Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

EDIT- There is a mistake in the following review noting the name Basler as “Ballsy”. This is due to my faulty memory, however the contents of the review currently will not be changed due to laziness. Just remember to disregard anything about “Ballsy”

With the oddly named title and poor screenshot I nearly brushed this level off. However the line “Please for rating” struck me as incredibly awesome and I decided to play the pack. Before we start I’d like to point out the current event taking place. There have been four single player levels uploaded recently which is the most entirely separate SP uploads uploaded so closely together in some time. Fun.

Whats also slightly fun is this level. The level can be split into two parts, one half that you’ll be spending most of your time in that is open-ended, and the other half is linear. The open-ended section started off feeling quite fun for me since it felt so wildly open. However that openness leads to the level’s major problem: The level design contains far too much empty space and too few distinct design choices to be able to link areas together. Also sucking the fun out of the design is that is no clear goal at all. I constantly found silver crates though I never knew what they activated, and I found the secret hideout you’re instructed to go to by aimless wandering more than anything else. The fact that I only had half the coinage needed to proceed past the hideout made my next session of aimless wandering in the level feel like a chore.

The enemy placement feels random, more along the lines of “There is grass here, so to will be an enemy” instead of “This is a strategic place for a turtle to be”. As usual the only enemies that posed a threat were the flying lizards and bees. At times I felt like enemies were placed without discretion as I paid the bonus booth 10 coins and warped directly onto a turtle.

That turtle signifies the start of what I call the second half. It’s not really a half since it takes much less time to complete, though its design philosophy greatly differs from that of the earlier portion. It is quite linear and feels like “Mah Furst JayJay Tooooo lvl!” in that its design could be placed into anyone’s first SP upload and feel right in. That being said, the design in this portion isn’t bad (in fact its a lot more competent then the open ended part) , it just feels uninspired and like I’ve traversed it countless times before. Upon completion you get to Eva thus giving the level’s name a bearing of sense and logic.

The eyecandy as usual is nothing bad, its just there. Not even trying to make a case for me to notice it be it by flaws or outstanding graphics-whoreship. This is quite simply, the most average eyecandy I have ever seen. There is nothing in the level that is wrong tile-wise, yet there isn’t anything thats not bland either.

The level also insults the player quite a bit and tends to be quite vulgar. The first time I noticed this I thought Ballsy was a misspelling of Bilsy, however as time went on I have come to the conclusion that this refers more to a sack carried by males. The second time I noticed this the level called me “gay” with little to no provocation. I presumed that this was a misspelling of “guy” as the text felt quite calm and this was presumably the level author’s first english level. Its like the XKCD comic where the author claims a hobby of his is to drastically change curse level mid-sentence. However the next textstring I found called me dickhead, and that was that. Why the level author did this is beyond me, since the insults are tacked on and aside from Basler’s sole text none of them really feel like they’re supposed to go with the text they’re with. Its like they were added last minute to make the pack feel “edgy”

All in all this pack is hampered by feeling uninspired throughout, and by being far too open for its on good without a clear set of goals. When the level finally decides to start forcing you down a path the level starts being fun again, but it never reaches the level it was when I first started realizing I had stepped into an entirely open world. If only that open world had more substance then what I had to traverse through.

The level is alright, can’t really recommend it on any of its on merits due to far better levels sharing the front downloads page with it. The only problem with the recent SP surge is that level flaws really shine when theres a greener meadow ever so close by.

OK, i give a review :)

This tileset is very versatile. There are sand, water, trees, houses etc. It’s a little bit hard to use though. Colours match perfectly and overall tileset looks beautiful, but there are some ugly parts. Like those mountains, they don’t look very good. And some of the house tiles looks ugly. And there are one thing that disturbs me. There are no vine tiles!?

But overall you have created nice and useful tileset. Good Job Gus!

This is a good lvl pack ill like it very much :D

[Review changed to quick review. – Cooba]

This program dont work i get an error about missing a dll from my computer .. :|

This is worst picture , you have waste your time …

[Review changed to quick review. For more information, see \Review Rules\. – Cooba]

Holiday Hare 07 is Odin’s sophomore Holiday effort, and much like the official sophomore holiday pack this download is mostly made up of regurgitated material. The pack is split up into two parts, the main attraction “Jazz Jackrabbit’s Scientolomas Adventure” (Originally titled Jewmas adventure), and the much meatier Holiday Hare ’05 Remix. Both portions come up short in various areas, though the 05 remix is able to save itself a bit better since it is longer.

I shall start with the scientolomas adventure which is comprised of a meager two levels. The pack was originally centered around Jazz being a Jew, and a few of the pack’s jokes (intentional or not) fall a bit flat from the name change. The controversial line that sparked the name change is left entirely unchanged save for the replacement of “Jew” with “Scientologist”. How this is perfectly ok, or at the very least any better is beyond me. The first level in the pack is extremely dull gameplay wise, but makes up for it with its sharp sense of wit and humor. Jazz proclaims he is Corporate America as he steals coins (actually silver cookies, though the pack calls ‘em coins more often than not) from the citizens of Holiday Town (only open once a month in the year!) The level design however is extremely linear and the nearly nonexistant puzzles simple and trite. One puzzle (and perhaps the only puzzle) has a rather clever hint, however it serves no real purpose as the puzzle can be solved easily enough through guess and check. The dull level design is majorly hampered by two things: the rather slow pacing despite its amount of enemies, and that two recent coin collection levels that have been released eclipses what can be found here. It is still worth playing for it’s comedy however, though it will feel like a chore for the most part.

The second level is the better of the two by far, though it is short and rather shallow considering it has great potential for a larger product. The level is based around the concept of crate puzzles, where you must push a crate containing TNT to the silver crate to move on. It feels a little bit like Portal though without the humor. In fact, if Odin brought the humor over to this stage, then axed the first level so more time could be spent on this one, and then added as a bonus stage to the Holiday Hare ’05 remix it could have been much better. This stage also offers a very awesome, though simple, addition. It is called the failhole, so if the finicky JJ2 crates don’t work the way you needed them to you can retry without the loss of a life. The last crate puzzle is a bit anticlimactic and the Devan boss is rather dull leaving for an unfulfilling ending to an otherwise sublime level.

The eyecandy in the levels are rather basic, nothing that really pushes the tileset. However, this is the HH98 tileset, which is one of the hardest tilesets to use period. The levels in HH05 also contain basic eyecandy which is probably due to the Holidaius tilesets being limited in nature.

Speaking of HH05, the remix feels a bit spotty. Granted all Odin had to work with was my terrible review from two years ago (also granted this review isn’t much of an improvement, rarely going into detail), he did do a rather good job at trying to tweak it. The levels include more enemies, a complaint I had from the original pack. The problem with this is that some areas contain too many land enemies (a ton of air enemies, when done right, is always fun to deal with) and some enemies are placed in locations that make the level near impossible to traverse. The Bilsy boss fight feels worse with the added enemies, though if the aerial enemies in the arena were removed it could work out perfectly well. The level design, whether dilluted by the added enemies or not, is still as great as it was a few years ago and that alone should warrant this remix a playthrough.

All in all the pack has quite a few faults, though A) It is the only single player holiday pack this year (again) and B) the awesome parts are REALLY awesome. Download recommended.

The level design and eyecandy in this level is competent. Not exceptional, but competent nonetheless. However the level is unpassable in a few areas thus making it impossible to complete through conventional means, a sign that this level had not been properly tested prior to release. Its a shame, because the level is worth about a 7 otherwise.

Hey, if you played through this level pack, I’d love to hear what you think. Even if it’s a short review.

Complete your levels Aditza!
Eyecandey:Horrible. The level looks empty.
1.2/10
Gameplay:Very bad!
1/10
FINAL SCORE:2.2/10
RANK: D
Don’t Download!

[Review changed to quick review. – Cooba]

Bad wallpaper!
DON’T DOWNLOAD!!

[Review changed to quick review. For more information, see \Review Rules\. – Cooba]

You are crazy Danyjel! xD

Dashin’ through the snow in this level the first thing I noticed was the fairly plain eyecandy. It’s not that bad, and there aren’t a lot of tilebugs, but it doesn’t really stand out or anything either and could use a LOT of work. Try adding more decoration, the tileset could have been used a lot better: for example, I spotted only one (1) tree during my whole runthrough.

The level has to be hosted in Race mode, as there is no trigger mechanism to make it work in Treasure (which is what Race is usually hosted in these days). As you need an external launcher to host online in Race mode I’d recommend you to use the trigger system thing next time.

Now, for the racing itself, it’s quite straightforward and the laps are rather short. TNT and freezer are there, but no ammo apart from that. There are rougly three kinds of obstacles: randomly scattered blocks, blocks that appear and disappear following a certain pattern, and warps that take you back a bit. None of those are really hard to avoid or get through (I’d say they are a bit too easy even). The last warp obstacle for example is covered with blocks which actually make it a challenge to fall into the warps, while it should be a challenge not to fall in them.

All in all, this level lacks creativity in most aspects: it’s small, doesn’t have any interesting obstacles, it has rather bland eyecandy and lacks a fun factor. To the author’s I’d recommend trying to be a bit more original next time: try some eyecandy tricks, go nuts with the obstacles, whatever, anything to make it more interesting than this :)

Your name has been taken already again.

Well level is very small so 5 PU’s is too much. Gameplay is ok but it’s not the best part of this level. I like the eyecandy. It’s nice and original.

This is a really nice, albeit small, level using the JJ1 Holidaius Night tileset by Violet. The +1 carrot, IMO, is a bit too hard to reach, though. Nice level anyways. :D ;)

I agree with Birdie that this level can be played best in a public server.

Gameplay

The gameplay is certainly the least best part of this level. This level consists mostly of a platform with a ring af titles arround which have some holes where you can get to small parts which aren’t arround that platform.

Eyecandy

This level has a nice christmas sfere, thanks to its eyecandy. You made a lot of things flicker and move, your background is very nice, though the foreground and layer 4 could have been way more decorated.

Originality

With distance the best part of your level. You made having many power ups in your level not bad because most of them are not very easy to get for the average public server joiner. It is also nice that when you blow up a trigger crate and when you went to the place where the triggers dissapeared, they reappear and you have to blow up the trigger crate again.

I want to mension two things before I’ll put my ratings down here. This was a very difficult level to review, which could be a postive and a negative thing. And at last I have to give you a +0,3 for the music because it just gives your level extra sfere. Be proud, I never give extra point for music.:P

(+0,3)
Gameplay: 5,5
Eyecandy: 6,5
Originality: 8

Final Grade: 7

I recommend this for someone’s Christmas Pack.

Welcome to xlm fawfull.

Anyways, This is an interesting symetrical ctf level by fawfull, which uses BlurredD’s new tileset, desolation. The level has three powerups, the seeker, the bouncer, and the toaster all placed in similar box type things, which unfortunately promote camping, as they are easily defend-able with the powerups inside of them. The Full energy carrot’s placement promotes more camping unfortunately, as it is right ontop of the seeker powerup. Despite the campability of this level, the gameplay is still rather sound. The author makes use of a rather large sucker tube for transportation from one side of the level to the other; a novel idea, but it can be somewhat confusing at times. The amount of ammo in this level was fine, but the proportions were abit off. There was an unfortunate lack of toaster ammo, making it slightly biased against the red team. Another issue with the ammo was the excess of RF ammo; due to the design of the level RFs become somewhat useless in most of the level. Visually the level is okay, in some places such as the bottom area it gets rather bland. The center and sides of the level could also use more variation. This level does show that the tileset is indeed a very difficult one to master.

All in all this level is just an average ctf level, worth an occasional play.

A nice little battle, by spaz18, it might not be as good for duels as the author states, but it is a nice level for casual gameplay.

Although the rather small level has 5 powerups it doesn’t really have too many, as the author has restricted your means to get most of them in some way. Visually the level is alright, the author has done just about all he can with the rather limited tileset. The one issue I have with the visual aspects of the level is that the snow will only work if you are player one, so the author should have used the snow tiles in the tileset. The carrot in the level could be abit easier to get, but it is only a minor issue. One other problem with the level is that it is somewhat confusing to find the powerups, and both the pepper spray, and bouncer powerups are biased for spaz, as jazz doesn’t have room to uppercut them.

All in all, it’s a fine level, which I reccomend you play this Christmas season.

not ver good lvl

[Review changed to quick review. ~cooba]

jimbob.. what masterrokusho means (what i think he means) that u just have to start all over again and make an new level.. where you spend much time in it. then its getting better,
uploading and upgrading don’t work if the platforms + gameplay is boring..