I guess I’ll review this, since this needs a review =P.
Firstly, I had to look in JCS to find out what to do in the level (how to get into control room, etc). This isn’t too bad, since chances are nobody else would know how to get into the contol area, but it would be nice if there were some arrows pointing where to go that would be turned off by trigger crates once you went where they pointed to.
Layout:
First, I’ll start with the layout outside the fighting room and stuff. It looks kinda overcomplicated. You have this weird room with lots of text sign blocks with no text in them except for 1 string mentioning r3ptile in it. That place seems kinda useless, the only benefit of it is that it looks nice and provides more room so people arent all squished together in one spot. There’s also a warp to some room with text signs explaining rules and stuff in it, but I had to look in JCS to find out that there was a warp there ;p. Again would be nice if an arrow or something pointed to it, especially cause rules are usually important in a level and should be read (noone will be able to read the rules if they cant find them =P). (Edit: Rag informed me that this room is actually the hall of fame. With only one person currently in it. Yay)
There’s also a bunch of nicely made spectator rooms. In the same warp leading to them, there is a random room owned by FS, and a turret tower. The turret tower has turrets (omg!) pointing into the arena, but they’re blocked by solid tiles so only bouncers get in. Although its fun shooting in the arena and killing people and watching them get angry, I would imagine in a serious game if I was playing someone in the arena, I would already be worried about dying or falling, and wouldnt want to be worried about people outside the arena killing me as well (after all, in tourney levels, its you vs your opponent, not you vs your opponent vs everyone). It would be nice if there was some host controlled trigger crate or whatever which could disable shooting into the arena. There’s also a warp leading to a room filled with carrots (you can get here from a warp in the start too). Its called the ammo dump or something, Im guessing youre supposed to refill h or waste ammo here or something (why would you want to waste ammo anyways? ;p). A sucker tube leads from that room to under the arena where you can pick up any ammo that was shot down (which is a nice idea). A lot of this seems overcomplicated (especially since places like the Owned By FS room are easier to find then places like the room with the rules), but thankfully at least there is a text sign in the start telling what warps take you where. One more thing, its easy to get stuck when on the blue spring when the host hits the crate to start (i’ve seen this happen quite often). Although standing on the turrets when ready to start would be a better idea than being on the springs, nobody does that for some reason ;(. There is no warp or anything to free you from being stuck, and that couldve been fixed too. Oh well, nothing major, and more the fault of the players than the level I guess.
Now, for the layout in the arena. There’s only one way to get to the top (through a floatup vertical tunnel in the center) which makes camping there easy. There’s also a lot of places where you can fall (two large chasms) so you have to be careful and stuff. The bottom right of the arena seems kinda useless though unless you’re trying to hide (and there are even better places to do that in imo). Thankfully, there are two diff. routes to the carrot. Overall, the layout of the arena makes it easy to camp, but its both jazz and spaz friendly it seems.
Rating: 7.9
Eyecandy:
The eyecandy here was great. Lots of times it made otherwise boring areas look good. Use of transparent tiles to make other tiles seem a different color was also a nice addition and well used. I loved the backround, the castle surrounded by the clouds =D. Don’t have much to comment on eyecandy, except the tileset use and stuff was original and overall the level was pleasant to look at.
Rating: 8.6
Placement of Stuff:
Hmm…The two significant pus are on the top of the level (where there’s only one way to get up to), and both are as far away from the carrot as possible (without being too near each other, that is). Gun8 powerup is in the bottom right, not worth getting it really imo. I wouldnt mind seeing the Gun8 pu being switched with the bouncer pu or something. There’s only 1 carrot here, making camping important and hard to stay alive. It also makes it annoying for people at low h because chances are their opponent will be making life tough for them and camping at the only source of health. Ammo also seemed a bit too sparce in the middle/bottom area of the level, and I would have preferred to see more +3 ammo instead of the +15, since some areas could’ve used at least something placed there to prevent them from being empty.
Rating: 7.5
Gameplay/Flow:
Heavily based on camping. The lack of springs made the level interesting though, as floatups and sucker tubes filled the gap.
I found it really hard to survive if you were at low h in the level, because chances are if you have a bad start you will lose. This leads to frustration, but also makes strategy essential to win, and having to think of a winning stategy to survive rather than mindless killing is fun. Level flowed alright I guess. Some places jazz had to uppercut in because the vine was 1 tile away though, so that couldve been fixed or something (I dont really care since I play with spaz anyways =P). Still too heavily reliant on camping imo.
Rating: 7.8
Overall/not an average:
This level was nice. It was original (in terms of gameplay and eyecandy and things) and looks like a lot of effort has been put into it (looking at all the triggers and add ons and stuff). The level played alright and looked great, and it seemed to work. I wouldn’t mind playing it, or hosting it, somewhere in the future. Good Job!
Rating: 8.2
Additional comments: Music kinda gets annoying after you listen to it loop like 20 times while reviewing…And the next level setting is wrong.
Final rating = A Perfect 8. Just fix the next level setting or something =P. Download reccomended.
~Blackraptor
(Dont you hate it when your computer crashes when youre just about finished a review? I had to write this one out twice argh)