Single player, by 
Hmm. This gets finished right when I’m not around to see it ;P.
Anyways, a lot of the important stuff has already been stated. This is heavily story based, so the majority of the levels are short cutscenes (which actually contain a lot of innovation and are quite interesting). This is great from a storyline perspective, but means that there’s less actual levels to play (although I should confess that I actually enjoyed finding out what the other rabbits said about me in the orbital base scenes). The levels themselves are also not as long as the levels in the previous packs (Deserto Orbital Base can basically eat all these levels and still have room for dinner) so the amount of time it takes to play through this is significantly shorter than the other packs. However, the levels themselves are very enjoyable and well constructed, and full of interesting ideas.
One thing that particularly pleased me in this pack was the focus of creativity being more on the events then the eyecandy or other miscellanea. It was very refreshing to play through a level full of creative obstacles then a level that the creator spent all their time on making it pretty. In terms of the actual gameplay content this pack contained virtually everything a good platform game should have, and is a refreshing and welcome change from generic heavily detailed levels. The difficulty was also perfect (I played on normal mode, at least). I found myself dying a handful of times, yet during no point of the actual experience did I feel frustrated enough by an obstacle to cheat, and carrots and savepoints were placed in the right locations. In general, there was a lot of innovation in this pack, which played a key part in making this pack stand well out from the crowd.
The eyecandy looked good enough, but it did clearly take a back seat while the gameplay and eventing took the lead role. There was also not as much variety due to setting this pack takes place in (although this isn’t as severe as Invasion of Deserto), but the levels themselves engaged you well enough that this did not turn out to be a problem at all.
I would not say that any of these levels completely stands out from the others (although SWS Fencer was probably the longest and Holographic Training was quite an experience itself), which is alright, but the pack could have used the inclusion of some monumental work (perhaps a large level taking place during a large battle between Carrotus and Shellion warships?) especially since it’s not too long content wise. An important (relevant) boss battle could have also been added to symbolize a climax of the episode (EP1 had the rocket turtle threatening to demolish a large city, EP2 had the return of devan) however the episode flows together well enough as it is. Some levels also seem shorter then they should be, namely SWS Anapsid.
To conclude the review, I really did enjoy playing through these levels. They were designed very well and incorporated various elements that made them special and enjoyable. There is a lot of innovation involved in everything here, ranging from the levels to the interestingly made cutscenes to the very interesting tileset. Mike certainly did take advantage of a lot of features of JCS and this episode effectively demonstrates why it is essential to pay attention to innovation in eventing and gameplay and not just stack truckloads of eyecandy in every layer. This also makes good use of cutscenes and hopefully will set an example for future plot-guided packs to follow.
I’m giving this a 9.3. This pack contains a lot of creativity, solid level construction, enjoyable obstacles, and a good story to back it all up. One wishes it could have maybe been slightly longer or more climatic, though.
There’s really no reason that you shouldn’t download and play this.
~Blackraptor
