Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

to defost: not all these levels have far less ec then what i usually do. only the unimportant levels like the ones with cutscenes.

anyways, thanks for reviewing. now i atleast know to not include instant death pits in the next ep ;0 which will come in 2 weeks i think..

Personally, I don’t really think quite as much of this pack as others do. It was a pretty solid pack overall, but suffers from some big problems.

The first thing I noticed was a stark contrast between the eyecandy in these levels versus the eyecandy in Snooze’s other levels. These levels have far less. You can probably use “but it’s set in a dream world” as an excuse, but come on, you comment on how “realistic and vivid” the dreams are.
Of course, the levels don’t really look bad, just plain. That’s not really a bad thing, but it detracted from my enjoyment a bit.

The second thing I noticed was a pit which had absolutely nothing warning of its existence. I later found out that these pits were prevalent throughout the pack. This really hurts the pack – taking lives away from the player just because they were unable to guess at the existence of a pit really won’t positively impact their opinion of a level (or level pack).

My next quibble came with Dream Drift II – the “QoB level.” You have to find 10 coins, but, like EvilMike, I couldn’t manage. The layout of the level is very confusing, and the seemingly random triggers just made it much worse. It’s just one level, so it’s not really that much of a problem.

And then, as I went further in, I noticed another problem – you never know where you’re supposed to be going. You could roam around for half an hour trying to find a trigger crate, because the levels are just so open and maze-like. This is very frustrating, and, in many cases, didn’t make sense.

Another thing that bothered me was the enemy placement. There aren’t a whole lot of enemies, but there are quite a few, and I didn’t think they were placed very well. The long lines of Hatters in Dream Drift (I), the huge balls of float lizards in Dream Citadel.

However, don’t let the above text fool you into thinking that it’s a bad pack. Far from it; it’s pretty solid. I just only mentioned the bad stuff, because the good stuff’s already been pointed out by other reviewers: there’s unique tileset usage (just look at the ghost ship), some great atmosphere, and a very original and prevalent theme.

Introduction

After making lots of Multiplayer packs like the New Ages series (and some levels for Codename: Alliance) Snooze has created a Single Player pack/episode. But the main question is: is Snooze good at making Single Player levels or should he focus on Multiplayer more? Keep reading for the answer.

The pack starts with some introduction levels. There’s not much to say about that, except that it shows what you can expect from this pack and it’s part of the story.

Then comes ‘Street’ a Townhouse 2 Night level. It’s relatively short, but it’s still pretty fun. Be sure you don’t fall in the pits (as I fell in them right before the end of the level) the level has some nice secrets and overall the level wasn’t too hard. It’s just that I’m pretty bad at Single Player (but I played this on Medium)

I quote: ‘After the normal city, your dream changes into something futuristic..’ that’s Dream Drift (part 1 of the 3 that are in this pack) It’s another pretty short level (if you know where to go) It could take long as it took a while to find out that you have to freeze a spring near the end. The part with the springs is probably the hardest, but still pretty easy. This level has more enemies than the previous one. I especially like the area at the top (which is the end of the level) Another quote: This view is beautiful.. wow.” It’s exactly what I thought when playing it.

After Dream Drift, there’s a big and long level called Dream Drift II. You have to find 10 coins, and some of them can be really hard to find. On my first try (in a previous version of the level) it took me about 20 minutes to get all the coins.. then I died at the boss battle at the end so I had to get the coins again. On my second try I had 8 coins and couldn’t find one of the other 2 (I had to get that one before the last one) This level doesn’t have too many obstacles except spikes and a few enemies, but it’s still challenging. It’s easy to get lost, but the level is not as evil as QoB.

The Voice is Calling is a level that introduces the enemy (more about that later)

After that it’s time for a level called ‘Beach’ which shows some interesting tileset usage. It’s not too hard, and although it looks big it’s not too long. It’s good that the level has different areas and those areas all have different things (and secrets)

Then comes ‘Inside the Ghost Ship’ another Beach level and it’s, one one word, awesome. The theme is something I haven’t been before with this set. The collapse scenery at the start and the disappearing pole are good examples. And the choice of enemies too. This level also has some good ideas, like the trigger crate near the gun crate that you have to hit by shooting a turtle shell. This level has many enemies, and I lost 3 lives in it. But this is undoubtedly my favourite level of the pack.

Dream Citadel is the next level, and it’s another nice-looking level. The level itself is not too difficult, but you have to find a way through the destruct scenery (which is pretty easy anyway) A textstring in the level says: “Warning: unless you have 5 coins, dont go past this area” then you have to go up and find a warp to a trigger crate which opens the triggers at the end of the level.

The Demon’s Castle has an impressive intro with some cool light effects and a short dialogue between the main character and the enemy (not going to spoil what it is) This level also has some cool tileset usage (like the corkscrews that almost no-one uses) The level is a bit shorter than it looks, but it’s still fun. It’s not too hard either (in my opinion) One of the better levels from the pack.

Then comes The Demon’s Castle? A level that’s not too long but if you want to find every secret in the level it would take a long time. This has some more impressive tileset usage, like the tubes and translucent blocks in layer 5 and the crystal window. This level is not too hard if you have maximum fast fire, but it’s still really fun. The level ends with a boss battle, which shouldn’t be too hard either. Well, if you thought that was it, think again..

Dream Drift III is possibly the most evil level of the pack. When you start you will immediately see some enemies that will most likely hit you. And then you’ll get to a puzzle with lots of spikes and trigger crates. Then comes the evil part: ‘Use your guns wisely..’ you probably won’t have too many gun9 ammo by now as there’s only 6 ammo at the start of this level (maybe from the previous levels) but use it to hit a save point. Then you’re supposed to die (so if you have 0 lives that kind of sucks) Then you get to a warp which leads you to a short maze with destruct scenery and hurt events. That’s not too hard though. Then comes a part with different routes. I’m not going to tell what’s there in every route. But the main route leads to some hurt events and a carrot crate with some bees. Then comes a small maze with some spike bolls and hurt events, and you have to get up without being hit. The last part of the level requires you to find 3 coins. They’re not as hard to find as in Dream Drift II. After you’ve found 3 coins, you’ll go back to the area where you had to shoot the save point. Then, after that, you have to search for a warp that leads you to the end of the level.

The ending level describes that the battle is not over yet. But what will happen next? Find It Out.

So overall, this pack gets a really high rating because I was impressed (and I don’t play a lot of Single Player!) Snooze shows that he can’t only make Multiplayer levels. I give this a 9 and a download recommendation.

It’s always good to see people release single player episodes. This particular one is quite good too, and I found it enjoyable to play. It comes from Snooze, who is perhaps best known for his CTF packs, New Ages I, II and III. This is his first major release that is single player, and I hope it’s not going to be his last.

The best part about this pack it its atmosphere. It is set almost entirely within a series of dreams, and because of that the levels take on a somewhat surreal tone. Snooze does a very good job at conveying this theme, with the eyecandy being a particular strong point. In some places it does get a bit weird, but dreams aren’t always normal and logical. One thing I thought was fairly impressive is how some of the levels have different areas that look very different, with the background transitioning and the style of the foreground also changing. Most people would just start a new level to convey this effect, so having it happen within a single level makes it very neat.

The gameplay is also good, though it does suffer a bit due to a few problems. One in particular that I noticed is that the instant-death pits are often hard to spot. You never know when a drop is going to be fatal, and because of that the levels can be a bit more frustrating than they have to be.

I also find that in an action oriented pack, having a QoB-style level early on is a bit disruptive to the overall flow of the levels. I’m not a big fan of maze levels, and this one in particular is difficult due to a lot of obscure triggers. The goal is to find 10 coins. I couldn’t, so I settled with 5, then hit the checkpoint, killed myself, and grabbed those 5 again. That’s a bit of an exploit, but at least I didn’t have to cheat. Call it an alternate solution to the puzzle.

I also thought that the hell level was a bit confusing. It’s more straightforward than the QoB one, but the layout is very open, and I found myself at times not sure where to go next. Also, at the end you wind up with a checkpoint and a dead end. It turns out there’s a hidden tunnel by there, but I couldn’t find it at first.

The final level is a bit different from the others, in that it is more puzzle focused. In a way it’s similar to the QoB level early on, but it’s a lot more action oriented, and I at least enjoyed it (though it took me a while to figure out where to go).

Other than that all of the levels are quite well designed, fun, and challenging. And, due to the very original visual design, you’ll always want to know what’s next.

Like snooze says in the download description, it’s probably a good idea to play this on easy mode unless you are pretty good at single player.

One additional comment I’d like to make is that I found it a bit annoying how the main character (and narrator) of the episode often comments on what he sees. Sometimes this is alright, but sometimes it’s completely unnecessary, because the player can quite easily see what the level looks like. I also thought it was a bit funny how the narrator sometimes comments on how cool/beautiful a certain scene looks. These comments seem to pop up fairly randomly, and come across as the authour of the level complementing himself. I thought this felt a bit arrogant.

Anyway, this is still a great pack, and I highly recommend you download it as soon as possible, since you never know when it’s going to be deleted in a fit of rage.

Quite an evil pack. The best thing in my opinion is the execution of the theme. There are some unfair situations, and you may feel the author (or demon) is being a complete bastard at times, but it’s real fun.

I don’t really know how to rate this, but I can’t really understand what the benefit of being able to stream music in JJ2 is. The streaming server is not always online apparently, and the result is that whether a level using this will actually have music is mostly a gamble. This is not what you’d want when creating one. You also need a permanent internet connection and the tool needs to run alongside JJ2. I think spending 10 minutes on browsing modarchive for a suitable song, or downloading the MP3 you want to use, is a better idea.

This mp3 tool came before the JJ2+ mp3 support. We had already made an early version a couple of months ago, but this is the update.

The server is now online 24h per day!

And JJultimate is Sfaizst thing, I haven’t made it.

And plus stealed our idea, we was first with mp3 in JJ2

I’m afraid I don’t see the point of using this utility since JJ2+ now supports mp3 audio. Well, the difference is that you wouldn’t need to have the audio files on your PC, but that’s just about all. Nothing more.

You should also work on your English, I was annoyed when I opened the program and saw a message saying “The JJ2MP3 Server is offline or have some Problems, only YouTube Support Work”.

So, this program is completely useless. If you don’t have enough storage for MP3 files on your computer, you could just listen to some online radio. I guarantee it’d be better.

I’d also like to mention that there is a button within the program leading to a site where users can download Jazz Jackrabbit 2 free of charge which is illegal. There are such links in the readme file too. Please re upload your program without the links, thank you.

The facts that it’s useless, contains links to illegal content and the text’s written in Engrish mean you should not download this program. It’s junk. You still get 0.5 points for the effort.

*edit:*@djazz: I wasn’t talking about whether the server was online or not but about how poorly the message was written.
It doesn’t matter who put a link to a site where the game can be illegally obtained but the fact it’s there. You should remove it.

edit @Sfaizst: Oh yes, you are completely right. BlurredD must have stolen your idea! You should now press charges against him for doing that! And really, who even uses JJ2+? Most of its features already were in other programs that came out way before plus did. BlurredD is such a thief!
I’m also looking forward to your upload of JJU or whatever you call it. I’m sure there are more people using JJU than ones using a legal copy of the game.

I fixed them up a little too….

EDIT: ….Them, being the 1.24 levels….

And you included the TSF versions of the levels why..?

Excellent program, I’ve been looking for a way to get the last few tracks into a format that I can convert to mp3, thanks a ton for making this!

It was incredibly easy to use and incredibly useful for my specific needs!

Anyone who wants a good program to listen to these in, I understand that .IT, .XM and .S3M aren’t regular sound files, you can use WinAMP to listen to these files alone, but there are programs that were made to create and play these, ModPlug Tracker, Scream Tracker and Impulse Tracker.

These programs can also export to formats playable in regular Music Players, such as iTunes.

I recommend finding ModPlug Tracker, and opening the converted files in there, you can then export it to a .WAV file (you can also .MP3, but that is very low quality, wav is recommended) and then use another program, such as Audacity, to convert the WAV to an MP3 :).

(I know this is an old release, but looking at how recent the comments date, who knows, somebody might find this somewhat helpful in the near future)

It’s still not completely working in 1.23! There are several animations missing in each of the levels. You need to re-insert them in 1.23’s JCS to make the levels work.

EDIT: The 1.23 levels work now.

Nice music… some songs better than the Jazz2 music! But i don’t like all..

good level

[Review changed to quick review. For more information, see Review Rules. – Violet CLM]

It will use JJ2+‘s setting.

isn’t this included in JJ2+? what happens if both are applied?

Great work. No bugs, and now i can run some larger music files as well. Great job

[Review changed to quick review. For more information, see Review Rules. – Violet CLM]

Does it supports JJ2+ ?
I remember that port changing doesn’t work on JJ2+.

Fun little pack.. Not as good as I was hoping, though. My favorite level was Headbanging. The CTF levels disappointed me, but the battle ones are really nice.

Links broken. re-upload