Well, since I’ve played this pack several times, I feel that I am obligated to rate it. So, here I go.
The first level in this pack is one by the file name of candionbatl.j2l, entitled “Sweet Tooth.” The first thing I noticed with this level is that the flow of the level really needs work. While the layout (in JCS) is not bad at all, the author seemed to only use springs in areas where it was required. I tested it with Spaz, but I can’t imagine trying to play it with Jazz and having to uppercut whenever I wanted to get anywhere. The lack of springs damages an otherwise fairly good level. Weapon placement, contrary to navigation, is very good. There weren’t many gripes I could find. Powerups weren’t overused, but the bouncy powerup was in an area that was hard to get to with Spaz, and I could imagine almost impossible to enter with Jazz without taking up time that could be spent battling the opponent. The spoons in the level have one way applied to most of the spoon, but the part connected to the wall is as solid as a brick, which makes it hard to tell where you should jump and where you shouldn’t. This level features a lot of dead ends which subtract from the gameplay. Many corridors are small, making navigation often annoying. Eyecandy was good, but in some parts just looked off. The tileset served up O.K. but usually redundant eyecandy that could have been used better. The background looked like it would be better off in a low-quality Microsoft Powerpoint presentation than a level. It’s a level that suffers from small annoyances that build up, but still not a bad level.
The second level, desertobatl.j2l aka “Dune Battle” looked very good at first glance. The shimmering blue waterfalls were used well, and there were few tile errors in the dunes. Unlike in the previous level, it seems “Dune Battle” is often a little more friendly towards Jazz than it is towards Spaz. This is mainly because Spaz, when trying to get the seeker powerup, will often end up accidentally jumping through the bridge, or missing completely and falling down to an area where the player must go around the entire level in order to get another try. Jazz, on the other hand, can easily get it using helicopter ears. The tileset was used in an interesting way that I haven’t really seen before, but there are areas where this was annoying. The level was severely knocked by the bottom of it. Most of the level’s bottom is covered so you can not see it while you are down there. This tends to turn into a mad scuttle jumping trying to get out of this area. Also, there are a few platforms that are actually in the background that I often tried to jump onto. They look no different from all the other platforms, and this can be really confusing. Another eyecandy gripe would be the various spikes around the level. When I first saw them, I thought to myself “oh no. Please tell me he didn’t use the hurt event.” Fortunately, the author didn’t make the classic mistake of trying to use Hurt in a multiplayer level. However, menacing spikes that you can just walk through is a bit abnormal. It would be a good idea just to remove them entirely. Spring use was much better in this level, and there were fewer dead ends than the last one. However, weapon placement was not as good. The seeker powerup is a big advantage in this level. If you get it, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get a nice amount of kills before someone can kill you. The rest of the level features some clumped together ammo, a lot of it pepper spray (which is rarely used since most people actually favor the blaster above the far-reaching but hard-to-see and often annoying to aim pepper spray.) Eyecandy was otherwise good (including the only above average background in this entire pack), and navigation was better than the other level (except for the layer-covered bottom). This is still probably my least favorite level in the pack, but not bad.
The final level, nippiusbatl.j2l aka Frostbattle, which uses Violet CLM’s excellent Nippius conversion (Violet actually made all the conversions in this pack I believe), was probably my favorite level in the entire pack. Navigation was very, very good. I never had to backtrack, except to get into a hole with a powerup. There are fire, ice, and bouncy powerups in the level (one each.) Ice, while it certainally fits the tileset, is pretty much as useful in multiplayer as a stick is when you are about to be eaten by a pack of hungry leapords. Eyecandy was pretty much tedious and boring. The background, again, looks like a PowerPoint background (though it is the original background from the Jazz 1 level). A lot of the level features pretty much no eyecandy. Some parts may have some interesting items in it, but most of it consists of the ultra-boring ground tiles with little eyecandy to be seen. It may not be pretty, but this level certainally has great eyecandy, and is worth the download for that alone. My favorite level in this pack, I would say.
Rating the pack is hard. The pack suffers from many small annoyances, which brings it’s score down quite a bit. Still, this pack is definitely worth a download, especially if you are a battle fan or Jazz Jackrabbit 1 buff. It may have some bugs, but everyone can find at least one level they like in this pack, since the style they were made with differs in many ways. It’s a great pack if you are a battle fan, but otherwise you may not love this download. I’ll give it a download recommendation and a 7.1, rounded down to a pretty good score of 7. Not a bad effort at all. Keep up the good work. You have a lot of potential, Blackraptor.
-Trafton
Battle, by 
