Few ppl have attempted making instagib only packs, and even fewer have done street-fighting packs, so Candy Wars could be a breeze of fresh air for everyone swamped with CTF and Battle.
INSTAGIB LVLS
Altough the idea of making an instagib and street-fighting lvl pack is good and original, not a lot of effort has been put into these lvls, mainly because they are so small so minimal effort is needed. Street-fighting games would take hours if the lvls were too big. Ppl would just run away because special-attacks are slower than weapons so I’m currently only talking about the instagib lvls here.
Instagib, for those that don’t know, are basically one-hit-one-kill games. It doesn’t matter what hits your opponent, he dies on the first hit (except if you’re using ice). For instagib to be fun, lvls shouldn’t be as small as you have made them. I think instagib should be decided by whoever is the best player, not by the one who has the fastest trigger finger. The lvls are so small that you get many kills just by blasting away everywhere without taking heed of anything. This is just my opinion. Your idea of small instagib lvls may be valid too but since they’re all small, you could have put in some variations (like some big, some small).
The eyecandy is great, but not too clustered around. Most, if not all, eyecandy tiles in the tilesets are used, and all lvls look really nice. Since the lvls are so small you don’t want lots of tiles to get into your sight, because the moment you get confused, you die and lvls in Candy Wars are good-looking, but clean.
Gameplay is similiar to most good battle/CTF lvls. No dead-ends, well placed springs and good platforms, which means that you can take advantage of all your weapons, depending on where you are in the lvl. I like the sucker-tubes because you are less easy to kill inside them, which gives valuable breathing space in instagib games. Of course someone could be standing at the end of one tube and kill you as you come out, but I’ve never heard of 1on1 instagib duels so camping is not much of a problem. The few complaints I have are the small size, but I’ve already talked about that, and the fact that some lvls have big empty spaces, and since this is instagib, RFs, bouncers and seekers rule supreme in those lvls. You never see your opponent, they die before you arrive and there’s nothing they can do, which is frustrating for them, as well as for you, when they do the same thing.
Weapons placement is probably as good as it can get. You won’t have much use of the food since the average life-expectancy of a rabbit in instagib games is 15 seconds but the food is nice eyecandy. :)
Overall, the instagib section of the lvl pack is worth hosting, just don’t expect to survive for long in any of those lvls, however good you are…
STREET-FIGHTING LVLS
Some of these lvls have no carrots, and some do, so I guess that they are not designed for instagib, in which case it’s gonna be hard to get any kills at all in the lvls where you do have carrots.
At first I didn’t understand the street-fighting game type, but after seeing your lvls, I’ve noticed that there are a lot of food in them, to get Sugar Rush, so I assume that the main thing you’re trying to do is to eat 100 food and then touch as many ppl as possible. Sugar Rush lasts only 20 seconds, so the small size of the lvls help a lot.
The eyecandy for the street-fighting lvls look even better than the instagib ones. I especially like The Leprechaun Forest. It reminds me of Rainy Rain Forest and the Waterfall, since all 3 lvls have, well, waterfalls in them. There are a lot of falling food and carrots in this lvl, which is very similiar to The Waterfall, a lvl in my battle pack, but it was designed to be an instagib lvl too (Bobby joined my server while I was hosting this…he roasted everything in sight :P).
Weapons placement is non-existent, but I can talk about food placement, hehe. Food? Well, erm, I never thought I would review a lvl’s food placement, but as far as I can tell, it works. As long as you stay alive, you can get at least one Sugar Rush per game.
Gameplay is very Spaz-biased. There is a morph in each lvl, for Jazzers to become Spazzers and I don’t like that at all. :( Just because Spaz has side-kick. Upper-cut has its uses too, but not in this lvl, so I think it would be a good idea to make it more Jazz friendly (like adding sucker-tubes with pauses so, if Jazz is quick enough, he can upper-cut ppl stuck inside sucker-tubes! Or, by adding places that go inside the ground, like a trap, so Jazz can upper-cut ppl when they try to butt-stomp him. I don’t think this will work without Jazz getting hurt too, especially in laggy games but I really don’t like it when lvls are so biased towards one character. The good thing is that TSF players will be able to use Lori in these lvls since she can cover vast distances using helicopter ears AND fight like Spaz. :)
The street-fighting lvls, though Spaz-biased, are fun and original lvls to play in, and ppl who have them should definitely host them many, many times.
SUMMARY
Before I come to a conclusion, I want to add that you should tell ppl that they need Overlord’s Controller, or somekind of instagib program to play the instagib lvls. Give them the URLs, and of course, credit to Overlord for adding such a brilliant game type to JJ2.
Well, there are a lot of things that could be improved in these lvls, but there are even more things that should be copied by other Jazzers. Great lvl pack but watch out for anyone above you in ALL instagib lvls ;). Download recommendation for everyone. MUST DOWNLOAD for instagib/street-fighting fans.
EDIT: Yay! I got the longest review![This review has been edited by White Rabbit twice]