Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Here’s a solid piece of spiffyness for you.

First off, I love the tileset you used. It looks like it was finger-painted, yet with lots of depth, which you took good advantage of.

Layer work is good. Nice background, and I like the foreground eye-candy at the lower levels.

Design is good too. You can run from one flag to the other without jumping, but the rest of the level is easy to get around in should you need to jump out of the fray (the lone full-health carrot at the top of the level makes this important).

Overall, this isn’t the most spectacular level you’ll ever see, but it really doesn’t have any problems that I can find. I didn’t even notice a mismatched tile (though I confess I didn’t go searching for one).

Thusly, being unspectacular yet well-designed and without any noticable flaws, I hereby decree this level the honorable rating of 9. Or thus says my rating system (9 is good and without noticable flaws…above falls into the extra-mile range).

~Buster

Ooo…fishies!

Another great looking tileset from Disguise.

Of course, it’s true that this isn’t going to be the most used set you’ll ever see, but in spite of comments claiming that it is next to impossible to use this set, the moment I saw it I thought “gee, this would be great for…” (no stealing my ideas ;) )

The background graphics are nice, and the other graphics fit together pretty well. Not very much eye-candy, really, but I can think of a couple of things which this set could be used for, and I’m sure any imaginitive person could do the same.

So, I’m gonna give this one an 8, just because it looks beautiful and it isn’t quite so useless as you might think.

~Buster

Good show lad. I too have seen a bunch of Marbela tilesets, but that one aside, this is a decent conversion.

~Buster

First off, I love Commander Keen. It is the best computer game(s) ever made (yes, it’s a little higher even than Jazz).

Second, I believe in rating submissions based upon what they are trying to acomplish, not how much work they took. This is simply an attempt to create a Keen tileset (something for which there is demand) and to do it by using Keen’s original graphics (also in demand).

Thus, I must rate it favorably, because you have managed to do just that.

However, I cannot rate it too favorably…

I don’t understand why this would be difficult to mask. Right now, everything is masked solid. This should make it almost impossible to use most of the tiles…or at the least, very difficult.

Frankly, I can already see how most of this could (and should) be masked…

So here’s what I’m going to do. I’ll give you a 7 just for being able to put all this together in a nice fashion, but I’ll think of it as a work-in-progress (if not yours, then I expect someone else will take it from here. Heck, I’ll do it myself if someone can get rip the graphics from this).

Anyways, this is a step in the right direction.

BTW, if you manage to get Keen 4-6 and Dreams, I’d be tempted to give you a 10. Dreams is my favorite :)

~Buster

I like it.

It looks kinda flat and sparce when you look at it in JCS, but don’t let that fool you. When you put the elements all together, you get a spiffy, artistic looking level.

Nice work Disguise.

~Buster

(now if only you’d release Just Another World with a blue sky instead of that weird green one, I’d love you forever…or maybe I’d buy you a pizza…)

You forgot to add the tileset for WS Battle 2.

You want it in one line? Here you go:

This pack is great. Download it.

And for those of you with longer attention spans, I shall delve a little deeper into this set, level by level…

First off, I’d like to note that the ammo in all of these levels is plentiful and well placed. That out of the way:

Pipe Dreams

One of my favorite levels in this pack, this level makes excellent use of Agama’s Sirius tileset. It flows nicely and the eye-candy is great. That, and I loved the music :)

Toxic Metal

My other favorite, Toxic Metal uses the Planet 2 tileset (a beautiful tileset, in it’s own special way ;) ). This level flows very nicely. And it also has a spiffy soundtrack.

Tubular Vortex

This level probably has one of the most unique uses of the Tube Electric tileset I’ve seen. It’s very artistic in it’s eye-candy, and the design is pretty good.

Scrap Metal

This level has the least eye-candy of all the levels, but that’s because the Wasteland tileset doesn’t have much eye-candy. It does make ample use of what is availible, but that means there’s a lot of pipes and such in the background. However, I consider tileset usage to be an artistic desision on the part of the level creator, and I dock no points for somewhat boring eye-candy when that’s all the tileset offers. Fortunitly, the design of this level is good, and makes good use of events and trigger crates. It also has a great, quarky techno soundtrack.

Radioactive Warfare

I didn’t like this one as much as the others, though the reason is more a matter of personal preferance than any real design issues. Tileset usage is good, music is okay. I’m just not really the grungy type, well, not most of the time :)

Evil Chemestry

This is the one level that I really just don’t care for. Tileset usage is good, and there are some interesting eye-candy elements (how did he do some of that?) but the level seemed confusing. It was hard sometimes to tell what was eye-candy and what was solid ground, partly because some elements were used across layers, and partly because a lot of the level had fake floors and walls. Actually, these elements are in most of these levels, but here they seemed used to excess, and getting around seemed (for me) an excersize in concentration, something that wouldn’t go over so well in a battle (imagine attempting to run from someone and hitting a wall where you thought an exit was…)

In spite of that one level, I have to give this pack a good rating just because the other levels are so nifty.

Which leaves me at a puzzling prospect…how many points to dock for one poor level? I’m still refining my ratings critera, so I’ll have to wing it. Without that level I would rate this at 9.5…so given the frustration (which I thought a little high) of the Evil Chemestry level, I’ll take another 1.5 points off, leaving 8, which is better than most packs out there.

~Buster

Before we get this review underway…

Does anyone here even use low detail? When JJ2 came out, I ran it on a 486 just fine (of course the lighting had to go, and the resolution was low).

Personally, I will never dock point from a level because it looks bad on low detail. You want to boost performance a lot? Play in 8 bit mode. Performance will go way up, and the changes will be much more subtle.

Anyways, that said…

The low points in these levels are very few. I saw a couple of mismatched tiles, but these were very few (actually, I only recall two, and I’m pretty sure it was just an oversight).

I also noted the useage of Pepper Spray and Electro Gun power-ups…normally, I would take a slight dock for that, because these do not power-up the weapon. I have decided to stop that however, because power-up or not, they DO give you a quick 25 ammo, and that’s worth something. Plus they change the Electro Gun to yellow, which looks cool :)

As for TNT, well, that might be worth .2 off. It’s not completely useless though. In most levels it is (there are acceptions) but then again, if you get the ol’ stuck in a wall bug, it’s possible to kill yourself with TNT, so that’s kinda handy.

As for the good points:

Overall tileset usage is good. The levels are all unique and playable. I especially like the Doomsday Darkdream and Grassy Hills level. The later backs good use of springs and some interesting sucker-tube events.

The choice of music is also very good. In the first place, Deadlock is an awesome tune. Secondly, I loved the Darkness piece, especially the voice-over.

Oh yeah, general level design…Well, I found it very easy to get about in these levels. Lots of paths, springs, sucker-tubes and warps make getting around a breeze, and there’s plenty of ammo where ever you go.

Superb work >CeIl<.

~Buster[This review has been edited by Buster_Snowbunny]

Pretty crazy glitch.

I look forward to seeing the level when it is done. It looks promising.

~Buster

Spiffy level.

Not many serious complaints to make here. The indoors area is great, the outdoor part is okay. Except for the brick section, which I found confusing.

Still, anyone who doesn’t mind a small confusing area should like this.

~Buster

Wild level.

Still, some parts of it seem a bit confusing. And the rain kinda makes it hard to see.

Also, it isn’t the easiest level in the world to get around in, though all areas are reachable one way or another.

Not bad.

~Buster

To be frank, the tileset needs more work.

Some of the tiles look okay. I like the crawling vine and the red girder (though the later could use some end pieces).

The rest are okay, but some don’t join together very well, and the graphical quality is very inconsistent.

Also, the starfield background is way to busy. Makes it hard to see.

One more point: Why does everyone always make blocky tilesets? You sould focus on adding some curved surfaces. Otherwise it all comes off looking like a Super Mario Bros. tileset (the first SMB that is).

Bottom line: I’ve seen worse, but this still needs some major work. Hang in there.

~Buster

Yay! More Christmas presents!

Okay, what we’ve got here are a couple of very nice battle levels.

The night level is very well done. Good design, nice weapons placement, blah blah great blah blah download blah.

The day level is quite…unique. Not bad unique though. It is I think of a lesser quality than the night level, but it has it’s merits.

Nice work.

~Buster

Wow, Colonius. Don’t see many levels with that tileset. Pity.

Well, getting down to business…

This is a very solid Battle level, easy to get around in (something my own levels are said to lack ;)). Spring usage doesn’t seem excessive at all. I would actually call it pretty conservative.

Weapon placement is good, and there’s plenty of them.

there are a few graphical glitches, but most of these are minor (I didn’t see them until my second run through the level, but then I was looking for them).

One of these glitches is a little less-than-minor however (to me at least).

(the following deal with the background layers):

At the lowest point in the level, you can see below the buildings in the back. Also, if you walk to the right of the level, you will scroll all but one of the buildings off screen.

The scrolling problem is easy to correct (select the “Tile Width” option in the Properties menu for that layer), but the seeing beneath the buildings one was a bit harder to fix (I took the liberty of checking this out in JCS).

The glitch is partially due to the way Colonius is made. The background buildings are next to impossible to edit. However, I managed to extend the length of the building by a few tiles, enough to remove this glitch. Actually, this traded one glitch for another. One of the tiles is now a little out of place. Still, this is a much more subtle problem, and throughout most of the level this can’t even be seen.

I’ll send you my “fixed” copy so you can take a look at it.

One other thing, which isn’t really a problem so much as it’s just puzzling, was the inclusion of a set of seeker blocks with no apparent purpose…

Anyways, otherwise this is a nice level. I can see having a few roast-fests here.

~Buster

Yay! Presents!

Very spiffy little puzzle here.

It’s a jig-saw puzzle with a very good Jazz Christmas pic, and…well, what can anyone screw up with that?

Okay, the music could have been a little better. I liked it alright, but it gets repetitive. But heck, who cares?

~Buster

Must be my night for good levels ;)

Great piece of work here. Tileset isn’t the best, but it’s okay. And, for the record, I liked the music ;)

Well, now I’m supposed to comment on the level itself…well, what can I say? It’s a very challenging “action-puzzle”. Lots of shooting, with an emphesis on skill-based puzzles.

The level does seem to suffer from the ol’ “too-big-to-save” bug that QoB brought to everyone’s attentions (my attempts at reloading a saved level crashed JJ2), but I can hardly blame Unknown Rabbit for that. Yes, that kinda makes it an Iron Man trek, but UR helps out a lot by adding some well placed carrots, save points, and even a few hidden one-ups.

Overall, this is a very fun level.

Download this and Wacky Spaz’s Carrot Walk at Night, and you’ve got yourself a fun-filled, if very challenging, evening. Or ten minutes, depending upon how good you are ;)

~Buster

I was apprehensive about this level after reading Violet’s short review, but luckily for me, I downloaded it anyway.

I was in for a treat.

Okay, let’s get the obligatory technical stuff out of the way. This level uses the Carrotus tileset (and accompanying music). While there isn’t any spectacular tileset usage here, it is used in a very solid and pleasent manner.

Now down to the good stuff…

This level is very original (most puzzle levels are). It can also be very frustrating. If you don’t have a lot of patience, you probably won’t like this at all (although I can attest from exprience that the level is very playable). It starts throwing skill and reflex based challenges at you right from the begining, so if that’s not your cup of tea, go someplace else.

The level is very well made, save for some very minor bugs, one of which is the aformentioned “stuck-in-the-wall” bug, but fortunitly the area where this is apt to occur is right at the begining, so it’s not like you’ve lost anything if you have to pull a “jjk”.

Final word? Let’s put it this way. If you’re hungry for something a little different, Wacky Spaz has cooked up just the dish for you.

Good job Wacky Spaz. I hope you make more puzzle levels.

~Buster

(As well as you explained the rating, it still seems a bit absurd. Removed. -Trafton)[This review has been edited by Trafton AT]

Different, yes.

But this tileset needs some major work done. A few blocks (some of which are very poorly done), some simple “hotel” eye-candy (beds, sinks, etc.), and a flat black background.

Frankly, I couldn’t recommend it even to someone who likes hotel levels. Put some more work into it.

~Buster

You did this in PAINT?! Incredible!

No that won’t affect my rating. But it is impressive :)

It has that ol’ “10 Crayon Box” look to it, but nevertheless, in spite of a general lack of detail, the whole set comes together pretty well.

BTW, some more ground texture really would help a lot. Prehapes even if you blended some other shades in with it, kinda to give it a more “dirt” and less “painted brown” look to it.

And the background does need a little work. No, I haven’t a clue how they make those things work, but then help has already been offered to you in this area.

Bottom line?

Solid tileset, shows potential.

~Buster

Well well well, what’s left to be said?

Verily, this is a super-niftular tileset.

Alright, now down to business…

Okay, it has problems. Allow me to introduce you to the standard tilesets…

This is probably the first tileset I’ve ever seen that is on par with the tilesets of JJ2. I can think of several that certainly come very close, but this one takes the cake. It is beautiful.

Okay, there are some visual problems, but again comparing it with the regular JJ2 tilesets, this is nothing we can’t overlook. You want perfection? You won’t find it in any tileset. But some come close, like this one.

As for problems and difficulty making levels with it…

Well, okay. Point taken. I rate a 9.5, not a 10.

Anyone try to make a level with Beach? How about the Lab set? Some of the JJ2 sets are very difficult to use, even frustrating. But somehow, those sets still maintain a following, and we press on.

This set isn’t perfect, but it is worth the trouble.

Well done Agama.

~Buster