Single player, by 
I’m not sure what exactly was going through the beta-tester’s heads during the first three playable levels, but I really want to know what it was. For everyone else: Start playing from Brother6. Here’s a quick summary: The rabbit you didnt choose has gone missing, presumed kidnapped by a gang of turtles, and your trail led you to the desert. The first few levels have horrid design. The Western Suburbs levels especially, since they dont seem to realize that theres about 90% of levelspace thats not being put to proper use. I honestly felt cheated after I finally found the end level goal in the first level, and even more cheated when I found that there was nothing done to make reaching the second goal harder. In the first level you can hunt for coins in the rather large level to give to Eva to enter a bonus room, however your end goal can be easily gotten to by making a beeline to the right.
Now lets stop and think about this predicament. The majority of the level is used for a subgoal, one that is extremely optional no less (I got through perfectly fine without it). Why did this level not make the coins the number one priority? Say the landlord wants his rent paid or something, whatever. Give me satisfaction for actually exploring the level and finding the exit by mistake.
While the first suburb level might get a slight pass on this since the player is not aware of its design, the second level should be perfectly ashamed of itself and sent to the corner. One of the first things learned in the first suburb level is the entrance of Battery Park, which is the end goal in level 2. Since we’re running the same level backwards, might as well spruce it up a bit eh? Unfortunately, all thats done is the addition of some enemies nothing that truly forces me to find another way into the park. I honestly don’t get this, and I may be alone here but why design an large open level if its merely going to be used so linearly?
The third level (i.e. Battery Park) suffers from this in a slightly different way. Theres a part in the level where it splits paths. One path is again “Hold button in one direction and do minimal work”, and the other one is slightly more interesting but extremely frustrating to go through due to a rather finicky puzzle-y area. Now don’t take that the wrong way, I loved the puzzle idea. The problem is that I was never sure if I was actually doing it right until I looked at the level in the JCS because I consistently landed only slightly off. I’m all for nonlinearity in levels, but couldnt the choices be something other than “Braindead Easy” and “Braindead easy with a wonky test level segment”?
Now at playable level 4 (I.E. The Desert) things all of a sudden change, the level has one sole path and a clear idea of what it wants you to do. Suddenly, it no longer feels like you’re aimlessly wandering around goalless. You’re instructed at the start to get to the top of the cliffs. Ah- an endgoal. Something levels 1 and 3 were missing. Somewhere specific to actually go to. This removes the fears of feeling like I was cheated at the end of the level, and I wasn’t. To say the least, level 4 is quite simply sublime.
The next level however is extremely whack. I get it, its to get us further into the story. Fine. Can we please start injecting some gameplay into these “Run from one world to the next” midlevels? I mean actual gameplay, not falling down into floating coins that are for the most part in a simple line. I don’t mean not doing anything for a level (i.e. JJ2 The Movie, not this pack). I mean something where I interact meaningfully with the level. Unless you’re giving me a large ammount of exposition, I personally feel like I’m wasting my time. Considering I tend to make up 33.3%-50% of the audience that actually writes a full 350 plus word review for single player levels I think I’m slightly entitled to use this space to urge level makers: STOP MAKING LEVELS WHERE YOU DON’T DO ANYTHING. I’m not saying “No levels where you sit and watch scrolling text”. I don’t mind those, don’t get me wrong. However if I’ve completed a JJ2 level and I haven’t gotten a better understanding of the plot, or shot and/or stomped anything (and no I daresay a lone turtle shell doesn’t count), then I think something is extremely wrong with said level. Theres a lot of repetition going on this subject, I think its time we move on.
The next level is oddly enough a coin hunt level furthering my hated for the wasted opportunity in level 1. The main thing I love about this level and the next is great use of the Top Secret tileset. The eyecandy caught my eye, which to me means it did a rather good job since I tend not to notice eyecandy. There was one odd design choice in this level, its one that I’m not all to fond of. Its the JJ2 cliche of large line of baddies thats somehow meant to be challenging. Maybe it wasnt, and was soley for story’s sake. Ok, in that case, its cool. I can dig that. However, if I was supposed to feel some challenge from this, I did not.
The next level is again quite well crafted and so is the final level. No major complaints that I can think of, and with gameplay this good (albiet not terribly inventive) the last level makes perfect sense.
Of course the last level also works as a twist ending to a well made story, which was for the most part well written and entertaining. My sole gripe with it (which may turn into an oversized rant), and quite simply something that I have a gripe with constantly in general, is that had the enemy gang been called “Devan’s goons” the story would be the same, and perhaps add some punch to ending. The real lack of motivation from the enemies doesn’t really make for a good case against removing Devan solely because “Devan stories are teh bad” (which is what I’m assuming the reason is, since the author made a point to mention that this pack contained no instances of Devan in the download info) Here’s the deal people, and listen up: Devan plots are NOT boring. Dull plots where the villain (typically Devan) has no sole motivation beyond being evil for evil’s sake are boring. The fact that this motivationless villain tends to be Devan has led to this misconception that Devan=bad story. Swapping out Devan for any other villain does not automatically improve a plot, dull or brilliant. While the plot in this level is quite good, the enemies’ motivation is quite rank, and I dare say thats the sole flaw with the story: without any explanation for the enemy’s actions I honestly don’t understand why the Turtles and Lizards are working together, why they have this elaborate base in the desert (though this stems from not know what the heck they’re up to), what Lori is doing in the base (though this is more of just plain random period), how the baddies are able to function extremely well without their leader, and why they even attacked the town in the first place. Perhaps that is the entire point of the story: while trying to achieve goals important to us, we seem to miss out on details in the bigger picture. The ending leaves many questions, and any answer can develop to an interesting story idea for a sequel pack. Though again, I’m probably looking far too much into a bunny game, sorry for going Roger Ebert on you guys.
I started playing the pack as Jazz, and interested by the information that there were differences for each rabbit, I decided to play as Spaz afterwards. Perhaps I expected to see the story from Spaz’s eyes (After all I just spent the last chunk of time trying to save him), however was quite discouraged that the story simply switched the roles around and I was no longer motivated to see any possible changes. Though thats a fault of my own expectations more than anything else.
That being said, this pack is worth a download. It tells an interesting story, and aside from some problematic opening levels has a consistent quality in level design throughout. If this pack does not win the featured download this month, color me extremely disappointed, and I look forward to playing more of Aeries’ levels in the future.
