Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

I’m late. Almost a year later and I decide to review this level…

I feel a need to as after a certain period of time standards change and levels can been seen through different lights and I’ve decided to try reviewing levels this way from now on.

Now to begin with the review, this is Blackraptors’ best released level by far. To start off, the main appeal of the level is the theme and look. Now here’s where I start stating my personal opinions. It’s obvious Blacky was aiming for a random chaotic look, and the theme seems heavily influenced by death metal, in that aspect, this level still retains its originality. Even after other levels that have copied certain eyecandy aspects still have not captured the same style presented in this level.

Now here’s where I state the problems with the eyecandy, yes, you heard me, there are problems with the eyecandy. Unlike what other people here may have you believe, the eyecandy was a thin line between being butt ugly and brilliant. To support the eyecandy the level had to be totally reliant on the theme, which justified some of the chaotic uses in the level…HOWEVER some uses simply DID NOT WORK; like the purple pillar tiles did not tile and clashed horribly with the black tiles, and they were used quite a lot in certain places and some other uses around the level were borderline ugly. Ambient lighting helps hide this to some extent but keep in mind the level is relatively big and some people need to free up fps to play seriously in jdc events or in servers where a lot of players will abound, and this level was designed for a lot of players, so turning off ambient lighting will be a common thing and will reveal the eyecandy flaws to a large enough extent where it will be distracting. Now there are a lot of levels that have recieved rather low ratings for simple mistakes like tiling problems.

That aside, the eyecandy and theme were awesome, as Blacky used the complex method mixed in with efficient placing (for example the pulsating large purple pillar at the center of the level) which is rarely seen. Whatever unconventional uses that worked were also quite amazing. So in my opinion this level has a great theme but the eyecandy is not perfect.

Now on to the gameplay, and this is where the review starts revealing important, unstated facts about how the chasm really plays. The two reviews above, although well written, do not state much about the layout and gameplay, which I will go into detail here. The basic layout is two chasm-esque parts at the right and left side of the level, separated by rather long and linear paths. The layout is really quite simple and not very strategic. There are some nice tactics, like the tube which can be used to change direction, but since the paths are so close, this tactic will not produce much of a different outcome if it hadn’t been added, but other than that, the level mostly consists of running and shooting. Ofcourse the level does nothing wrong as far as flow is concerned, but as we all know perfect flow in battle levels means little strategy and more weapon spam. Since most of the level is linear wherever you go, this makes the RF powerup the most powerful weapon in the level and this will cause plently of fake health deaths. The lack of areas in the level being safe means a lot of matches will depend wholly on luck, since the best playing style here is hit and run. So there’s really nothing original or unique you can experience in gameplay here. The level is basically fast paced and although some areas I thought should have been easier to reach, the layout is still easy to navigate. So if you’re looking for fast paced and exciting games with blurry outcomes, this level is for you. If you feel like having a tough match based on skill and planning, there are better battle levels designed for that.

This level is best fit for an anniversary bash like event where there is no serious playing.

Despite giving this the lowest rating, it’s a must to download the level for the fact that it shows eyecandy is not all about just decortating a level randomly with tiles, it is all dependant on the theme and the theme totally determines the personality and which light the eyecandy should be seen. The same can also be said for gameplay, as gameplay is not really just following the standards perfectly and making a level flow right, there are plently of ways to make a fun level that breaks standards in exchange for flow.

I hope to see more levels like this one in the future. Until then…

EDIT: I totally forgot to mention anything pertaining to the LRS version. Oh well, I pretty much covered what I wanted anyway.

-fs

PLEASE REMOVE THE PICTURE FROM THE LEVEL DOWNLOAD PAGE. IT’S TOO HEAVY!

[Heavy? It’s 22KB big, which is pretty small in all honesty. ~Cooba]
[To put things in perspective, your (Fox282) posting of that comment and getting sent back to the info page made you download around twice the amount of kilobytes that it cost to download that picture. – FQuist]

FS, stop being against players who enjoy fast paced matches… ;/

[Offensive remark removal ~cooba]

Thanks for reviewing guys. There are a few things I feel like stating, one of them is the fact I realized beforehand that hunters would use the pits to regain health. As for the flag carriers having a defensive advantage because of that; I wouldn’t worry about it too much, since hunters at full health will take more risks, so it evens out. Also consider that the carrots are easy to defend, and there’s an ice powerup and ammo to freeze players, so you can kill them even at full health thanks to the pits. I like to think of it as an added tactic, not a problem.

As for the carrot in the coin warp.. yeah I feared it would be too easy to defend, but it’s a safe spot, and a safe spot isn’t much if you can’t stay safe for a significant amount of time. The carrot also makes the bonus worth taking. Besides, it’s narrow and cramped. If you played plenty of team games, it’s obvious how neat being safe for even a short period of time can be.

As for the lack of originality pertaining to the eyecandy: I fully agree, but keep in mind my first intention was to create a fully standard, conventional level as a joke, since I figured R3ptile would be receiving relatively unusual levels, this one would be unusual to other entries since it would be conventional. That idea didn’t hold though.

Its good lvl but some little.And realy mixed.But i give you 7.5 note:Use more tiles and space.

I loved it!
Good conversion, Good palettes(it’s weird palettes!), Good Example Levels!
BUT- The palettes in Labrat not like so good :-(

RATING:
9.9-0.2(Palettes of Labrat)=9.7
Download: Yes! why no?

Good Job!

can you convert this to 1.23?
it isn’t like 1.24 tileset… :-P

A relatively medium sized battle level, with surprisingly original gameplay concepts. Birdie utilizes coin warps marked by ‘lights’, where players can get trapped in the mid area or denied access to the copter at the far bottom left side of the level because of them. Although this can be countered by going into the special blue lights. In a heated match like a duel, this feature can proove to be quite usefull as it adds tactics and encourages careful and subtle playing styles. However it can also proove to be quite annoying for the casual battle players who are just looking for the usual mindless brawl in standard battle levels. This is definitely a thinking mans level, in that aspect this level is different from the norm.

As with most strategic levels, this one has a big learning curve emphasized by the original layout design and features. Not to mention different design styles like the use of one tile passages to create a maze around the mid section of the level which add variety and create an enigmatic flow to the level. You’d think having totally different designs would destroy the flow but it’s designed in such a way where it’s easy to chose where you want to go and additionally, it’s simply easy to understand the layout, mastering is another story.

I’m glad to see an influx of levels like theese. Although they have learning curves they provide strategy and you cannot win in them by simply moving quickly and spamming weapons.

As an added comment: No I am not against players who like fast paced levels. I’m just stating it’s nice to see rare levels like theese, where there’s more than just blasterwars. It’s a fact, not an opinion.

Thanks to the admins for doing their job but let him say what he wants. There’s no way he can offend me anyway.

I knew asking people in JJ2 servers to review it would lead to poor efforts on their part. :-(

Another Atlantis level?! However, the review:

EYECANDY:
The eyecandy has a nice use of backround layers. Layers 5,6 and 7 look like what you would see over a river of some sort. I couldn’t see complety because the water was blurring the screen. Layer 4 was quite dull. There were just different coloured blocks. No foreground was used, which makes things even more boring. Overall, nice layers 5,6 and 7. Layer 8 was blocked by the water and restricted space on layer 4, making it pointless. Layer 4 itself was dull, and no layers 1, 2 or 3 (as far as I can see).
EYECANDY RATING: 6.0…Shamefully, this is the highest eyecandy rating i’ve given out in weeks:(

GAMEPLAY:
The level here can be described in one word, boring. The concept of the entire level being underwater is quite underused, and the very few levels that use this concept are usually not great. The exact same goes for this level. All you do for the entire level is shoot fish and bump into 1 or 2 trigger crates. At the end, there is a boss. The worst thing is that there is no explination for why you are shooting loads of fish and killing the uterus boss. Without a story, the level could have been the slightest bit fun. Overall, the underwater concept is quite origional, but it’s no good if the level isn’t fun and all you are doing is shooting fish and looking for things for no reason.
GAMEPLAY RATING: 4.4

AVERAGE RATING: 5.2
RANK: 5 Average
DOWNLOAD?: I wouldn’t recommend this as a level, since it is rather boring and pointless. However, Jazz 2 doesn’t get many decent underwater levels.

At first look i coudn’t distinguish background between walls, but it is playable and after a little playing, it is clean. Ammo is scattered by small groups 1-3 each, but for good player that is not a problem.

This is a very unique level, which is appropriate since it was an entry to a level contest which specifically asked for unusual elements. This level is certainly unconventional, with a number of elements that you won’t find in many other levels. Despite that, the level avoids being gimmicky, which is somewhat of a feat considering that it’s hard to build a level around unusual concepts without relying on them too much.

Three full nrg carrots seems to be a bit high for a level of this size, but the large quantity of powerups plus the death pits might help to offset that a bit. Still, I can forsee some problems occurring because of that. If players take into consideration that the pits are bascially full health in exchange for all your weapons, players without the flag might feel that they shouldn’t grab the carrots. This in turn could lead to flagcarriers being rather difficult to kill, and might encourage camping. People playing this level will need to adapt their playstyle so that they grab the carrots regardless of their position, instead of using a more conservative playstyle where they leave the carrots for the flagcarrier and call out when the carrots spawn.

The coin warp also seems like it might be a bit problematic, since once you get up there, there isn’t much of a way anyone can hit you without them entering the coin warp themselves. And the presence of a full nrg carrot up there means that a player who is determined enough could probably hold that position for quite some time, defending it from other players and using the carrot to heal up. Granted, the warp target is right underneath the carrot, meaning that players exiting the warp should be able to grab it before the person defending the spot, but that’s only if the carrot hasn’t been shot out of the way.

This level gets an 8. Out of the four levels that were being judged, this one was my favourite.

Unconventional Coffee is a medium/large ctf level that won R3p’s unusual CTF contest. Its not suprising that it won, since it is of very high quality, like you would expect from a level by FireSworD.

When you first play in the level, you should learn the layout really quickly. Being symectrical, the level’s layout isn’t too original, but this one feels different to other layouts in game. I also like the fact that FS took the time to remake the other half of the layout, instead of taking one half, and then flipping it, like a lot of people do. (Like me :P)
Not a single part of the layout here would be useless to gameplay, which is a huge plus in CTF levels.

The flow here is pefect in my opinion. It finds the exact balance between a bad flow and a fully automatic flow. The death pits are very easy to avoid; so its your fault if you make a big mistake and fall, unless an opponent forces you to fall in them, e.g: If they freeze you with Ice while over the pit. In the middle there is a fly carrot that can take you up to one of the bases. You don’t have to take that route; there is another route around the edges of the level, which takes longer, but is usually a lot safer.
One evil tactic is to shoot the fly carrot into the sewers below, so people have to go down to get it, then be ready to pwn them with seekers as they come up.

The placement in this level is very good too. The contest required a level to have many PUs, and this level meets that requirement. There are 5 PUs in this level, which sounds like too many, but the large amount works here. On the left side there are Bouncer and Ice PUs, and on the right side there are Toaster and Pepper spray. The Bouncer/Toaster PUs can become very campy however, but if you fall down and shoot seeks through the entrance to the PU box you can counter it. There is also a Seeker PU in the sewers. Like with the fly carrot, the sewers can be a deadly ambush spot. This level also has 3 carrots, on on each side, and one in the higher middle. The middle carrot is in a room where you need to one of the coin warps on each side of the level. In this room there is an exit on both sides that take you to either team’s base, like in BBlair. I personally think it should be removed because it makes the room slightly too safe from enemy fire, others may disagree. The ammo is placed in nice shapes, instead of boring, overused 2×2 squares. I think there should be more RF ammo, however. There is also some food to fill the level up with events.

The eyecandy in this level is not the best I have seen with this tileset, but it is still very nice. The certainly liked the background, with those very tall buildings that gives the level a more city-like feel, different from other levels with this set. The greyish fade colour for layer 8 also helps this atmosphere, along with the awesome music. The sprite layer EC is not as great, since it is not very original, but is still much better than in the standard Colon levels.

IMO this is one of FS’ best levels. It will certainly get more attention in the future, since it is being played in the JJ2WC3. I could really give this an uber rating like 9 since this isn’t too original, but it is still extremely good. 8.6 is my rating.

I can’t rate this as I don’t know where to start in reviewing this, so instead, I’ll just state my thoughts.

I think this is an excellent conversion of the Forest levels from the first Rayman game, though I haven’t played this game for about 2 years. It’s missing the water tiles though, but I see in the description that they are being worked on.
The masking is superb. Backgrounds aren’t masked which is good.

I see that you have included the music from the game as well, but one question. When I open it in Winamp, it says the song length is 20 mins 30 secs, why is that?

Overall, I think this is a great conversion and I would definitely RECOMMEND downloading it. Since it is a huge tileset though, some might find it hard to use.

If I was rating this, I’d probably give it about 8.0 – 8.5.

Are you gonna do conversions of the other levels?

Hmmm… wut can i say.
Exect copy of rayman 1 exepv the back.
gj.
The masking gut no probles, and u gut some tiles 4 layer 3.
gj!!!

I won’t actually rate this tileset conversion because I wouldn’t know where to start with the review. I’ve never done it for a conversion before, at least not properly (the last one I wrote was about 5 years back…).

I just want to say you’ve done a good job with the conversion, and the masking is top notch, although it is often not clear which tiles are solid and which are not when you’re playing.

Now, I don’t know Rayman at all, nor have I played it, but I was slightly disappointed when I found out that none of the water/pond tiles were included. It would have been the perfect touch, but since it’s a very large tileset, you probably didn’t have the space.

Last but not least, great work with the foreground tiles of those mushrooms, purple flowers, and red berry trees. Very simple and easy to use. :-)

No rating, but definite download recommendation.

Sorry Galvant 4 this mark 9.2 ,it is very hudge so it is hard to use it,lots of animations,it took me 1 hour to re build animatios but it is very good,I mean it is awesome.A coooo_oooool tileset.U better download this 4 doing an hotel.With that lots of characters u can mix them to do new characters.Yes tileset is RED but it is good NP.There r some hudge statues and heroes, hieroglips and a cool back ground but it is too hard to use must redimesionate.
In the demo level u can see what Jazz can really do if u really know how to use JCS like Galavant.
Super Cool Job. xD

Yay, 200th review! Anyways, let’s get this review over with…

SONG ANALYSIS:
Firstly, the song is maybe one of the longest songs ever on JJ2…7 minutes 20! That’s quite a long time to sit there and listen. The song is basically the JJ1 songs of the first episode squashed up into one huge song. I was expecting a combination of the three (that would be interesting and origional), but actually, all you hear is the Diamondus theme…with no edit at all. After about 1:30, you hear some shakers…than all the patterns in MPT change to 256 rows (!!). The whole Diamondus theme starts again, but this time, it’s sped up. After 3 minutes, the song suddenly changes to Tubelectric. After you’ve finished listening to that, you then sit through the Medivo song.

I like the idea of having all 3 songs put into 1, but so far, until the new version comes, you have to live with a 7 minute song with nothing interesting changed. I suppose it eliminated having to open all 3 files.

SONG RATING: 3.5

SAMPLES:
Er…the same. We’ll have to wait for the final version.
SAMPLE RATING: N/A

FINAL RATING: 3.5
RANK: 3 Very Bad
DOWNLOAD: Since this is not a full version, i’ll leave it as an N/A, but I wouldn’t sit there for 7 minutes listening to a totally un-remixed, 3 in 1 JJ1 medly that has the same samples. I would wait if there is another version.

Also, I would actually like to see a single song with all the JJ1 elements from different songs. That’s something we’ve never seen before.

Good job virus :)!!
Very good levels
i don’t know how rate good (eyecandy,…)
But I put you un 7.
Thanks for did write me in Credits, in Betatesting.
:D :D :D :D :D :D

hmmm…1st time. but some1 gutta do it r no1 will notice the lvl D=.

Gameplay:
The lvl is realy fun at 3v3!
Its not recomended 4 duels thu,its 2 big.Also a great lvl for big servers (bout 7+ ppl it gets rly kool).

Eyecandy:
There r not moch eyecandys in this tileset, itihnk u did good with the the eyecandy u gut.
The layers r awesome =O.

Hmmm nothin 2 big on the other things. Lets see, the pickups r ok (some ammo here and there) itihnk the lvl can use some food ect.
The music is ok,but ithink a louder thing will fit better(me and my taste).

Rly great lvl there,make some more plz!