Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Since people like to overrate.. why dont I join in?

Eyecandy:
Rating: 9.7
Comments:
Well, when I first saw it, I was like.. Oh great another Dreempipes level, but after racing through it and going through the different areas of the race, I realised it’s quite good. The tiles fit together, and there aren’t any/many tilebugs. There is a lot of the use of the color “black”, which can look nice when you just run through without looking right into it. The walls look supported as if it were real rather than floating crap in the middle of nowhere. The use of the pink waterfalls is just right.. You dont see too much or too little of it. I usually get bored using this set because I can’t get EC ideas, but Blacky has mastered it. There are new and original eyecandy concepts too. One last random note, when you get dizzy, the background still rotates and random tiles appear… Probably easy to do, but its hot! ;(

Gameplay:
Rating: 9.5
Comments:
This is the sort of race where you shouldn’t go too fast, or too slow. You can’t just hold your button and hope to keep going ahead. You have to turn and change directions, slow down, speed up, shoot stuff. The gameplay isnt just the different for the first lap. There are also different and more/less strategic routes to take at some parts, I played this in a server… Everyone goes everywhere. I guess it keeps it exciting. Also, getting shot might mess you up in some places, but it also really helps you otherwise, it can let you go through pinball bumpers which might just bum you around.

Layout:
Rating: 9.2
Comments:
Well, pretty much everything is covered in the gameplay, but I’ll just run through it for anyone’s sake. ;/ There are 2 routes to take at the beginning, one being where the destruct-blocks are, and the other is just an empty tunnel which you have to reverse to go into.
Afterwards, there’s a little obstacle with pinball bumpers which’ll bum around those who arent shot.
After this obstacle, there’s another split way. One with destruct-blocks and freezies again, and the other has those cool caterpillars that make you dizzy.
After that.. you go up but there is a 6 tile wide path to go through. you have to go through the middle 2 tiles if you wanna keep going, otherwise, back down you go!
After THAT, there’s another path leading upwards then sideways. More freezies and destruct-blocks. Afterwards you go through a really cool looking tube, and BAM, the end of the lap. ;]

Placement:
Rating: 9.5
The ammo is well placed, and so are the obstacles. The ammo can be used to its advantage in various places, like to trap others at the end with bouncers, or chase others with appropriate guns. The freezies can really bum you down. All I can say is run into them with speed so you move or shoot them away. The events are all placed and there isn’t anything that is pointless/makes no sense in the level.

Final Comments:
This level fucking owns. Go play it. NAO

[Self-filtering makes your inner care bear cry :’( ~Cooba]

ARGH!!!! Can’t play this!!! It just don’t open when I wana play this! :@ x-(

Carrotade v1.0

First of all I have to say this OWNS! Carrotade is a great program which is a combination of Forest, NeoAc, and Project controller. If you don’t know what these programs are, then look them up.

Features

Now Carrtoade has many different features. These are some of the most common that I
Use and some that I don’t use as much.

• Instagib
• Kicking/banning player (Pretty useless. You can do this feature without Carrotade)
• Cycling games
• Starts/stops games
• Log players stats
• Shuffle teams (Ctf)
• Swap (Change a certain player’s team)
• Cycle Level filename (Cycles the level if it exists)
• Next level filename (When you cycle (/c) It goes to this level if it exists)
• Shuffle level (When cycling, it is shuffled)
• Team battle (Only capable when hosted in Ctf)
• Roast tag (Only capable in Battle)
• Save settings (well of course this is important)
• Capture (Whether you can capture or not. Useful in duels)
• Cycle [reset] (You set the time when you want the level to cycle)
• Auto cycle
• Off (Turns of custom mode. Custom mode= Roast tag/Team battle)
• Fix seek holes
• Laser protection
• Ip logging (This is indeed very useful)
• Weapon respawn (Yay, this program does have respawn on it)
• TSF compatible (Even though I don’t play tsf often, It’s good for other people who do)

Pit Levels

Pit Levels are pretty cool. A pit level was a great Idea. When you host a pit level they work well when you host them in Roast tag (/rt)

Roast Tag

This is a very unique idea. Like blur said in the “read me”, it’s kind of like Play tag. When I think of Playing Roast tag, I think of playing king of the hill. Blur calls it the “Eva’s Ring”. The instructions on how to play it are in the read me so I don’t need to explain any of that crap

BUGS!

1 – One of the bugs in Carrotade is it wont start when you don’t have JJ2 running. When you host a server when you already have the program running it wont work, so you have to open JJ2, host a server, then run the program Carrotade.

2 – Another bug is in Pitfall, I think overlord already explained this but you instantly die when you hit the pit, actually, you don’t hit the pit and still die. Anyone could double jump out very easily with spaz but it isn’t a HUGE bug.

Summary of Carrotade

To wrap this all up, I have to say this program is very useful. If you people are looking for a program to play evil, well, this isn’t for you. No, it does not have renaming the players on it, but who cares, all that matters is that this program kicks (-). Download recommendation, of course. If you don’t download this, it’s either you don’t have common sense, or you don’t have the ability to host. Great work blur, asome program. Keep up the good work.

~HïTçH

EYECANDY – 1 OUT OF 10

Extremely poor. The Layer 8 BG is just 2 different colours, orange and blue, mixed together. Texture mode is used here and it looks bad. There is no foreground except some completely random “DANGER!” signs floating about in the air.

GAMEPLAY – 1 OUT OF 10

This is what some test levels have, bad gameplay. There are the usual tests that you have to complete. I couldn’t even finish Level 1 because it was too hard to even complete. There is a Morph awkwardly placed just before Level 1. You need Spaz for this level and you can’t get him through there because the Morph item RE-GENERATES and is in the way. You could have put the Morph on a separate platform. I didn’t really like this because it was just too boring and it gets repetitive.

TOTAL SCORE = 2 OUT OF 20 (1.0)

DOWNLOAD RECOMMENDATION?

No

RANK: U = Very poor

COMMENTS/ADVICE

1. You do not need to use the JJ2 music. Please choose something different. Also uploading the music was unnecessary.
2. Try to put some more thought into the eyecandy in the level.

VISUAL
Extremely ugly. The background is just one castle and one tubelecric tile just mixed together in an ugly pattern. Ony layer 7 there is just some random JJ2 logos just floating around randomly in midair. On layer 4 there is no eyecandy at all. Just a few of the same blocks on the ground.
The music you chose (KNOCKERB.MOD), sounds stupid in this level and completely spoils the atmosphere.
1/5

GAMEPLAY
Not more battle game edits! Why can’t you make you’re own, original levels?!
This is extremly inacurate anyway. They are all smaller now, but they’re flow has been completely spoiled by this. For example, in places where you would only need a red spring to get to the above area, there is a blue spring!
They’re all cramped and are very hard to move around in.
1/5

GOOD POINTS
None

BAD POINTS
No eyecandy
Bad Flow

SCORE

1.8

VISUAl
Nothing. All there is is some boring flat ground, a few signs saying “DANGER” flying around randomly in the foreground, and few random character sprites just randomly placed. The textured BG is just 2 lines: 1 orange, 1 blue. It’s a nightmare just to look at it. Nothing original.
1/5

GAMEPLAY
No orignal gameplay whatsoever. For starters, the first level is impossible! Don’t make tests that you can’t actually complete yourself!
If you can’t complete a test, there’s a possiblity is could be impossible! In this case, it is! After using cheats to complete this level, I continued on through this level, seing all the usal boring stuff in a test.
1/5

GOOD POINTS
None

BAD POINTS
*First level was impossible!

*Nothing original

SCORE

1.0

P.S: Don’t upload music that already comes with JJ2.

I’d also like to mention that with this patch applied, Controller v4.0 will no longer be able to change music by self destructing. However the latest Controller v4.1 (PB3.5) should support the automatic music change without the need to self-destruct. Use it to change music in mid-game without any side effects.

This really is 1 of the best programs I have ever seen. heh.

WOW!!! What an awesome patch!!

What this patch does is allow the music in JJ2 to continue as normal when roasted in mulitplayer or single player. Yep, it also works in SP! All you have to do is extract the files to whatever version of JJ2 you have. If you have 1.23 you put the 1.23 patch in the folder where that version of Jazz is. If you have the TSF version, put the 1.24 patch where JJ2 TSF is. Double click on the file and click Start. That’s all you do. Very easy to install and I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND it to every JJ2 player out there! Before, when you played JJ2 and got roasted, the music would just restart from the beginning and would sound weird, but now this problem is fixed. The bug with the “Active Boss” event is now gone! :D

SCORE: 10.0

DOWNLOAD RECOMMENDATION?

YOU BET!

GREAT JOB OVERLORD! :D

RANK: S = EXCELLENT!

OMG! My first FEATURED review! :D

This is awsome man! Really cool to see that JJ2 is getting some upgrades! This one is atleast one of the bests!!!
(Unsupported rating (10) removal. ~Violet)

awesome idea, and it works!
(Unsupported rating (10) removal. ~Violet)
(Rating removal reinstatement. Gry, you, uh, knew better than this four months ago. Or something. ~Violet)

I find this kind of… boring. Just a very average level. I’ve seen a lot better from you, Stefan.

Wow great program BlurredD! Download this now!

@Spaz18: JJ2 needs to be runing in order for you to be able to detect it.

@WerBack3>>: Yes.

Some suggestions/comments/bugs:

1) Created by BlurredD based on Neobeos code – How did I guess? ;P

2) Latest Controller 4.1 should work fine on jj2 while this program is active.

3) This program will only load when both the dll and exe are in the folder where jazz2.exe is located, not outside. Kind of annoying.

4) It refuses to load if the game is not running (main menu). Personally I’d make it wait until a game starts.

5) The death pits should have some delay on them. I was annoyed at how I insta-died right before I hit the pit with spaz where I could’ve easily doublejumped my way out.

6) I’m not sure how the gip script hiding works, but you should make it hide what I call “server query” packets (TCP packet with ID:0×0F and the last 9th byte set to 0 as for zero players joining – query packet)

7) I have seen this prog a number of times before, but I would have never guessed its name. GG.

8) If you can, try to fix the bug where server sometimes freezes for a few seconds where there are lots of players in the server and some are downloading.

More comments coming later. And this HTML/CSS are giving me a headache on reviewing.

Have you actually put Carrotade in the same folder as JJ2?

I’m also getting the same problem. I have both 1.23 and TSF but Carrotade can’t seem to find either of them.

Oh, thanks PJ7! :)

I have just tried it but I have no idea how to use it.

A couple of older but very neat levels by Ragnarok, nice to see them being uploaded finally.

‘Technodus Cargo Station’ has a layout that radically differs from the usual symmethric or semi-symmethric layouts that levels nowadays use, or somehow it just doesn’t feel like them at all. The author had thought widely about what could everything go like in here, yet it’s all as balanced as possible.
And there’s actually a few minor original things put into the level, for example the frozable ceiling springs. The author took a good care about the overall flow along the layout, and it all just clicks. All the tubes(except the one in very right maybe) and warps are as well very, very useful. There is just barely anything left to be improved in this scene.

The level gives a really amazing lookout, that makes the level actually so interesting to be played also. The eyecandy is nearly the best you could reach with this tileset. The background differs from usual a little by having a diagonal layer-speed, which looks nice. The ambient lightning fits quite perfectly, though it could actually highlight the rather unnoticable animated pulse-lights going on the background ‘X’-tiles. In fact the solid wall has some weird randomness too.

As I mentioned earlier about the ceiling-springs, this is a level that for once has some use for the freezers. It was probably a better idea to limit their amount anyway to a certain box, than spread over the level. Except there’s a few hidden loose-freezers to be “shot down.” The other loose-ammo is still mostly fine, but some groups could be improved slightly. For example I don’t like a flock of 2x bouncer and 2x pepperspray. However, the situation and choice of PUs was great. Seeker-PU that is a more powerful one has a more outlying position, to be shot with electroblaster, while Bouncer-PU is above blue base, which you will likely buttstomp because of the entrance. However, most of ammo could have a longer respawn time, which is 10 at the moment. I didn’t actually notice this earlier.

The level might not immediately feel as good as it is(for me didn’t at least), but because the level is easy to be learned also, after for example a few matches it is really enjoyable. It is an underrated one after all, but that could be because it was yet now uploaded in it’s improved form, and used to be semi-public around 2005. It just looks so “professional-made.” Even the music fits, although it could be something different because it has been used several times already. In my opinion ‘Technodus Cargo Station’ is worth around 8.7 even, which is just ultimately high. Note the level is already around two years old(at least the original non-improved version.) Well done Rag.

‘Very Stupid Floating Castle’ is a symmethric level of some larger size, which we don’t have too many so that is just good. Anyway, what makes this not so good compared to ‘Technodus Cargo Station’ for instance, is the linearity that is probably noticed as first things in the level. Bases are at the very edges on middle-level of course, and that doesn’t really help it. However the bottom-level with just simple warps in pits, that take you to the current side’s bottom-edge are a nice add to the level. Pos. 131,51 is a very safe and annoying camp-spot(that I used in a match to hide, same on other side btw), and should be removed, even if the author meant them just for text signs. The level is quite easy to learn, but some players may have problems moving on the bottom-level at the first times maybe.

The level has a little empty/simple background, but it is full-visible only in the bottom-level. The other eyecandy, especially solid wall looks good, while something special could be still added, because this tileset is less limited. Eyecandy in overall is in fact kind of standard to what most people do with this tileset.

It probably fits to have some larger ammo-groups in a level of this size. The respawn-time could be still stretched by 5 at least. Carrot is placed rather unoriginally, to the top-middle, and it can be actually shot down all way to the bottom. What comes to the PowerUps, they are just fine.

As well the level could have some springs removed/replaced, though I’m not meaning exactly overuse of them. This is after all a decent big level that could be useful in a possible future JDC-event, but it could have been uploaded way earlier for previous season events definitely, if it’s old too. ‘Very Stupid Floating Castle’, grabs my attention once more, and I’m deciding to give it an 8 in overall.

I recommend both for hosting at times, and the first one a little more in fact. They aren’t useless at all. I’ve decided 8.5 could fit as a final rating for the pair. Also I would like Rag to create some more as good, or why not even better levels in future. And I hope I didn’t miss anything important while carefully reviewing this. Do download this!

SJ

One think to be uptaded ASAP: Carrotade should also look for JJ2 from folder it is in, not just “C:/games/Jazz2”, ‘cause mines JJ2 is not there for example. This stops the whole program from functioning…

What? I’m in credits :D Great job on this, though, blur.

Forest should work just fine aswell, for that matter – I find it quite unlikely that the few CRT funtions it uses should be a matter anyway.

I can’t get this program to work, it says “Version of JJ2 not supported.” (I have 1.23)

There’s nothing about it in the readme.. :/

@cooba: Yes, ofcourse I have. :|