bottom middle, underwater which requires gun 9 to get at. I’d have much rather it be Toaster though, as it’s quite hard to really run around and use RF to it’s full potential here due to the cramped spaces which will cause you to accidentally bounce of walls with it a lot unless you don’t meaninglessly spam it. Still, does provide a few good uses such as chasing people trying to get the +1s down the long passages. However, it is the Bouncer PU placement I find the most creative. It is placed almost right next to the bases, which could be considered a bad thing as it means base campers will have a consistant source of ammunition, but it works here and saves the pain of running far out of the base desperately searching for a necessary power up, and makes it more challenging to be RTS here. The water was a really important gameplay aspect here as it prevents movement between between the bases from being a few seconds which would be anarchaic. It is possible to go around the water, although the route for doing this is a bit longer so this balances it out. Everything else is solid enough, no real huge design flaws except it should probably be made a little bigger so it can be played better in 3vs3s.

In conclusion, a very solid CTF definately worth your time, I highly recommend downloading it and having a few games in it. It offers a lot of potential fun, and really shows what Crimi is capable of, I see a bright future for him in level making.

The blocks are pretty generic and plain. Which comes to my main about the tileset: the general lack of detail. All the tiles are too basic and lacking in versatility to create anything with it, nearly all the basic requirements of a tileset are not here, not even slopes. Also, the palette is messed up. I’d use a better program next time.

Simple, fun, exciting, this is a very enjoyable level for a wide range of players (except very large games as they can be a bit chaotic) and one of the best FR levels out there.