Eyecandy overall
Blablabla awesome/decent/good, or something.
Sacrifice
Carrots
There are two one heart carrots, accessed by warps, in a little room. I think that it’s a good thing to have two carrots instead of one, since then chances aren’t so high that they will both stop respawning completely on a laggy server. You can counter camping inside the box by using gun9 from the outside, or camping where the warp out of the carrot box targets, therefore it isn’t easy to just take the carrot like that, which is good. Besides, if you try to get the carrot as flag carrier, chances are quite high that you get hit again when you try to get RTS, as there are often a lot of base/spawncampers at your base.
Power ups
The original part of this level is that you get seeker powerups each time you die or join the server. This adds a great tactical aspect to the level, as defending becomes very effective when you always respawn with seekers.
There are also pepper spray power ups, which can be quite useful… the placement of those are good, since you can get them on your way to base if you are taking the lower route.
Pickups
Ammo placement is good, along the routes so you don’t have to run away to look for ammo, which slows down the game and makes everything much more boring. A good thing is the piles of RFs that you can use for hunting complemented by the bouncers and powered up pepper there sre in the level. There are also quite a lot of toaster pickups, which can be useful for something I guess (this is not really my favourite weapon so I seldom use it, especially unpoweredup).
Bases
The base areas are great, easily defendable. There are three routes to them, I think. Camping the base can be countered quite easily with gun9, RFs and gun2. The fact that you can spawncamp the base area also adds an unusual aspect, since that’s not how jj2 normally works. Yeah, I like those bases.
Other tactical areas
There are a few tactical areas here. Mainly bases, carrotbox, above it… The bottom if the level tends to be come quite unused, unless the copters stop respawning.
Flow
It’s easy to navigate, the level is easy to learn, and everytihng is good. The only thing you can raise objections against is the use of copters, since those often stop respawning. The upper path is by far the fastest way to base, so if one team doesn’t have spawning copters, they have quite some disadvantage. There are a few places where you pretty much run into walls, which you must avoid to not get hunted down by RFs or gun8. I like those areas, as they are not really dead ends, but still dangerous. Same thing goes for the warps on top of the level targeting the carrotbox, where you can often get warpkilled, something I think is good as it adds another danger to the level. For example in really good games on bblair I never dare using warps, since I know someone will kill me as soon as I do.
Summed up
Nice level, I like it a lot. I am not sure what others think, but I give it a 9, the only thing stopping it from becoming a 10 is that copters can be a problem, it sucks for duels (no seekers for the one not dying) and that you can sometimes get stuck where you get seekPUs on spawn.
Introspection
Carrots
I think there is only one carrot here, so I assume it’s a fullNRG one. (No I refuse to use JCS to check, and I didn’t have anyone playing with me.) It is placed quite fairly. It is within sight from the blue base, but not from the red, on the other hand it’s a bit easier to reach it from the red base (from blue you need to do a quite tricky doublejump, if you are Spaz, to get there). In order to get to it you need to use a spring which is placed in an area where there should be a lot of people all the time, as it is quite close to both bases, meaning it has its risks to try to get there. The same spring is also really useful for attacking the red base with RFs. So nice carrot placement.
Power ups
There are two power ups, RF and toaster, which are placed in really dangerous areas to go to if you are hunted (since you have to either fall down to your enemy again after you took them, and the only other way to flee is by a copter, which you can never be sure of when or if it spawns). I like it. >) The fact that there aren’t any seekers makes the play around bases a lot more interesting, as they at first sight seems very easy to defend, but once you notice you don’t have seekers, you quickly become way more vulnerable to attacks from above.
Pick ups
It seems quite easy to find the ammo, and most of it is along the lower route between bases, which is good since that could possibly make that area of the level more used, as the higher road is way quiker. (same way as Sacrifice’s)
I would like gun9 to make the left base area a bit harder to defend.
Bases
Quite alright. As I said, they seem not to be too easy to defend… It’s also quite easy to fall off when you are RTS or R, which can add to both frustration and fun. The left base seems easier to defend than the right one.
Other tactical areas
I think the bases and the carrot are the only tactical areas here. Perhaps the power up-places too, but the power ups are really far away, and that could be bad for the gameplay, as it becomes way slower, which sucks. I don’t think I would bother with power ups most of the time, perhaps on my way back to get RTS or if I don’t have to R so fast.
Flow
It’s nice, apart from the power up areas where the helicopters are annoying obstacles, but I guess you can adapt to that, so nice job here too.
Summed up
For some reason this level seems not as good to me as Sacrifice, and it was also a bit harder to learn. A work well done, it gets an hmm… 7
Greed
I hate the coinsystem. It was probably a nice thought, but it just didn’t turn out to be fun. I won’t review this levels, I’ll just subtract some from the total score because of it.
Sadness
Carrots
There are 3 of them – one fullNRG carrot and two one heart carrots. The full NRG carrot requires that youhave a key to reach it, and if you take it you can be pretty sure that you will lose your health again afterwards, since there will always be campers at the target of the getting out of carrot area-warp. It’s not a good idea to stay at the one heart carrot of your team’s waiting for it to spawn again either, since the 1 heart carrots are sort of placed in dead ends. Also, the fullNRG carrot can easily be camped by simply shooting it down and standing at it shooting upwards. In other words, it’s risky to take carrots, which is good when your level only has one…
…Power up
The level has a toaster power up in the middle of the level, as I mentioned before only centimeters away from the warptarget out of carrot area. It seems to respawn quite quickly, and for using a one power-up system, I must say that toaster is a good choice, as it isn’t so easy to run out of.
Pick ups
The pick ups are obviously placed with thought in this level, and are mostly around the bases. The red team however has an advantage over the blue one, since there are toasters above their base instead of bouncers as there are by the blue base (bouncers being very effective for damaging the opposing team’s RTSer.
Bases
The base areas are great. They have only got one way to be reached from, but that doesn’t make it completely impossible for the attackers to get to the RTSer, since there is a turret where they can spam bullets from. As I mentioned before the ammo supplies are good around bases, which is a good thing in my opninion.
Other tactical areas
I can’t find any other tactical areas.
Flow
It’s quite easy to move around and the level is easy to learn (with the possible exception of the locked doors). In this level, as opposed to for example in Sacrifie, it’s fatal if the copters stop respawning, as there is no other way to reach base. This, of course, reduces some from the total rating.
Summed up
Good level. I give it an 8.
Sanctuary
I’ll, surprisingly enough, start off by commenting the eyecandy on this one. It’s much sexier than the others’ IMO, but maybe I just like the tileset because I am so m*ickng dark side.
Carrots
There are two fullNRG carrots in this level, placed right next to eachother with gun9 pickups near them, for extra camping/carrotkilling fun! I like it.
Power ups
I think there are two powerups in the level. Seeker and Toaster. They are placed nicely in the bottom corners, and they don’t really give any team any advantage over the other. Oh, wait there are pepperspray powerups too, at the carrot area… doesn’t matter, but I guess they could be useful for attacking the bases, which are in quite open areas. Also the carrots are placed in a way which could be ideal for attacking with pepperspray.
Pick ups
The ammo placement is very good. Most of the ammo, if not all, is played along the major routes between bases and carrots, which is good as anything that could possibly lessen the quickpacedness of a level is negative.
Bases
Great base areas. Open and accessible form three directions with springs for inspired bullet dodging. There are also quite a lot of pick ups around them, which is good as NA-fights suck.
Other tactical areas
Can’t really find any. It’s the normal: bases, carrots, powerups.
Flow
Very good! even if you don’t know the level you will easily reach the other base just by running where your nose points. You still need to do a few tricky jumps to find the fastest way to base, though – which is good since atleast I myself would like to have a little advantage over my opponent if I bother learning a level throughly.
Summed up
I like this a real lot, and I would like to give it a 8.5 for being almost as awesome as Sacrifice (which has more orignal, yet entertaining gameplay, giving it a higher score – Sanctuary is only entertaining, not really original).
Twilight
This has one of those sucky SILWI-like falling systems, which sucks, so I will just substract some from the total score of the pack, instead of making a proper review.
Total score
Sacrifice 9
Introspection 7
Sadness 8
Sanctuary 8.5
Average 8.125
Minus Twilight 8.0
Minus Greed 7.9
TOTAL: 7.9
In other words ~8 6Tees and a downlioad recummandation for CelL!