Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Here comes my first review for a long time.

{Eye Candy} [8.5]
This probably is the best part of the level. I like the mountains and especially the clouds. Sometimes I can’t really see the difference between Layer 5 roads and walkable roads, though. Don’t make this messy.

{GamePlay} [4.2]
So you can score in 10 seconds. Wow. The
level is a bit Blue biased, since it’s a lot easier to defend the blue base on the top-left, than the red base on the bottom-right. It’s fine for duels, but absolutely biased for #vs#‘s. And it’s easy to fall down just by accident. And those accidents happen a LOT. The bases are out in the open, leading in easy scores.

{Stuff Placement} [7.0]
No minus points for the seek powerup, since this is an open level that gives a chance for easy dodging. I’m more concerned about the CARROTS. The top-right carrot is so easy to camp. The bottom-left could be a Full Energy. Or to speak, there should be no two +1’s, have a full energy instead. Especially since this has this seek powerup. One seek hit gives two damage and you need to go first to bottom left, then to top right to full heal. By then, you would already have died. And the seek powerup is in an enclosed area, resulting in NO! That’s so easy to camp it’s painful.

{Originality} [6.5]
The enclosed area powerup placing is used so many times I can download something else and see it.

AVERAGE {TOTAL} [6.5]
This was a total letdown of XLM. I didn’t like this level. Considering this is a XLM level, I can’t believe they make levels this bad. 6.5! No Download Recommendation (unless you want to review it, of course)

EDITEDIT: No download recommendation? I swear i put N/A in it…

YUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK! This Is The Baddes’t Level I Ever Seen!!!!!

Layer 1 : Empty And Unused

Layer 2 : Also Emty And Unused

Layer 3 : EMPTY!!!

Layer 4 : A Very Stupid Mix Of Tiles
And VERY SHORT
Layer 5 : EMPTY!!!

Layer 6 AND 7 EMPTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Backround Layer 8 :
A Very Bad Backround

EYECANDY ALSO BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!!!!

SUXXXXXXXXXXX!!!!!!!!!!!!

~Jarno

Not going to review this, but you wanted to know if there was someone who used fog in a level before. Well, the answer is yes.
N0B0DY used fog in a level too; check his upload ‘Project Fog’ for it. Be sure it’s N0B0DY and not Nobody. K? K.

…
(BLANK REVIEW rating (10) removal. ~Violet)

Well nice Idea!
To the Author’s question:
I can’t remember that anyone has done something like a fog in a level.
Just: Great idea I will use this in one of my next levels too!;
+3 Bonus Points!

Technical: The Author has made the Background Tiles (Sky) Transculent, placed it on Laayer 1 or 2 and seted a slow auto speed to the -> direction.

I just played through it and saw how good the Colonial tileset was used. I never use this tileset because I cant built something out of it.
Then the Fog in the Foreground together with low lightning makes a dark area just very dark. With my Eyes, i had to get closer to the Monitor for seeing something in the Dark area of the Level.

The Size: Well, the levels size is, in my opinion, a bit to small. But for using the set so good I think it is an Ok Level.
7.5 Points!

Just find out how to use J2Ov2 colors in reviews!

I already know there’s a different nobody just after about a few days after I registered

I’m the first reviewer of this level. Yeah!!!

Now for the review…

Monster Bash Conversion:

Monster Bash is an excellent tileset. The eyecandy isn’t good but, it is good for a
DOS tileset conversion. I think it is very good. I think everyone should download it. The eyecandy is things like skulls, gravestones,skeletons,ladders,treasure chests and skull flags etc.I won’t rate the example level but, it is anexcellent example level. My conclusion is this is a very good tileset. Keep up the good work LRK!

Download Recommendation: Yes!

Overall Rating for the Tileset: 8.0

A very good and accurate tileset from Duke Nukem 2. I am going to have to bug you on telling you to do more of DN2. This is absoluty good!

Too bad JJ2 does not use ladder features, otherwise, that would be cool with this tileset.

in the registered version, there is a brig level in each episode. most of them have other features. the shareware episode level is the only level to use the jail background.

A very good download to make a level out of.

Just to let you know, this is a diffrent nobody.

I must say it goes here about a great conversion of the old Prince of Persia game! Why nobody did review this, I don’t understand. Anywayz:
Eyecandy:
Emm, hard to say :-P that’s because the original hadn’t that much eyecandy, too! But what I’ve found are some good things. Skeletons, a sword, poles, spikes, a door… He just looks like the original!! (I cant stop with saying that =D )

I tell you, it’s a great conversion. You must download this. If you play Prince of Persia 5 or something, and never seen how it started, you really have to download.

For this great tileset conversion, I must give an 8. I can’t make it lower…
And a download recommedation!
Carrotpie

P.S. Hey Dx! Maybe this is something for your TT3?? =D

PHT, big rocks are a (crap) decoration FYI. ;p

Note: Chateau (French) means: Castle

Review follows later…

Satan is finally back with a review! and I can say that this is one of the better levels using Diamondus beta.

Gameplay: rating: 8.5
This level is pretty fun to play because there are many logical and fun things in this level. For example there are no dead ends at all. Also the level isn’t just platforms putten randomly in the air but full of places to investigate and run around. Also there are trees where you can stand on wich make the level more fun. The flow is also really well done, there are no irritating area float ups, also there are one ways where it should be. Ok and something really important: The level isn’t Spaz baised GG. There is also a secret warp which makes the level more fun and there are a lot of vines wich I like.

Leveldesign: rating: 8.5
The leveldesign is also really good in this level. The level isn’t just flat and platformy but it’s full of hills and hight levels. In the ground there are also brakes. Also ouside the range of the player there is ground and caves and that sort of stuff. The leveldesign is really like a outside world far away of humanity where little bunny’s fight each other.

Placement: rating: 8.3
The placement is also really well done. There are multiple groups of ammo spread out in the entire level and that’s good because I have seen levels which there is too much ammo on one spot, but not in this level. There are many powerups in the level and that’s ok because it’s a battle. Most of the powerups are not easy to get like the Seeker powerup and the RF powerup but Toaster and Bouncy is yours for the taking. There are also some fast fires and that’s also well placed. There is one thing I don’t like about the placement of the level and that’s the full energy carrot, since it’s a small level a full energy isn’t needed here and specially in battle a Full energy isn’t well, I prefer 2 1+ energy carrot on each side of the level. Last but not least the springs are very well placed and get’s me where I want to go and don’t bump me in walls. Good job!

Eyecandy: rating: 8.9
Finally we are at the best aspect of the level ‘‘THE EYECANDY’‘. The eyecandy is really good in this level. There are mountains in the background and that looks nice. There are also flowers, mushrooms, waterfalls, trees, diamonds, caves, bushes, falling leaves, water and it all looks great together. The animations are just perfect and the level is a pleasure for the eye. I think the eyecandy is just as good as ‘Garden Brawl’ by FiresworD. A really good job Booshi!

Extra stuff:
-Nope

Final rating: 8.5+8.5+8.3+8.9=34,2->-> 34,2:4=*8.6*

-Satan

Edit: since there are many powerups it’s good that there is a Full energy so I raise the level 0.1.

i Don’t Need This Download
I Have All Music’s

DESIGN/GAMEPLAY:
What is this?!‘s level design is (for the most part) built out of tunnels through walls instead of platforms in the sky, a choice which I approve of immensely and vastly prefer. The level appears to be divided into several parts – outside, temple and cave, all placed logically – and each location has a design which is roughly believable, if man or nature ever built the world to be used as a battling arena. The level is somewhat horizontally based in places, suggesting that it indeed was once intended to be a CTF level, but this is not a bad thing at all and it’s always nice to have a passageway which is more than five tiles wide. (Platform based levels are often guilty of never having passageways, unless forced to by moving up against the top or bottom of the level.)
In any case, the level design is somewhat complicated, so it takes a while to figure out which places can go to which others, and which way sucker tubes point. (You wouldn’t expect sucker tubes to work in this environment, but somehow they feel like yes, they should be there.) After some minutes of playing the level you should get an idea of what’s going on, but it can take a little while, partly due to the intense graphics which I’ll mention later.
Once you’re used to the level, of course, the fun really begins. The weapons are well chosen – each of the available powerups (Seekers, RF’s and Bouncers) have special areas of the level where they’re the most useful, even the RF’s which are usually left out in the cold and random. There is enough open space in the upper right and long space in the middle that the missiles can have a decent change of actually hitting someone for a change in situations besides melee battles where other attacks would work just as well. Coupled with the occasional wall put up between areas, causing you to take a specific set of passages, the end result is a very nice feeling level where you may actually have to think about what you’re doing.
(NOTE: Gameplay for this level has only been tested in a 2-4 player type scenario. Balance may vary significantly with more players as certain spots may or may not become focal (perhaps the powerups). Still, I liked what I did see.)
PROS: Inventive mix of Battle/CTF layouts, I particularly enjoy the upper left area.
CONS: Small masking bug at one point, I don’t really like the upper right area very much (and it was mostly untouched in gameplay).
RATING: 8.7

EYECANDY:
Before you can get used to the twisty level design, you will be struck by the enormous level of eyecandy What is this?! has to offer. Every layer is crammed full of beautiful sights – five distinct layers are used with X and Y speeds set to 1, and in a great number of cases they’re all used in one spot! Everywhere you go there are twists, trees, different backgrounds, complicated walls, bushes, blocks, caves, vines and a thousand other decorations. Layer 3 in JCS looks great even if you have no idea what it’s going to do.
Many levels with lots and lots of eyecandy fall into the trap of obscuring the level design (see: virtually any level made using “Swamps of the Sleeping Jaguar”), and this happens a little in certain spots, but for the most part you can still see the level beneath the finery. I do have a few complaints – it’s hard to tell what’s a vine and what isn’t – but most stuff seems logical and you could spend a long time looking at the trees.
PROS: Everything looks great, you can tell a lot of work was spent on this level.
CONS: A tiny bit overcomplicated in some areas, and some people might complain that nothing moves. (Moths work in multiplayer, right?)
RATING: 9.1

PLACEMENT:
This is always somewhat hard to review, as it’s difficult to tell what’ll be enough ammo with more players than I tested it with. In any case, there is quite a lot of ammo in the level, all easy enough to get, and in some interesting formations (again, see the upper left corner). Everything seemed to respawn at about the right speed (maybe a little bit fast? hard to tell), and I don’t think I ever really ran out of anything. There were a few complaints which I’ll outline in cons, but nothing too serious.
As for other stuff… there are two carrots that I remember seeing, both pretty well placed. I quite enjoyed the bottom right one, which just felt… right. It felt like yes, that is exactly where a carrot should be. The other carrot is also good, allowing for much strategic shooting as you prevent your opponents from healing up. Finally, there are the normal three powerups (no toaster, which makes sense as toaster isn’t too useful in this level somehow).
PROS: Everything looks good to me.
CONS: Seeker powerup is the easiest to get, one or two annoying springs, and of course… there’s only one start position. Ouch.
RATING: 8.4

OVERALL:
In case the rest of this review didn’t give you the idea, I quite enjoy Newspaz’s What is this?!, and can only suggest that the rest of you download it as well. It’s still extremely early, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was one of the best levels of 2005, even though it could use a more start positions. The filename is j2lcdunno1, indicating that there might be a sequel… yes, please.
PROS: It’s a great level, ok?
CONS: A few small bugs I mentioned during the review.
RATING: 9.0

Yeah! Different level types from official ones! Backgrounds and foregrounds are good looking, and gameplay is fun! Difficult but not annoyingly! Only i didn’t like the tubeelectric level, -i dunno why, i think it’s not a good choice of tileset! Also the end boss was very very easy, could be more difficult, because the whole pack is more difficult, then you wait a hard-to-beat end boss but there are no platforms, and there’s a wiiiide area and you’re loosing yourself while running! :)
Consequently, Devans Gone is a non-classical and fun-to-play level pack! Download reccommendation? Yeeessss! ;)

Very good level.
Gameplay was very good.
Eyecandy rocks!
Enemy placment was perfect.
Music fits very well.
Boss was nice.
Very big level.
Download recommedation:Of course!!! ~9.5

Very bad level.
(Unsupported rating (0.1) removal. ~Violet)

Devans Gone
Since everyone else seems to be too damn lazy to review this pack and also because I don’t have anything better to do, I’ll review this singleplayer pack. I only played the normal levels, and I’ll review this at once, because I don’t have much time. Behold.

EYECANDY: 2.1 out of 2.5
Well, the eyecandy in this pack is certainly good for the tilesets used. I really like natural tilesets, and this pack contains much of them (Diamondus, Jungle, etc.). The eyecandy actually contained some original things, like the standard background trees from Diamondus used in the sprite foreground. Overall, I can say the eyecandy is very good, but sometimes it’s a little too much. This is especially in the Jungle level, where the path you need to take in the trees is blocked by leaves, as well as the enemies. Could be better.

PLACEMENT: 1.2 out of 1.5
The placement is really one of the best things of this pack. There are just enough carrots to stay alive (and this is really necessary since all the levels are crammed with enemies) and the save-point placement is also OK, other developers could learn from this! Now on with the ammo: much of the ammo is placed randomly in crates, and I like that. There are also a few powerups (including seeker, which is quite necessary to get through the harder levels) Once you open the level is JCS, you’ll see that there are much easy/hard events which is a good point. Nice job.

ENEMIES: 0.8 out of 1.0
It seems like Devan didn’t take his friends with him when he left, since all levels are filled up with enemies. Most of them are turtles, but also salamanders and other forms of unwanted life forms. Luckily there are enough carrots to keep you alive and also enough save points. This level would be very good if you want to shoot all your problems away!

STRUCTURE & GAMEPLAY: 4.3 out of 5.0
Let’s get down to business with the most serious factor of this pack: the gameplay and structure. Well, I can say that this has been worked out pretty fine. The structure is very nice overall, closed in some levels (the jungle one) and very open in other levels (the labrat level) The gameplay gets a huge bonus because there are three different levels of difficulty which adds lots of replay value. Overall, this pack doesn’t take long to finish (one big hour should be enough) The structure itself feels good enough and there are much original things to find. The music files fit nice to the levels, by the way.

RATINGS:
Nobody did a good job with this level pack. The originality, overload of enemies and different difficulty levels make this pack the best Singe player Pack in 2005 so far (the only one too, I believe, but it says something) The episode is not really long and the storyline is not very interesting, but I could describe it as “short but shocking” and that is something we need, don’t we?

Score: 2.1 + 1.2 + 0.8 + 4.3 = 8.4
Download: Yeah. See above for reasons.
Host: Perhaps in Co-op, yes.

Greetings,
~ ChippieBW of [si] and XLM

I will review this too. I don’t review every CTF level, but this is one of them.
Introduction to XLM Owned Town: the level name is surprising me. This level uses the Townsville II Night version, and I haven’t seen many levels with it. I made one with the Day version of this tileset. You misspelled ChippieBW’s name in the credits! It’s a small level made for XLM. Oh, I forgot to tell who made it. CrashMash made the level. =P

It’s easy to run around in this level. The flow is good, some float-ups help you getting around easily in the level. The level’s layout is fine, it’s nothing special. There is some good spring placement in some places. The level is a bit squared-off, and has some slope bugs.(I can’t run off the slopes without falling off them)The level is pretty open, you can be chased with RF’s, but there are some ways to each base. The base placement is pretty simple, but it works. The Blue Base is on the top-left of the level. The Red Base is on the bottom-right of the level. It’s good balanced in some places, there is no big advantage. The bases can be guarded, but it’s not like in Zaitox. That means it’s possible not to be killed if you ever play in it. CrashMash said that this is a 2v2/duel level, and I can understand it a bit because of the size. The level has some Spaz biasing, I noticed that when I played with Jazz in CM’s server.

The eye candy is above average. Every layer is used. Layer 1 and 2 provide rain, layer 3 has almost nothing. Layer 4 has some houses and trees. Layer 5 has the most stuff. It provides bricks, houses, other ways(this time not in layer 3) and also some trees. This is good enough for the tileset, as it doesn’t have very much eye candy. I don’t have many other comments about the eye candy, so I guess it’s just quite good. The background(s) of the level provide mountains and clouds. Layer 8 is just sky, but that’s pretty basic.

Some thing that isn’t very bad but needs some work, is the placement. The level has some boring shapes of ammo like the 2×2 +3 ammo. Some other shapes are some lines on the ground. This level has, instead of a Full Energy, 2 +1 carrots. Some of the last levels I’ve seen had also no Full Energy, but this is still decent. The +1 carrots are placed at 15,54 and 74,4. The Red team has to go down for the carrot at 15,54 and go right for the other one, and the Blue team has to go left for the one at 15,54 and up for the other one. This isn’t a bad idea, I can’t say I dislike something about it. There is one power-up in the level, the Seek PU. If you get in a tube(starting from 59,30), you will go to another place with a tube, and after that, you’re at the Seek PU and should go to the top-right of that area(but you could also camp) There is no Gun9 in the level, which prevents that players get the Seek PU without entering the warp. The choices of ammo are fine. The biggest flaw of the placement is probably that you can camp at the Seek PU and the boring shapes of ammo. There is enough ammo for everyone. Maybe some fast fires would be nice(like 2 or 3)

The level’s music fits the level, and I’ve never heard it before. There aren’t many levels with this tileset. The level has an interesting name, but I can’t say the level owns that much. It’s just an average level by a XLM member. So I can’t say the level is really original.

Ratings:
Gameplay: 6.7
Eye candy: 7.9
Placement: 7
Originality: 6.5
Overall: 6.7 + 7.9 + 7 + 6.5 : 4 = 7.025, which is rounded down to a 7.
Download this: Hmm, maybe. It’s better than alot of CTF levels.
Host: Maybe once.
I’ll give N/A for Download Recommendation.
-DarkSnc[si], co-leader of XLM.