Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

23,000 miles away is one of those rare sequels that seems to be better than the original, encompassing all the best features of the previous episode – decent levels, lots of secrets, inventive ideas and no storyline at all – and adding them into new tilesets and new levels. I was a bit worried by Tubelectric, which was short and uninteresting, but the levels got bigger and better from there on out. The levels in this pack are still probably a little shorter than your average single player level, but there are several, and they all play well. Significantly fewer bugs than last time, and better eyecandy as well, though there were still some dull aspects.
This is just good in general, so it’s hard to find complaints, but I do have three. The levels are a little too short, some of the secrets (containing major stuff like powerups and shields) are a bit too easy to find, and there’s a general lack of story. I saw no real reason to be playing these levels otehr than the author having fun with different tilesets. Oh well. The levels could also use some more food and gems.
EDIT: Oh! The wrong Candion conversion was included in the .zip. Bad. Rating decreased to 7.9.

Huh. What we have here is a very nice single player pack, and it’s only part one. The levels all have their own individual style, and feel more or less like they belong in that tileset. Lagunicus has a lot of caves, Dreempipes is more trigger based, Diamondus is simple and flattish, etc. However, none of the levels are really all that remarkable, and there’s no apparent story, so this is not too much more than a collection of decent single player levels, all using JJ1 tilesets.
What the author lacks in level design ingenuity, he tries to make up for in flashy special effects. Strange sucker tube arrangements, fun secrets, dropping bombs, and even bonus levels add to the replay value of this pack, which alternates between normal gameplay and interesting diversions.
Unfortunately, the levels are not perfect. The eyecandy is not bad, but a lot more could have been done with the tilesets, causing some parts of the levels to look rather bland. There were also a number of tile bugs that I spotted – for examples, the slopes aren’t masked correctly in Lagunicus, and everything looks wrong underwater in Dreempipes. The last level incorrectly links to JJ16.j2l, instead of the boss level included. So there are a few problems.
Still, this is fun enough to play at least once, and how many good single player levels have you seen uploaded lately? This should help the wait for TDI2, or TR2, or FSP, or whatever sequel you happen to be waiting for.

Interesting, but blinding. “The Deadly Light” undoubtedly refers to the background, which looks almost pure white, and is very rarely obscured. The level has so much open space that you are always forced to stare into the pain that is layer 8. Bad move.
So, the level has a lot of open space. This is because it’s composed of a lot of squarish platforms placed so they’re reachable, but not easily. This is not all the author’s fault, as slopes in this tileset are kind of missing, but it’s still annoying. If you climb up all the tiny platforms and make your way through the obstacles, you reach a 100 coin warp which can take you to a room filled with ammo of all sorts. However, why would you want to? The ammo respawning speed is so incredibly fast, so you should have an ample supply of that, and all the good stuff is at the bottom anyway. At the bottom right of the level lies four carrots, an RF powerup, some seekr ammo, and an unguarded Plasma shield. Simply put, there is nothing else in the level worthy of looking at compared to this tiny spot. Why should anyone leave it? What’s the point of the rest of the level?
Eyecandy is pretty dismal. The bottom of the level actually doesn’t look that bad, with wooden platforms coming out of the water, but the rest of layer 4 is minimal, layer 8 is blinding, and there’s no background eyecandy at all. The author did try in some spaces, and that’s good, but it often didn’t work out.
The level is also extremely buggy. First, there’s the awful lack of balance I mentioned earlier where everything of value is in the bottom right corner. Second, there’s the open level borders, with springs and stuff right next to them. Third, there is both a gem ring and lots and lots of freeze ammo. The first person to not like this level will shoot the gem ring, and the server will crash. Not a good combination. Last, the thing showing the position of the coin warp is actually a bonus warp, which will try to take you to the secret level if you shoot it. Was this level tested at all? I can only suggest that you don’t download it.

My first level was alot worse, it was made in somewhere early 1999/or late 1998. i dont remember exact day :P

Late review time. “Mystic Isle” by Moonblaze is an average tileset which attempts to look classic game style, but doesn’t really make it happen. Let’s take a look.

GRAPHIC QUALITY: Moonblaze uses an 8-bit drawing style, which I approve of, but which only works so well in cases like this. Some things look good – the vines and gems especially – but the main part of the tileset, the ground itself, suffers a little. Simply put, the ground is ugly. The grass isn’t too bad, though kind of dull, but the soil is a single shade of unknown-color, and that doesn’t work. It kind of looks like a resized version of Swamps, but not as good. I really wanted to see some sort of soil texture here, as a single color rarely works. Ironically, the next level setting lead to Colonius, which uses the technique much better.
Meanwhile, as I said, a lot of things look good. All the brown vine stuff is very nice to look at, and if the rest of the tileset looked like that, it would be great. The green wood, though, poles and sucker tubes, ends up looking like a simple gradient with no variety, and it’s all flat surfaces. Not too appealing to look at. Rocks are a mixed bag, and the wooden platforms look pretty good, though again a little too small.
Pros: Very nice vine stuff, wooden platforms not too bad, gems are cool.
Cons: Soil is pretty ugly, too many straight lined gradients.
Rating: 6.6

MASKING: High marks here. Everything is masked perfectly, and the author even was nice enough to create some cool rock-leaning-against-wall structures which the player can walk up and down upon. There are really only two masking parts I’m not thrilled with. The giant glowing white gem tiles are automasked, which could cause stucking troubles in some levels, and the big mask message messes up a lot of the background eyecandy tiles which could otherwise be used for fun stuff. I’m also concerned that the wooden platform tiles may be masked a little thin, but that’s not a big issue.
Pros: Mostly good, the leaning rock stuff is fun.
Cons: A few automask issues, and the wooden platforms may be too thin.
Rating: 7.8

ORIGINALITY/VARIETY: There is very little to set this tileset apart from any other nature tileset, and especially from others that Moonblaze has made. The gem stuff is kind of cool, but there’s little reason other than that to use this, as almost everything in Mystic Isle is available in Swamps, only bigger and better. Isle is designed for a certain level (or set of levels… whatever) in TDI2, but other than that, it’s not too interesting.
As for variety… well, the tileset does offer a number of things. Basic ground, tiny wooden platforms, cave eyecandy (with no tile support at ALL – you have to use layer 5), event tiles, and fun gem stuff. I am, however, missing slopes. The basic ground has no slopes, unless you count the tilted rocks, which would become really old after seeing even two of them in a row. Levels made with this tileset will feel squared off, which is really pretty annoying.
Pros: Decent environment, lots of cool eyecandy things, well-made background eyecandy, etc.
Cons: Bad slope situation, and little that is new or different.
Rating: 7.5

TILE PLACEMENT: Pretty much everything in the tileset is placed logically, though there are a few random eyecandy tiles which should probably be placed closer to their base. Having the hook inserted horizontally is also kind of weird.
Rating: 8.0

OVERALL: This is not a bad tileset, but it’s hideously overrated, and kind of boring. If you want to have fun with single player and weird triggers and in-depth storylines, this tileset might be good, but for most levels there are better options out there. Still, it’s well put together and has a lot of features. A mixed bag.
Pros: Cool stuff, not badly drawn for the most part, especially as it was done in Paint.
Cons: No normal slopes, some tiles look kind of ugly, particularly the soil itself.
Rating: 7.2

(Edit: Hi, Moonblaze. If you check my review you’ll see that I noticed your tilted rocks, and said that they would look really boring if you had several in a row. I’ll admit that I didn’t mention the bridge things, but you’ll also notice that I said “the BASIC GROUND”, not “NO SLOPES AT ALL”.)

My first level was about this quality.

Lol my first one: DX WALLCLIMB LVL or MOONLIGHT OF DX {DC} they sux.

It doesn’t work with my windows xp. Add windows xp support please!

First off this level was a waste on my harddrive ;( Second, like fearofdark said, one tile. No eyecandy what so ever. And I dont liek the idea “host gets all power” although it sounds fun :DDD but you cant even play it online, as Alex stated, it gives amnesia errors. Probably too many trig scenery to handle O.o No rating from me. sorry. If I did give a rating it would be rather low.

I only downloaded this for the music ;D and I play a few levels and it was rather suxful ;( (Dx use Overlord) :))))))))

My one was even worse. w00t

PHT, next time check level name and its description, so you don’t have to whine like hell.

Accuracy
I can’t thing anything wrong with this. This edit is pretty much accurate, except for three changed things. First of all, it takes more time to destruct a block, which slows gameplay down horrendously. Green springs nearby the copter are put in a pit, instead like they were put between slopes. People barely use those springs, though. And, this has RF powerup instead of shield.

Eyecandy
What strikes me are tilebugs in ground. They’re usual in Dx’s Carrottus levels, and became rather boring quickly. And they’re ugly moreso. Other than that, this features some caves, lavafalls (some fall slower than ones falling nearby, which looks plain ugly), wooden platforms, and some plants. AND a buggy background eyecandy thing which doesn’t look correct at all, because trees don’t tile in some places.

erm… one question to Olsen, if you try to get the average, how do you get 8.7 out of 8.7, 8.5 and 8? :)

Cooba, PLEASE FORGIVE ME I DIDN’T NOTICE THE DESCRIPTION! .

Okay, i claim first review.

NOTE: i will not review gameplay, cause you have played battle1 huh?

Okay, lets start!

Eyecandy: 8.7

I must say, this looks great. First i didnt recognised that i was battle1. But after a few moments running around and checking out the level i saw it. It looks wounderful! Good job!

Whats more to rate on a eyecandy modification? Well, i think i´ll rate originality too. Eyecandy originality.

Originality: 8.5

It looks like a mix between D#mn and Carrotus, well, it actually is a mix between D#mn and Carrotus.

Almost forgot

Music: 8

Yeah, i like the music.

Total: 8.7

Good Job!

[EDIT: added music rating]

Very usefull
(Unsupported rating (1.5) removal. Why on earth did you give this a 1.5, anyway? That makes no sense at all. ~Violet)

Yahoo!!!!!!!!

GREAT

I Love Puzzles
And Also All Puzzle Levels

I Have Played This Game In 1 Hour
Its GREATTTTTTTTTTTT

Review For The Level
= Muddy Apocalypse =

Wow THis Are Bettter Than That Other Battle Lev. I Mean It Its Great
Can You Also Make A Great Single Player Lev.

\/ I Hope It /\

I’ve Enojed Our Lev.

Make More From This Sort Great Battle Levels Them Are Amasing
All Levels From You Are Great

See Ya Online

~Jarno
(Unsupported rating (9.7) removal. While this review appears long, all you really managed to do was say this level is great. Good job. Please explain why it is great, and write enough about the level so that someone reading your review could get an idea of what the level is like. ~Violet)

Good Job Shader
THis Lev Are Great

Eyecandy Are Good Placed
And You Can Make Very Good Levels
( Battle )
Try To Make A Good Single Player Lev
I Play Them
~Jarno

No. I mean, no. This shows very little effort. The entire tileset uses maybe eight colors, seven of which are shades of gray. There is no real attempt at shading, and if you look at the example level, you’ll notice that several of the background layers use the exact same colors without even having outlines. The main problem is that there is only one tile for ground. There are also slope tiles, which are a different color, and don’t work with the ground. Most of the tileset is devoted to random eyecandy effects, like painfully flashing pumpkin faces (without even rounded edges), graves, and things I can’t really identify but would qualify as wells in some strange alternate universe. The best parts are probably the gate tiles, which use one color and are somewhat undetailed, but get away with it anyway. Masking is fine.
In essence, this tileset isn’t all that good. It needs more colors, more shading, and I think it would be good if the scale was upped to about 150%. The gates and stuff would look better and scarier if they were bigger than Jazz. (Jazz seems to do quite well in environments that are bigger than him – see Nature’s Ruins for example) It would also be nice if the tileset had more colors than gray. Gray gets really boring really quickly, and in all honesty, isn’t very scary. Take a look at Darkened Landscape for a better example of a Halloween color scheme.
Finally, this tileset is inferior to anything Disguise has ever made. Go figure.

This unusually engrish celebratory level is unquestionably intended to announce some sort of “Ten V’th Birthday” for Jazz, but precisely what numeral Ten.V is designed to represent is left unfortunately unclear. Jazz’s main birthday transpired several months previous to the present day, and the 10(.v?)th anniversary of HH94 and Jazz CD is not due for another twenty-four days. Thus, what possible meaning can be derived from the unappealing birthday known as 10.v? Perhaps that my language in this paragraph has been really annoying?

Anyway, in summary, I have no idea what this is the 10th birthday of. Maybe the author started playing Jazz ten years ago? That would be kind of cool. Let’s review the level.
Based on the level description and the end boss, this is a Single Player level, but it’s kind of hard to tell as there are no enemies of any kind. There are, in fact, only two real dangers. There’s a single three-tile-wide-pit-of-spikes which can be avoided with ease, and a drop to the bottom of the level which you are quite likely to fall into. You see, you are running along a small platform, and must fall off onto another small platform right below. If you miss the platform, you hit the bottom of the level. This is really poor planning, as there’s no indication that the author meant for this to happen.
Of course, now that I’ve said that, I find myself wondering exactly what the author did mean to happen. The level seems to be a simple romp through a brightly colored tribute to Jazz. The tileset choice is pretty good for that intention – “Jazz Paradise”, featuring fireworks, palm trees, pictures of Jazz, and various party stuff – but it would have been even cooler to see a tileset featuring pictures of Jazz’s more memorable adventures, plus really cool pictures of everyone. “Jazz’s greatest hits”, if you will. Unfortunately, I have no right to expect that from some as new to J2O as Cloud is, and I am left with a hop-skip-jump through Jazz Paradise. Which isn’t a bad thing, but isn’t perfect, either.
The main reason I’m not sure I like this non-difficult level is that without obstacles of any sort, the level becomes boring. I was unable to come up with any reason I was there. Devan appears at the end, controlling a Jazz clone (nice touch… pity they don’t work very well), which seems to give the impression of a plot. Where is the plot in the rest of the level? Actually, where was anything? There were no goodies, no cool stuff like springs or vines, pretty much no anything except for pinball events and warps. The warps don’t even work all that well – they all have the same WarpID.
Pretty much all that’s left to talk about for this level is the eyecandy. It’s not bad. More could probably have been done with the tileset – I’m not entirely sure who this “J A Z S” is, though we all seem to love him – but the author uses a large number of the available tiles, and most of the time there are no real errors. Some places look downright ugly – the area right after the belts, for example – while others manage to look quite nice. I still am not totally enthralled with the tileset, but it’s used fairly well. (Are the background layers stolen? They look like they might be.)
So, in summary…

PROS: Level is kind of fun if you have the right sort of brain, and the eyecandy’s not all that bad. It is also a good level for someone who seems new in the field.
CONS: Kind of boring, and the lack of plot confuses me. A few too many event use errors.
RATING: 3.9 should work. I may come back and change it later, as this level is something of a mixed bag. Add enemies, goodies and random objects and this level should be much better.

(It came to my attention on my second play through that the bottomless pit area I mentioned actually involves belts. You are supposed to stand still and let the belts carry you around safely. Still, the belts are way too slow, don’t work quite right, and you can fall off easily. Too bad.)