Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

After playing these levels for a longer while, I’ve realized that they need a little time to get used into. I noticed that I underrated this pack a bit, since lots of effort was put into this pack and the eyecandy is far above the average, except for a few levels. Still there are some levels that could have used some better design etc. But GJ Faw!

I’m not sure exactly how to rate packs as a whole compared to single levels, so I’ll rate this based on which levels would actually be played. In other words, I would rate highly if one level would be played often, and if I find it fun to play in.

Fawful made some awfully big levels in this pack with awfully complex concepts. There’s definitely a lot of vigor put into some of these levels. If there ever was a need for the exclamation mark “!” this pack certainly deserves it. However, how was that vigor harnessed?

There’s certainly a difference between throwing darts at a dart board and throwing spears at it: Spears will likely destroy the dart board. Overkill is overkill, and I never enjoy playing in epically big or complex levels, simply because it’s harder to roast other players, and it’s often how easy it is to roast that makes jj2 fun. Of course there are exceptions, and many ways to design layouts that allow for them to be slow or fast paced despite size.

I like to compare levels, and I don’t care what anyone thinks of it: Myopia and Starlit Summit are somewhat similar, but there are also differences. Starlit Summit has a well thought out design imo. After playing Starlit Summit a few times in jdc events, it was quite enjoyable, but most players would agree it’s not suitable for smaller games. Some players thought it was still too big. In some games I recall it was extremely hard to score points, and they would end at 3. While being slightly horizontally smaller, Myopia is vertically bigger, has 3 full nrgs (Summit has 4 separate +1s and 1 full nrg), fly carrots and the layout is more open and spread out than Summit. If Summit is barely playable in jdc events, why the heck would I want to play Myopia in one? – Myopia might be OK in jdc events, but I don’t see it becoming an ideal level for them. In fact, some games in Divide and Conquer have been pretty slow paced as well. That aside, the music is nice, and in my opinion faw’s best track so far. By the way, Myopia is blurred vision; the effect presented in the bg is not totally consistent with the concept, but whatever.

Moving on to Downtown Maze: This probably has the weirdest CTF layout I have ever seen. I am pretty sure this level isn’t very balanced. I am definitely not fond of the layout organization. I’m not really sure what else to say about this, but I definitely don’t want to play here.

Neglected future is a level I did get a chance to play, and it was decent, but the layout could be better if it was simpler. For example, there were times I wanted to go straight up to blue base from the blue spring under it, but I was delayed by a green spring. Also, if you use the same blue spring to go towards the upper platform at the right, you’re required to use another green spring on the platform below it, but it doesn’t bring you high enough as jazz (but spaz can double jump). Jazz and Spaz can, however, make it to that platform fast with the aid of the suckertubes, this is a very weird concept though o.O. Another questionable spring placement is at the far right side, where there’s a ‘hole’ by a red spring, and you can camp there or something, but I only want to go straight up. There’s a green spring that can only let you reach the red base area, but reaching the other area not far above requires a bit more effort. I’m not sure if this level is that balanced, but I didn’t notice any balance issues while playing here.

Technoligized Sonicwaves is probably the most well rounded and playable level in the pack. My favorite ec aspect is how the solid tubes and suckertubes are used, just that little detail impressed me. I recall playing at least one game here, and it played solidly.

Klassieker for the Sn00zE has another non-symmetrical layout that is also very weird. I’m not sure how balanced the level is, but the layout is just so wacked out I can’t imagine it is.

Electric Factory has a somewhat symmetrical layout with bases at opposite diagonal corners of the level. No…just no. Of course, faw does not want me to rate this level in the pack? – Beats me.

Hard cheese is quite a solid/standard ctf level with at least one nice tactic I’ve noticed, and this is probably one of the best levels in the pack. However, playing this level really does feel cheesy thanks to the tileset.

Now onto the battle levels.

Pleased with Presents features a concept where players can only fall into pits if they are frozen, this is a very nice idea on how to deal with pits. Playing here a bit I can say it plays decently, even if the layout organization could yet again be better.

Knight FurnFace is the most annoying level I have ever seen. I have always liked wacky, silly or abstract levels as they fit pretty well with jj2, when I made that statement I wasn’t thinking of refined versions of zappo levels. The overall look is amazing, but technically it might as well be crap. Just like those abstract paintings that look like something a child made. The layout organization is nice, and I can see the big idea here. The problem with this level is the execution. Perhaps a different tileset or a different use, and this level could be one of, if not the best looking level I’ve seen so far. So I suggest redoing this level, it potentially has the ‘wow’ factor.

Favorite Park is not my favorite park unfortunately. It’s nice that I can use toaster underwater, and it’s also nice that I can walk and run underwater. So is that even water, and if it is water, why is it there in the first place? – Anyway, this seems like a solid battle level, and it can make for a few fun games every now and then.

8th heaven is a tower level. I mean, it’s a tower level in the sense that there are simply 3 towers, really, just 3 basic towers. The level is quite big, so I don’t see myself wanting to play here often.

Radioactive seems like it could be a decent battle level, but it’s quite…empty. Really, this level is kind of boring.

Moving on there’s a dom and an fr level.

I have already complained about the eyecandy in Hideout Center. Also, this level is a lot more complex than a normal fr level. So I’m really unsure about this.

I had got a chance to play Alien Heart in a jdc event once. While it played decent, there were some annoying things like camping at the seeker pu and +1. I’m serious a +1 and a seeker pu are TOGETHER.

So..some decent levels, and some questionable ones. In my opinion, Technoligized Sonicwaves is the best level in this pack, and the main reason to download Planetary.

first i was considering higher rating but thanks to some things what author has said about me in past and recently i settled with a 8.

EDIT: raising the rating. dont ask

Well, well… this pack right here is definitely something of a small gem.

It goes without saying that you’re probably downloading this pack just for a few levels out of all fourteen. It also goes without saying that most of these have gone wrong in a way or another, either by being full of superficial gimmicks, by an erroneous layout, or excessive eyecandy (or a combination of some of these).

But what’s not obvious is that every single level here had potential to be very good. Some of the levels definitely have their visual moments – Myopia’s stone-and-nature parts, for example, I really dunno why weren’t they used as a common motif. Downtown Maze has this real tranquil, dreamy feel that’s uncommon. Those levels that aren’t outstanding are still good and fresh looking. And unfortunately, some levels cross the fine line between “a lot of eyecandy” and “complete inconsistent mess”. For example, Pleased with Presents had a really cool 70’s disco theme, until it became a chaos of christmas toys with a gay rayman rap track. And I’m not even going to beat the dead horse that FurnFace is…

One thing you’ll definitely notice is that Faw has a soft spot for gimmicks. Almost every level will have some, and almost every one will misuse them. This pack will attack you with fly carrots, freeze enemies, cheshire cats, pinball pads, walls which seekers go through, etc. It’s almost as if Faw tried really hard to make each level unique and original. In case of which, it’s probably slightly ironic that the best (in my opinion) levels from the pack are those which didn’t try too hard to be original. This includes nearly all the CTF’s and hardly any of the battles…

In two levels you can even hear FawFul’s musical skills backing up the themes, this aspect should be probably expanded in the future. It’s really too bad that this pack wasn’t as polished and refined as it could have been – there’s a ocean full of potential here.

Think positive!

WELTRUSTEN!! HAHA IK WIN!

EDIT: j/k, decent pack with some good levels like Hard Cheese and Neglected Future is decent too. The battles are not bad either, but overall the levels are way too big (a few exceptions) and have some strange concepts. It’s good to try it, but not always very well executed.

Not a bad pack, but I agree that quality is more important than quantity. Most of these levels are 7.5-7.8 quality, the best being Hard Cheese which I’d give an 8. Most of these levels are rather gimmicky and confusing, and might be a bit difficult to play in. This pack has it’s moments, but only a certain amount of it is fun to play.

grmbl

what is that supposed to mean louis? ->

what i mean is that louis is randomly spamming around non-sense without providing arguments and help. i want to thank cooba for his extremely helpful review. he seems to understand how i mocked things up.

Quality over quantity :P

Whoa! I played most of those levels and all I can say is: GOOD JOB!

Well,I betatested it with FawFul and he did a GREAT job!

EYECANDY

That was the one thing I was realy impressed with because i was amazed at it!

TILESETS

non I have ever seen!
~Translation:I LOVE them!

MUSIC

same as tilesets!

ORIGINALITY

Brand-spankin new!!!

BG’s

Same as the tilesets and music.

DR?

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OVERALL

10.0!!!!!!

Well I hope this proves to everyone that I can do good reviews because i have changed.

very very very good

[Review changed to quick review. – cooba]

Very impressive, I enjoyed this very much. Sample choice is nice, and I love what you did with a lot of the parts. Would’ve sounded AWESOME if you added like a distortion effect in parts of the song to the oldschool JJ1 drumline. But awesome. I really loved the intro the most, too. Great first impression, comes off strong.

gj fawful! i really liked the song!

This music is very good. It’s not just a remix with a few things added, but it has lots of channels and the ARE YOU READY is pretty neat. It’s not too boem boem which is good because most of the remixes I’ve heard were boem boem. So I give this an 8.7. :M

Sean Paul?!
Anyway, I listened to this song and my first thought was “Wow. Holy cow, wow.” And I mean it too—This is the best (and I believe the only) remix of Scraparap I have yet heard. It is basically an electronic/technological remix of Scraparap, with many of the old instruments and some new ones too.
Some nice rhythms going there, though I was quite sad to not hear the awesome string part for the orig song—That really defined Scrappy, although the drums do too. The basic lines are tweaked just enough to give you a good feel, and it came out pretty darn well. I’d have to say a 7.6 and a definite DL rec.

I’d like to do a collab song with you sometime. Send me a line when you are available to.
===================================
Your friendly neighborhood .it artist,
PT32

Darn, I was misslead into thinking that this was going to be a scraparap remix of Sean Paul (which by the way somebody should so do). I wasn’t dissapointed with what I heard, however…

This supposed scraparap remix is not like many of the other remixes on this site. It is almost a complete composition with just a few elements of scraparap remaining (like the drums and parts of the melody), instead of your standard Jazz 1 remix which will just take parts of the song, change the samples and re-arange a few parts. More importantly, everything sounds in tune and the samples go very well with each other, and I love the different phrases of the song.

My only complaints are that something needs to be done with the ending (it feels a bit incomplete) and the structure is a bit hard to recognise sometimes and it is a bit repetitive.

FINAL RATING: 8.0
DOWNLOAD?: I think the rating says it all. This song would go great with somekind of poisonous android toxic ice level.

EDIT: Repetitiveness isn’t really a huge problem, but in my opinion, there are just a couple of sections like at around 0:30 that repeat a bit too often (also at 3:00 to 3:20 and again towards the end). This was really just a minor poke.

As plunK says
yea its very cool music and yea Techno No Respect :p
This not slow I like this very much…
uhm… and FawFul Good Job :]

actually.. if you ask me if it’s necessary then i say yes of course. i like feedback. and i want to know if it made differences. i mean.. did it annoy you the first moment, is it fixed. could it still be better. etc.

so necessary? i wouldn’t call it like that. but i would really appreciate if you do.

Notice: This review applies to v1 of the song. v2 is nowhere to be found, it seems, as the version uploaded here is still the original, unmodified music file…

==================Simple Review==================
Base Score: 5/10
(Edit: When I say “Base Score”, I mean that ALL files I review start out with 5 out of 10 points. In this, some files can get average scores by having no positive or negative points, or an equal amount of both.)

Point Bonuses: +3
[+2] Strong start, pretty good body, decent finish!
[+1] Reminds me of the “Enigma” table from Epic Pinball as well as other classic Epic games such as Unreal. (Not so much Tyrian, though.)
[+0] Doesn’t suck! :D

Point Deductions: -1
[-1] Slightly repetitive…
[-0] Doesn’t quite loop, but it’s nothing worth getting in a huff over.

Final Score: 7/10

=================Extended Review=================
Introduction:
Serious remix is serious. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is a serious remix of Episode 3, World 2: “Scraparap”.

Song Analysis:
The song is a very well-constructed remix of Scraparap’s theme, as I’ve said. The artist really thought outside the box on this one, not limiting himself to the simple, repetitive tune we all remember. Instead, he expanded upon it, indeed creating an entirely new experience while keeping just enough of the old tune recognizable.

Sample Analysis:
Not much to say about the samples other than they’re crystal clear and mix very well together.

Final Analysis:
Just when I was getting bored of the bippy-bip-bop-etc.-etc., it cuts out at 1:53 and goes into a kind of quiet melody for a while. I really liked that. And honestly, I like the song itself! Quite a bit! I think anyone who liked the original Scraparap tune is going to be pleasantly surprised by this remix.
========================================================
Your friendly neighborhood S3M/MIDI artist, Joseph “Doc Lithius” Collins

Very nice, very catchy i like this alot. Keep up the good work