Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Will you stop with the relaxing/slow music. I almost didn’t recconize this one.

The samples were out of time and it was just as boringly slow as your diamondus ‘remix’. Despite a few okay samples this isn’t a good song for you to download. Starting from 10 the results are:

Tempo: -3

All samples: -1.5 (for being out of time) +1 (for one sample) -2 ( some samples were anyoyying)

Drums: -3 (almost n/a)

Loudness: +2.5 (suitable but quite)

Length of song: -2 (too slow)

Suitable song: Dunno (n/a)

Conclusion: Like diamondus, a few improvements will do. Download recommendation: Not really

That bird sample gets on my nerves, also the song sounds as if it were made for the very first games. Bird sample removal, faster song improvments, rhythm and better samples (not the bird samples) would probably get you a more positive mark. From 10, the results are:

Bird samples: -4

Other samples:-3

Relaxing award: +3.5

Rhythm: -3

Suitable song: + 3 for now

Tempo:-3

Conclusion: 3.5 (i know you can improve that song and i hope you do. I hope the rating didn’t discourage you.)

Download reccommendation? Unless you can take this, the song isn’t really something to listen to often. But still relaxing.

Shouldn’t this get Butt Ugly Level of the Week?

HALF-JAZZ REVIEW:

EYECANDY: Black, black, black and MORE BLACK. Not good. Tileset is bad. 25 levels of nothing but black & white. 1/10

GAMEPLAY: Text is completely unreadable. I can’t see what I am supposed to do. 1/10

OBSTACLES/ENEMIES:

Lots of obstacles & enemies. But I can’t see them. Trigger crates are hard to find. 1/10

PICKUPS:

Some coins but you can’t get to them. Other than that there are no pickups you can get. No weapons, no food, no Gems & no 1UPs. 1/10

DIFFICULTY: Virtually impossible. 1/10

TOTAL = 5/50

BONUSSES:

No music -0.1
Nothing in the level makes any sense. -0.1

OVERALL SCORE: 1.0 – 0.1 – 0.1 = 0.8
But since J2O won’t allow scores like that it will have to be a 1.0

DR: No.

Wow! This is so not good!

FUTURE OF JAZZ REVIEW:

EYECANDY:

Not enough is used. You only used Layers 4 & 8. 1/10

GAMEPLAY: This is just far too hard and I fell off coz I didn’t know where I was going. There’s only 1 level. 2/10

PICKUPS:

NINE RE-GENERATING 1UPs at the beginning. Bad idea. NO WEAPONS! 1/10

OBSTACLES/ENEMIES: There are way too many enemies in this level. No weapons so they will be very hard to kill. 1/10

MUSIC: Bad choice of music. Tubelectric is not a very good choice to go with this level. 1/10

TOTAL = 6/50

6/5 = 1.2
SCORE: 1.2
DR: No

LEVEL: Devil May Cry!

I’ve never played DMC myself so I dunno what it’s like.

You can open the level in Captain Cook. Download it here: http://www.jazz2online.com/J2Ov2/downloads/info.php?levelID=3316.
Go into the options on Captain Cook and check the box “Show files that are not shown in Home Cooked Levels.”
Search for the level, click on it, click Play and enjoy.

Anyway here is the review:

EYECANDY:

You used a JJ2 tileset. Forgotten what the tileset is called. It was used very well. Forgot to mention the backgrounds. They look great. 8/10

GAMEPLAY:

This level is quite long and very hard. 8/10

OBSTACLES/ENEMIES:

There was loads of enemies and obstacles. The darkness made it really hard for me to see what enemies were coming. I died like 5 times in this level! 8/10

PICKUPS:

There was TNT everywhere but I couldn’t see any point in this since TNT is not very useful in defeating enemies. 100 coins were in the level, very hard to find. There was lots of Gems in the Bonus Warp and 3 Power-Ups. 8/10

TOTAL: 40/50

OTHER POINTS:

You hid the level in the Home Cooked List. Don’t do this otherwise how else can we play the level.
Text events were in German. Please write them in English next time.
No points added or taken off.

SCORE = 40 / 5 = 8
FINAL SCORE = 8/10

DR: Yes.

I hope this review is good enough.

Heyao, Wow!

Cool tileset.

The Eyecandy is good, especialy the one from HH98! The colours are the best thing, but only in the day tileset. Stuf is good, but it’s the same.. Well, this is a convertion at all. Download it? Yes, sir!

9.2 from me because the stuff and the night tileset

[Rating (9.2) clearance. No support was given for the rating. Saying “eyecandy is good” doesn’t cut it. You need to say WHY is it good. ~Cooba]

Rating 50 second fight:

To start:
In these five levels you will play with a new type Treasure Hunt: 50 second fight!

Five levels:
In five levels it is the intention to catch 100 gems within 50 seconds. If none of both succeeds, the floor collapses and then must there the someone rapidly gems catch, before the other one does it.

Special events:
In all the five levels there are a number of events. With the events you can deserve extra gems. Original considered, say! Congratulations! And oh, yes… in the Level Description stands which events all levels have…

Minuses:
There is unfortunately a number of shortcomings. First: the eyecandy in level 5 is very bad, because everyone who cannot against of epileptic attacks (such as my brother Peter) is that a very worse level.
We discovered it too late and Peter lies now in bed. The chamber has entirely darkened, he has a lot of water and my mother must call the doctor…
Moreover it is not also honest as everyone has more than 100 gems and after the 50 seconds the the one with the lowest number of gems nevertheless picks up the win…

Conclusion:
Although we have delighted our a lot on this game, we only advise these levels for everyone whom has no charge of epileptic attacks and which it does not find terrible that the player with the lowest number of gems wins…

Mark: 5,9
Download recommendation: N/A

[Rating (5.9) clearance. You downrated the level basing just upon the fact that it’s bad for people suffering from epilepsy. It’s not the author’s fault, as the game manual advises epileptic people not to play this game. ~Cooba]

As being bored and actually having the feeling of giving a review for all, or nearly all of the contest-levels for j2mc. This level seemed to be a good startout point to begin reviewing with as Helldome isn’t uploaded to the downloads that got the first place. I will review the rest of the levels at time but that is going to be some time because of holidays. However…

The level has a grey ‘n black “palette” everywhere, mostly because of tileset choice too, but also the background has a fitting grey fadeout. This is all pretty nice nevertheless. The rest of the background is only rather simple but doesn’t really need a lot to be added as during gameplay the non-solid wall-tiles block the vision there anyway, so you will get to see just some pieces of it. ‘The tube’-eyecandy, mainly fills all the solid part of the level, but then again with this palette there isn’t really anything else that would suit really well. And that P4ul did make it carefully and the result was really neat is extra. All the rest, flashing lights showing your current side for instance, were allright.

The layout isn’t as interesting at all. It is a pretty linear everywhere like back to the 2004 Galactic Warfare by Snooze. This isn’t really a direct ripoff at least like it would first look like, but I do prefer the layout in GW over this. The fact that you barely need to jump when moving through level anywhere makes it dull. It could feel like a level for old Jazz-grandfathers sitting in wheelchairs or how are they called that who have to use SLOPES or ELEVATORS, instead of STAIRS. Or then the greater elevator to the middle with float. A bitter jump required. The paths don’t have too much of open area luckily. Then the narrow tubes meant for getting to the lower levels don’t fit a lot. The bases were placed into closed rooms with two quite small entrances/exits(and a third entrance as holes below bases in the updated version.) It is innovative, but doesn’t impress me so much. At least the layout doesn’t remain very spaz-biased.

Pickups are placed evily. Perhaps eviler then Evilmike would. Meaning ammo is placed all in large flocks, still not in boring-looking squares. Talking about the upgraded version of the level, having a more reasonable amount of Seeker-Powerups in the ex-turrets, as the turrets would be more useless in duels. The gun8-Powerup in the middle is fine, but the way the two other Powerups are to be reached in the bottom is irritating. They are supposed to be shot with bouncers, and with the sharp edge accurary has to be perfect. I guess overall the included seekers and rf’s are the most preferred weapon here during games.

I was thinking to give this a little below 8 but probably an exact 8 is more accurate since it got the 2nd place in the contest. The level looks decent by it’s cover, could be better by its layout, and is somewhat ok about its stuff content. Recommended for a try at least.

This is a great pack, I like how you introduced the levels, and how you’ve set it all out is great, but how the heck can you get past the second level?

[Rating (9.2) clearance. There was no support given for the rating. And by the way, it’s practical to say where exactly are you stuck if you want help with passing the second level. ~Cooba]

Wow, what the heck? I didn’t review this yet? >:(

Looking at this colossal set, I can’t help but gape in awe at all the effort that making this must’ve taken. Over 4000 quality tiles in one big tileset, wow ;P. This is definately taken into consideration when deciding upon the rating of the set, but the two four letter words that come to mind when i look at this set (one of them being “holy” and the next being censored =P) would best describe my first impressions when i saw this.

As for the set itself, obviously there’s a lot of different settings possible with the amount of different terrains stuffed in here. A lot of tiles are copies with different backrounds put into them for ease of use and not requiring layer 5, though, but that’s alright.

The theme of the tileset isn’t my favorite, and a bit too cartoonish, but it is executed nicely and looking at the example level i would want to use the set.

Masking is pretty well done. There were a few things that i’d question the masking choice for when i first saw the set (such as assuming the green bricks to be solid since they resemble the solid red bricks, having the leaves be solid for whatever reason). Aside from that, the masking is pretty much great, and includes the usual mask messages from wisey =P.

As for needed tiles, the set could’ve used spikes or other hurt events and vines, but other than that it pretty much got the essentials covered. Aside from desctructable scenery, there’s pretty much no animations though, which is a shame. There’s a lot of blank tiles in the set, so at least one row of tile could’ve been economized by filling them in with some tiles (sacrificing a bit of userfriendliness in the process, though) to make the set slightly smaller, and some animations put in to fill in the rest, but I guess the sheer colossal size of the set can make up for that.

Huge tilesets usually tend to have problems with being userfriendly. The tilesets end up being too big and scare away levelmakers, or it can take a while looking through a heap of tiles to find the one you need. I downloaded this tileset completely expectant of this, but was slightly surprised to find that it’s not as bad as I’ve envisioned. Pretty much everything is logically placed and grouped together with related tiles, and it is very easy to find what you need considering the size of the set. However, this tileset is still huge and it does take ages to browse through all the tiles, as well as you have over 4000 tiles to consider using when you want to make an area, and that’s a huge amount of tiles to have in mind ;P. Generally, the set fared much better in this category then I expected it to, however, and it compels me to consider using it should I ever want to make more gigantic single player levels.

Overall, if you have TSF – even if you don’t ever use it – you should still download this set regardless. It is a unique set (not so unique now that there’s a 1.23 version of it out, but ;P) that offers a LOT. You can’t ignore the amount of work that was put into this masterpiece, and even with the high expectations I have of Disguise tilesets, I was still quite stunned the first time I saw this.

I think this deserves a 9.6 for its efforts. I really hope that this tileset will be used in several levels, and that there are levelmakers out there who can meet and overcome the challenge of using such a large tileset. Congratulations for making this wisey ;P (I’d say happy birthday too if I wasn’t 3 years late with this review ;))

~Blacky

Death Cild*? Is this a different user?

Anyway here is the review.

LEVEL – The Journey of Jazz

EYECANDY:

There was a lot more Eyecandy than in the previous version. However it made it hard for me to see were to go in the “Cave of the CRATE.” 6/10

GAMEPLAY:

Basically just hit all the Trigger Crates. Find one in the cave and then get to the exit. This is OK but as Janus says destroying crates all the time is not so much fun. I stopped playing after about 2 minutes coz it just got a bit repetitive. 6/10

OBSTACLES/ENEMIES:

There were lots of obstacles. Only I think there was a bit too many. Try to reduce the number of Trigger Crates to be buttstomped. The Cave was really hard but couldn’t see the way to go coz of the background. 6/10

PICKUPS:

There was some. TNT at the beginning to destroy some of the crates. But no other uses for it. 4/10

MUSIC:

I think the music was pretty good. Never heard it before. Goes quite well with the level. 7.5/10

BONUSSES:

I shall give you an extra 0.5 for effort and for trying to make the level better.

TOTAL = 29.5/50
CALCULATING 29.5 / 5 = 5.9
Rounded to 6.
FINAL SCORE: 6 + 0.5 = 6.5

DR = N/A
Yes requires 7.

What the hell is this? I’m sorry, we’re not supposed to be negative. But seriously, what the hell is this. By “this”, I am reffering to the remix name. Perhaps you wanted to achieve the greatest misnomer in remix history, in which case you succeded.

One does not simply make the music horribly loud, toss in something resembling an electric gutair and remove the iconic voice that made the original so damn awesome and call it “improved”.

The great boss music get’s its life sucked out of it by this remix. It’s that terrible. It nearly made me want to hate the original music for all eternity.

And whats up with the drums? The drums force the lead gutair (which is what does the actual song) into the backseat they’re that loud.

Even worse somewhere after the 30 second mark for about 10 seconds the song slows down nearly grinding to a halt.

Don’t get me started on having to turn the volume down from a suitable 100 (to which I listened to Eggman’s remix yesterday) to an 8. That was the maximum volume to could be without pounding my ears. And I was wearing normal style headphones. It’s nightmarish to think how it would have been listening to this at 100 unknowingly, while wearing earbuds.

Download recommendation?
No, instead I recommend hitting the back button and never return to this page ever again. Especially when theres a truly improved boss remix here
done by Lark. It does everything this remix tries to do but with one twist- Lark’s remake is highly superior and sounds great.

These maps are very nice, but there is one, what is annoying me;x
Monochrome Mutilation or Sober.
Anyway, you did good job. Eyecandy, originality(I can’t tell anything about sound, cause actually I don’t have it on PC:/) etc.

[Rating (8.7) clearance. There was no actual support given for the rating. ~Cooba]

Uhh..9.8? Sorry, but no.

The gametype is…interesting, I guess. Too bad this can never be played in multiplayer for so many reasons, and the requirements to play this are…limiting.

However, the levels are better than I expected. Tileset use is decent and eyecandy is average, but at least everything tiles.

The levels are fairly small and consist of random platforms (Dreamland), or long, flat ground (Megatropolis). There’s no pickups or anything, but in the gametype these levels tried to execute i guess you don’t need them.

One thing you couldve done is put freeze enemies (with quick respawn time) in the hiding spots. When you’re frozen by them in multiplayer your name vanishes and others cant see you, so with that at least these levels would’ve worked….somewhat.

Otherwise, these are pretty much levels for young children to play with their siblings, for lack of a better descriptions ;P. Definately not worth a 9.8, however, ugh =P.

I felt like reviewing again, so I review this level called ’7k CTF’ which is a funny coincidence because the level size is a bit more than 7 kb. And that’s actually weird with this level size. Oh well, let’s start.

Layout

The first thing you notice when playing this level is that the level is very long but not that high. Birdie explained why in the level description, and levels with this kind of layout are usually a bit linear. It’s not a big problem, but it can annoy people sometimes. If you look at the level in JCS you’ll also notice that the level only has a few platforms. There are 5 platforms in the sky and the rest is just one platform that’s extremely big. It’s not like it’s a bad thing, though. The level is balanced and symmetrical, which is always a good thing in my opinion.

Other gameplay

The level plays pretty fast, even with this size. The flow isn’t perfect, but you don’t bump against walls all the time. The level has some open spaces, and also some cramped/closed ones. RFs and Seekers are really good in the open spaces, like left and right from the carrot. The carrot can’t be camped, but it can be moved and shot down. Even when it’s shot down it’s impossible to camp it, which is a good thing. In other places of the level you can camp though. But it’s almost impossible to prevent people from camping, so I won’t distract it from the rating.

Eye candy and tileset use

The tileset used is Space by Blade, which has pretty good eye candy. Too bad CelL already used a lot of things of the tileset in his levels(Like All Your Base CTF and ToXaNi-StArWaVe CTF or something) but Birdie tried to be original and succeeded.. sort of. He put lots of black tiles in the walls, and I haven’t seen them a lot in levels with this tileset. However, if you play this level you get a divide by zero error sometimes. I don’t know why it happens, but it happens in levels like Quasar Quandary and The Chasm as well. Maybe there is too much sprite layer eye candy or something.. meh. The amount of eye candy tiles used isn’t that much, but it’s decent. Birdie could have used layer 5 more and put other stuff in the sprite layer though. The eye candy is decent, but not like the eye candy in All Your Base CTF where CelL put lots of stuff in layer 4 too but it was more randomized and there was much stuff in the walls.

Ammo and Power-Up placement

The ammo is placed in some creative shapes which is always good to see. There is enough ammo for everyone, and the choices of ammo are nice as well. About the Power-Ups.. there are four of them, which is acceptable in a level of this size. The Power-Ups in the level are, in my opinion, the best Power-Ups of the game(Toaster, Bouncer, RF, Seek) and every Power-Up has his own room which is actually pretty cool. There is no Fast Fire in the level which is actually pretty good because Bouncers are powerful with Fast Fires in this level.

Carrot placement

Only one Full Energy that’s impossible to camp here. I think 2 +1 carrots and a Full Energy would have been nice too, but at least you don’t get people who camp at the carrot because they can’t. They can still guard the carrot and kill the opponent if the person who guards the carrot has enough skill. You get shot up if you try to camp it, and that’s a nice method that prevents people from camping it.

Overall, I think this is a nice level with some ideas but unfortunately the level hasn’t got a very creative layout which is a con. I think this level was underrated so that’s why I felt like I wanted to review it, so be happy I did it ;)

Anyway, I give this level a 7.5 and a download recommendation. You can host it if you want. In my server I host all kinds of CTF/Battle levels so this level might be hosted as well.

The JJ1 boss tune turned into…..well….lets just start the review.

Good points….well….the song does sound a bit better with the new sounds. The bass has improved and the guitar sounds more real.

Bad points. Nothing has changed about the song. The arrangement is the same. The tune and the bass is the same. This is just a sample change and nothing more. And though sounding a bit more energised, I feel that the drums is a lot quieter and inexpressive than it should be.

GOOD POINTS:

Improved bass
Guitar sounds more real

BAD POINTS:

Nothing changed
Inexpressive drums

RATING: 3.4
RANK: 3 Very Bad
DOWNLOAD: No

EDIT: Infact, all samples were inexpressive.

I saw some very minor good stuff, but I also saw one thing which prevents me from rating this. Bare in mind, the line between inspiration and outright theft is crossed here. Now I feel like playing QoB

Ok, I’m just going to even things out here and state all the negative things I’ve heard people say about this level (nothing too specific):

1. They say they keep smashing into things and it feels claustrohpobic

2. The eyecandy leaves more to be desired

3. The level feels crowded

Okay now I argue the first one is simply due to the player simply not being used to the layout, as well as the player is too used to levels with large platforms with unrestricted space to hop around randomly in. The layout has to be learned. Yes, there are more spacious levels out there, but this level does not give the ‘tunnel’ feel nor does it have extremely small passages.

The second one is more subject to opinion. Blur set a standard for this set that everyone currently follows, and the level is judged according to that standard. Which could be a mistake as there are some more unique things done to the eyecandy to appriciate (look at blackraptors review above for specific info).

Taken from Traftons review this one was the last comment I’d expect about the level. Since I am used to so many levels that use this set with the ‘complex eyecandy’ approach; It didn’t feel crowded at all to me.

Yeah, so that wasn’t exactly a typical review. Sue me.

[Rating (8.8) clearance. There wasn’t enough support for such a high rating aside from lots of arguing with other players and reviewers. ~Cooba]

Uhh sorry, but this is definately not an 8.4 level.

The level looks pretty…average in eyecandy. Some parts look pretty empty while others look like they have random stuff tacked on, and the backround is pretty boring although that might be the fault of the tileset. The water in the small pools isn’t even in layer 3 and the splash doesn’t tile with the surface of the water. Otherwise, I expected a lot better ec from a level this highly rated.

The level is symmetrical, but the layout looks interesting. I really don’t like the deathtrap at the +1 carrots though (the deadend, rather ;P). The vines are also annoying, you should’ve just taken them out since they slow you down and don’t serve any purpose.

Ammo is placed alright, not overly creative or anything but not bad either. Powerups are where you expect them to be, and the seeker powerup is placed nicely imo.

The carrot placement is a mixed bag, really. The +1 carrots are placed in dead ends and makes you wonder if it’s worth it to risk getting them or not. The full energy is creatively yet annoyingly placed. You need ice ammo to get it, and need to freeze two springs. That pretty much crushes any chance you have of making a quick getaway with the carrot before your opponents kill you, and i’d imagine it would be pretty hard as the flagholder to have enough time to bypass the carrot camper, freeze the springs to get the carrot and run without getting hit, unless the camper is just an idiot =P. I probably wouldnt’ve minded if you only needed to freeze the top blue spring and the green spring was taken out, but it makes it annoying in its current state. Basically, all the carrots manage to be deathtraps at the same time as being essential.

Overall, this level features some interesting things and the carrot placement might inspire someone to make something like it but less annoying, but this level also suffers from a lot of bugs and mistakes, and doesn’t particularly excel high enough in anything to score over 8. I’m giving this a 7.3, and this is completely overrated.
~Blacky