Utility, by 
EDIT- Hey other reviewers, could you like, and I’m sorry if this is asking too much, list more than just two things about when you used the program?
As per usual, once a month or so I get an MSN message asking me to review something if I have been on MSN that month for a considerable amount of time. This time the plea for a review came from Gry who didnt specify what he wanted me to review but left a link nonetheless. I clicked the link and was intrigued. I then took out some trash (not a metaphor mind you), came back and got to work on reviewing this rather nifty utility.
Now right off the bat, I’m going to say that this is not idiot-proof. I know so because I’m an idiot. The rundown of the controls does not specify how to move exactly, so when it said “running is left to the keyboard” I assumed it meant the arrow keys (or whatever you use) and the shift key (again, whatever other key you use). Had this been a year ago the neutrons in my brain would have clicked a bit sooner since the actual movement control scheme works much like the way one would have had to rig up a flash platformer for use on the wii before the API came out.
It’s quite simple and intuitive actually once you know how it works. When the mouse is in the center Jazz (or your bunny of choice) stands still. When the cursor veers to the left or right, your rabbit moves in that direction. Moving the cursor upwards on your screen makes your rabbit of choice look up, and likewise moving downwards makes him duck. These can also be used with the right mousebutton (which does jumping just in case you didnt read the instructions) to pull off special moves such as the sidekick or uppercut, and also to buttstomp if in midair. Now that I’ve gotten all the controls out of the way for my fellow mooks, let’s talk about how the program feels during gameplay.
Being a single player JJ2 gamer, my first priority was to see how the program would fare in SP territory. It holds up fairly well, actually. It was quite fun playing through levels using the mouse though movement felt a bit slippery. This slipperiness made it a bit hard to aim making enemies like dragons, fencers, and floating lizards much more of a pain than with just the keyboard alone. Spaz’s double jump felt wonky to pull off which probably affects MP players a heck lot more than it does SP players. All of Jazz’s moves, however, worked fine.
I then attempted a multiplayer game using the program and found that activating and deactivating the mouse mode prompts a little message to appear in the chatstring. I found that nifty, though I guess players used to using programs during MP matches would have already expected it would do that. Unfortunately for me the only server I had access to was the Long RF Jump or whatever it was called. Its a rather popular level where you use rfs and a double jump to propel you as far as possible. I couldn’t turn fast enough to make any real progress in the level, though that may be because of me not moving the mouse quickly enough instead of a problem caused by the program. Since the level wasn’t really a competitive one in the regular sense I couldn’t get a real feel of how the mouse worked in an MP match.
Which was why I later asked Odin to host one for me. The level hosted was battle 1, played in battle mode. I found that, once again, the mouse controls were a bit too slippery to efficiently roast someone (although thats all well and good for something like a public server). There were some major revelations during my playtime however. Well more specifically one- Copters (and theoretically jetboards) play much better with mouse support. If a level extensively used these vehicles (term loosely used, mind you), I think mouse support would be the best play method. Another thing I found during the battle match was that I was longing for a way to utilize the scroll wheel to scroll through weapons. I’m positive that most, if not all, wheels can be clicked and used as a third button and its a shame it wasn’t put to good use since using the keyboard for weapon switching with the mouse feels annoying.
From the time I spent with the program, I found it to be an amusing gimmick but not something that can fully replace the tightness of pure keyboard play save for a few niche situations. Its great for when you’re tired and just want to easily goof around, or the aforementioned copter example, but for anything serious it doesn’t seem like a good match. That being said, the program was crafted quite well and works like a charm. There is no reason not to own it since it is quite nifty initially, though you may find later on that you have little reason to actually use it again. That initial time is time well spent however, and enough fun (while it lasts) to bump the score up to an 8 with a .5 added for the ease of control it adds to flying machines.
