nlm01.j2l | Shockwave Strategy | 9.35 kB | 27 Apr 2005 |
nlm02.j2l | Cave Connection | 11.08 kB | 27 Apr 2005 |
nlm03.j2l | God's Garden | 6.23 kB | 27 Apr 2005 |
ETs Planet1 v3.j2t | ETs Planet1 v3 | 149.17 kB | 11 Nov 2001 |
SwampsD.j2t | Swamps Day | 196.30 kB | 11 Nov 2001 |
nlm02.mod | Cavern | 127.82 kB | 13 Jul 2000 |
Hello. Behold, our first release on J2O! Featuring three Jazz2 CTF levels. Enjoy the alliteration.
Shockwave Strategy (nlm01.j2l)
Tileset: Tube Electric Night, by Epic
Music file: nlm01, by Fritt
A tactical level using a new system to capture the flag, making it almost impossible to defend base. The amount of coins the attacker has, will determine where he or she will end up after taking the flag. Five different power-ups are at your disposal to enable so-called “power gaming”.
Cave Connection (nlm02.j2l)
Tileset: ETs Planet1 v3, by ET
Music file: nlm02, by Melf
A level divided in four big caves, bases or areas (whatever you want to call them) and a little one in the middle. The two tubes with two 1h carrots in each both lead to the central area, turning this into a very dangerous zone. Both flag bases have a box below them (complete with cannons and small openings), which you can warp to from the other base. That way, you can “counter-defend” or assist your teammate with the attacking. The idea was born while playing a game called “dodgeball” in PE, where you get to backstab your enemies in a similiar way.
God’s Garden (nlm03.j2l)
Tileset: Swamps of The Sleeping Jaguar, by Agama
Music file: nlm03, by ZaphoD
One of us has started on this level a very long time ago, but never got far. We picked up the level and finished it. You can still see traces of the original version; the trees at the edges of the level with the suckers remained intact. God’s Garden is more like a standard CTF level than the other two levels, although it should still be original enough.
I don’t normally review, but I got a chance to play this so here it goes.
Shockwave Sanctuary: 6
This level bothers me for a few reasons. The main one being the so called “new system to capture the flag”. That system not only makes the bases nearly impossible to defend, it is also tedious to go through and has a confusing coin system to top it all off. I feel this detracts from gameplay overall.
I think the design of this level is pretty average. It doesn’t really have anything unique about it (other than the weird system) and is alltogether unmemoriable.
Eyecandy is ok. I’ve seen better things done with this tileset, but there is only so much you can do with an official set that hasn’t been done before. Still, the level pretty much looks like countless other tubelectric levels.
I don’t like how this level flows. There are weird “turret” things near the base which shouldn’t be there for example.
Finally, one thing in particular seems to catch my intrest about this level. The tubes around the 1h carrot near the bottom are arranged into what seems to be a contorted swastika, with the carrot in the middle. What this means, I don’t know.
Cave Connection: 7
This level is a bit better than the other two. The overall layout is a bit more unique, with the level sectored off into 4 distinct areas. Two of the areas are out of the way from the main path from base to base, but those areas contain all the goodies. Carrots can only be obtained by going through tubes, and both tubes lead players to the same area.
This isn’t a bad idea, but the way it is presented is bad. First of all, each tube has a pair of 1h carrots. Since a player has to pass over both, this can lead to some weird situations of there only being one carrot sometimes. 4 carrots is also a lot, and can slow down gameplay. I personally don’t see the point of this, and think full nrg carrots would have been a better choice.
The bottom tube is also painfully hard to access, and is probably near impossible to get into with jazz. I don’t mind bias towards one character, but this is just bad. Aside from that one tube problem and a few oddly placed warps, the flow seems ok though.
This level has average eyecandy, like the other ones in this pack. There are a few tile bugs here and there, and a lot of places it could be better, but not bad overall.
God’s Garden: 6
One thing I really noticed about this level is that it is way too easy to get stuck. This level feels like it wasn’t tested.
One of the reasons it is so easy to get stuck is because it seems like most of the level is made up of one way events. This also has the effect of making the level a haven for seekers, which happen to be abundant. The weird thing is, the seeker powerup is placed in a wall, even though it is kind of pointless to do that for this level.
There are a number of tubes, but I found the exit points to be in weird places. I kept trying to enter tubes which just shot me back out. There are also tile bugs on those tube entrances/exits.
This level has a pretty bland look. Swamps is a pretty hard tileset to use if you want to make a good looking level. It requires extensive usage of layer 5, something there is not very much of in this level.
Overall: 6.33, rounded up to 6.5
This level pack is pretty mediocre. The people who made these levels seem to know what they are doing, and I bet they are capable of making good levels. In this case though, the levels seem pretty rushed and uninspired. My suggestion for the authours is to take a look at various popular levels, and see what makes them good.
Interesting, a new lvlbuildinggroup (or sth like that)…
Plz write a short description about you, that would interest me! :D
-Nick [PoL]
Yay for underrating levels…
Shockwave Sanctuary
I found the level easy to learn, not worse than any other level atleast, maybe with the exception of the coinsystem that took some testing to understand, but once you have checked where the three warptargets, I think it adds some spice to the game. The more coins you have the faster you can score.
Good job on understanding the purpose of the getting-flag system, EM… I dont see why you dislike it though. Many people dislikes camping, and Defence would be the biggest part of camping, also the 3 ways of getting flags are differently fast, and the slowest one allows you to get flag safely.
The turret at base lets you defend against 2 warps so you can give E 1 or 2 hearts. Also, you can always camp warptarget, since most players dont have coins when they A.
The swastika you mention is a good area, since teams have differnt entries to carrot, and the outcome of the sucker is a great place for killing.
Cave Connection
From what I have seen of the pack (played the levels twice or thrice) this is the second best level, after Shockwave Sanctuary.
The carrotarea is good, possible to camp, but hard to. It is risky to go for the carrots but possible. The fact that it is 2 1h-carrots makes it more interesting, and requires good teamwork by telling your teammates how many carrots there are. If you dont teamchat, then it is a hazardry. Also, the fact that there are 2 carrots lessens the chance of no carrots at all due to respawnproblems.
God’s Garden
Not as good as the others but still a nice level, in my opinion.
EM complains about oneways and about seek-Pu in wall. Oneways make seekers effective, but when a precaution is made to lessen the amount of seekers, he dislikes it =O. Personally I think all the oneways are good for the flow and allows you to take more paths than you could without them. And… What’s wrong with seekers? It is the easiest weapon to dodge anyways.
The suckers sort of remind me of distopia, maybe they got some inspiraion there. Anyways, I like them. And the fact that the bases are at the same angle as powered up bouncers go makes it harder to RTS which I find good. Levels like sbv2 can be very annoying that way, when all the flag has to do is standing still at base and shoot seekers in a slow pace.
I dont comment eyecandy, since I dont know how to rate it. I think the levels look ok though. But on the other hand, I think KZ.races are good looking ;) Also, as long as the levels dont look terrible, then it doesnt matter for those who plays. I always play in low detail anayways. Gameplay is way more important than Eyecandy.
Overall I think this is a good pack with 2 really good and original levels and a mediocre one that might lower the rating a little.
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Eat your lima beans, Johnny.
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