Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Your map is simply bad.

Very simple, no details added.
Very few enemies.
Bat sleeping in the air.
You can get to the top of the house easier if you perform a double jump with Spaz or use Jazz’s special power.
No new music.
The tileset is matching, but you built it bad, with lots of errors.
You can fall off the map at the limit of the ground.
Nothing exciting about it, it’s just a map for 2 years old to complete.

I’ll give 8 for encouragement, but I’d really give it like 6.
Can’t reccomend it.

Edit: For being a jerk, I’ll go down to 7. Just because I made a honest review of your map (Which is way worse than mine, everybody can confirm that) that doesn’t mean you have to leave a bad review for my map. Face the truth, your vengence via rating my map doesn’t bother me.

Edit 2: Back to 8 since Stijn removed your nonsense review. If you feel offended, please download the map, give it a shot then write a serious review, as I did to yours.

I always love seeing new Jazz1 levels being uploaded, especially when they include completely new worlds, not just new levels on existing planets. I’ve always preferred Jazz1 to Jazz2, and I think it catastrophically lacks in custom levels in comparison to its sequel.

So, about this level: it is great. It fits into the game perfectly, I find it has the same kind of layout used in regular Jazz levels, and the music not only fits the atmosphere of the level but sounds as if it has been written by Robert Allen specifically for Jazz Jackrabbit. The level is incredibly good looking, I love its atmosphere and eye candy is perfect.

I did not find the level too difficult, in fact I’d say it is easier than most custom Jazz1 levels. I think it is just a bit harder than your average Jazz1 level.

I give this level great big 10/10 on all aspects (design, gameplay, music selection, difficulty). Downloading this is a must!

I am not a professional reviewer, and this is my first about at JJ1 mod, so please forgive any stupidities I may write! ;)

Sonic With a Gun is absolutely phenomenal. It combines the high quality design of the original Jazz Jackrabbit with new and experimental additions to the engine, allowing for more variety in gameplay.

Unfortunately, I have never played Sonic and can review this strictly as a Jazz Jackrabbit game, but here we go:

Emeraldus: This level is the closest to the original Jazz in terms of gameplay, nothing new is really added here (aside from the new enemies). To me this is the least exciting world, including visually, but then again, it wouldn’t have been a great idea to give away all the cool stuff right in the beginning of the game, so it’s all good. And is it just me, or there are not really any emeralds in this tileset? ;)

Marbelava: Despite the title, this feels way more like Pezrock than Marbelera. This is where things start to get interesting, and the gameplay is already significantly more varied. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I will say no more, other than that you have to see it for yourself.

Gravis: This is pretty much Industrius revisited, but again, with many new enemies and enchanced gameplay. I love that miniature version of the final boss (the gray hare) as an enemy! My only criticism is about those horizontal lines suspended at random places in mid air, they look kind of awkward.

Labyrinthion: This one is perhaps my favorite in terms of visual appearance, and again, a slightly different kind of gameplay here, this level is more puzzle-like. I do not have anything bad to say about it.

Noirlite: I hated it when I first played it due to how difficult it was (seriously, this one is not recommended for noobs). The death pits were especially frustrating. But after practicing and finally completing it, I can say with absolute confidence that it is one of the best planets in the game. However, I’m not a big fan of the Pezrock music in the first level, it just doesn’t fit the level at all. For some weird reason, the second level uses the Tubelectric music, which goes way better with this planet.

Cloudsduel: This is the only bad level in the game (only imho). It is about as linear as it can possibly get, eye candy is poor compared to the other levels, and all i need to do to complete it is press continuous fire and travel in a stright line to the exit. It would have been a million times better if it was an actual level with a cloud-themed tileset.

Fabricant: I don’t even know what to say anymore, other than this level is amazing, just like almost everything else in the game.

I also found three hidden levels (or two, since one of them comes after Noirlite level 1 anyways, so I’m not sure why it is called Hidden zone and whether there is another secret level on that planet). I love the fact that you use completely new tilesets for the secret levels instead of just making them a part of the planet on which the exit to them is located. On a sidenote, that Hidden level on Gravis is EXTREMELY annoying. If you find it, you will see exactly why ;)

UPDATE: Today, while playing this game with all kinds of cheats, I found the regular exit in Noirlite 1 for the first time. It’s funny how the hidden zone is actually easier to find in that level than the real exit. I also found the secret level in Emeraldus. Not much eye candy here, but it uses a pretty cool engine feature.

I like those “mystery weapon” orbs, I find that they are a really cool addition. I also like the new Grenade gun (which actually shoots pineapples lol) although I still haven’t learned to use it properly, i keep missing the target most of the time :/

I’m not sure why, but on the bonus maps I can walk anywhere, the borders of the road do not work. Is that intentional or a bug?

So, on to the ratings. I do not want to have the poor rating of Cloudsduel bring down the overall rating of this otherwise mind-blowing pack, so I will give that level a separate rating. For gameplay, it’s a 2/10… maximum 3. For design and eye candy, 4/10, because I like how it starts where you finished on Noirlite and then blends into the cloud world as you fly up on that airboard, but the rest of the level is very bland and uninteresting.

As for the rest of the game:

Gameplay: Solid 10/10

Design and eye candy: 9.5/10. Emeraldus and its hidden zone are noticeably more basic looking than the other levels, but maybe that’s just me. Also, those horizontal lines on Gravis… i don’t know.

Difficulty: 10/10 It’s nice how levels vary in difficulty. It’s somewhat harder than the original JJ1 levels, which can be good or bad depending on personal opinion, I think it’s great, after all, if you are downloading this, you probably want something new to play in JJ1.

Music selection: 8.5/10. Music selection is flawless other than for that first level of Noirlite, as mentioned above.

Final rating: 38/40 or 9.5/10.

Download recommended? Should be obvious :)

Before reading further, please note that I drank a bit too much beer while playing this level and feel quite tired writing this review, but I’ll try anyway. Hope I won’t regret this tomorrow. :P

The base setup of this level is a fancy scripted warp around the center that takes players to the upper part where the exit is. If they haven’t got enough gems they can simple enter the battlefield again by falling back into the pit.

The first thing noticable is the customized tileset, which is basically a combination of the original JJ2 tilesets Damn and Castle. The layout makes a lot of use of the abandoned ‘slide’ tiles that were in the Castle set by making clever use of One-Way events. A lot of the level’s layout resides around towers that players can climb by jumping through the One-Way blocks. Overall I really liked this yet the one-tile gaps that you can get ‘run-stuck’ in felt weird at times (it’s not that you actually get stuck, I don’t know how you call that effect, lol).

Weapons placed are the usual bouncers, toasters, RF, and seekers. I like how the seekers are mostly placed on harder to reach spots, since all those One-Way blocks and the vertical orientation of the layout makes seekers far more powerful. Gem placement is done very balanced and I like the placement of the non-red gems and the gem rings (and of course the invisible gem stomp!).

In my public game, most fights took place around the center and the exit, probably because it were mainly random strangers that felt attracted to the scripted portal and were quite slow moving through the various towers.. At least their seekers gave quite a fight. Matches usually ended pretty fast, but I’m sure more skilled players who know the level can make good use of the RF’s and bouncers as well to steal those gems!

I recommend this download, and just as Laro’s entry I believe it’s worth a solid 9. The tower layout doesn’t demonstrate perfection, or at least I think it doesn’t, yet it plays like nothing that has been done before in a treasure hunt level. Originality and overall fun-factor are the true showpiece here!

Whew, that was quite a speech. I’m going to sleep out the alcohol now hehe. ;)

I finally got to play it, and it’s amazing! Very few visual bugs but in the rest it looks very nice. The “story” is interesting for a treasure hunt. I can’t wait to play it with my friends!

Looks a hell of a lot better than i imagined from the descriptions

I don’t know why no one reviewed this pack but prefer this instead of the original one.

Damn useful! XD

EDIT:
I see you’ve fixed the hook platforms to have One Way events now. That makes navigation through the level a ton easier already. Maybe try replacing the Hooks with Vine events instead? Vines allow for quicker jumps the Hooks. Other annoyances are still present, such as the high amount of open space between jumps and the leaps of faith. The unnecessary hurt events are still there as well.

And is it just me or does the blaster fire in shorter distances than it used to? If that’s the case, then I suggest editing the script to make the distance like standard or even longer, as it’s still the only weapon this level depends on.

On a side note, here’s a place you can get stuck

My original rating was 6.5, and I’ve decided to crank it up to 6.7 for now. It needs more fixing before I can truly recommend it, but it’s moving towards the right path.

Original review:
Let’s review this level as a fellow contest attendee!

First and best thing noticable in this level is the use of pits and the script made to overcome it’s problems. Normally, players would lose their gems after falling into a pit breaking treasure hunt as a whole. But the script included here will cleverly save your gems before dying and load them afterwards.

There is, however, a huge downside to this idea in the sense that when players shoot each other near the pit, gems will likely fall into it and be stuck there unless someone decides to suicide in order to get them, which will get very tedious when the match is active for a while and everyone starts to shoot each other.

Other than that, the level is lacking in a lot of ways. There is, in my opinion, too much open space which at times makes it hard to see where you can jump to. At some point it almost gets to JJ1-style leaps of faith! The platforms with hooks below them don’t really serve a purpose since you can’t one-way through them, which also makes the level a pain to navigate with Jazz, and damn (lol) tedious as Lori.

Also, the lava trunk thingy has hurt events on them, which in treasure hunt only makes players blink without losing gems. That’s just unnecessarily slowing down the gameplay even further. The level relies on using your blaster, yet it’s very vertical-oriented making it tedious to get into shooting range with each other.

I would’ve given this level a 5.5 for the fun left VS it’s problems, but decided to give an extra point for the effort in the nice script idea. May I suggest adding to the script so that gems falling into the pit will somehow respawn? I’m no good scripter, so I feel a bit weird suggesting it. Anyway, until these big issues are fixed I can’t really recommend it. Feel free to edit your level and I’m sure it can become a fun experience!

Okay let’s review this level as a fellow contest attendee.

This is, as partly noted by the author’s description, a fast-paced level of average size with about half of it taking place underwater. There is plenty of open space to move around in on land, and mostly diagonal tunnels underwater leading to open spaces where gems, fallen from Super Reds, can splash into. Some highly visible warps are placed to increase the pace even further.

I love how there is an emphasis on pinball events in the ‘dry’ part of the level. Most gems are to be obtained by making high edge jumps on the paddles, which are sticked next to most of the vertical walls. Some bumpers are placed in line on the top, rewarding gems to those who can control bouncing off of them.

The choice of ammo is as usual for most treasure hunt levels, with some RF and a few seekers thrown in as a bonus. Eyecandy is not too exaggerated (I tend to go slightly too crazy on that myself) but good enough to make no place feel empty. The exit is in an accessible spot.

Though the author recommends 6-8 players, it’s also fun to play with 3-4 in my opinion. When everyone knows where the big gem scores are, fights will quickly appear at the underwater blue gem in the middle and the Super Reds on either sides at the top.

This is an excellent Treasure level that has pinball, and you know we love pinball :P! It has some fresh ideas, yet it’s not like a revolution in treasure hunt (but so isn’t my level). In the end, my judgment is all about fun, and fun is what you can have with this level. Here’s a solid 9 for a solid level, and download recommended!

This is Recommended!

This level is awesome!

Let me see… great tileset, incredibly good scripting, and great music and design!
However, I didn’t like the control set. In rest it was great!
10/10 would play again!

One of the few rare times – or even my first – time that a treasure hunt level absolutely amazed me. We have much fewer uploads recently to J2O, but those that are uploaded have a tendency to be good!

EDIT: You can get stuck at 48,66 under the platform near the sucker tube!

This level made me pretty happy

@Cooba: Haha, J2VF was a level group me and NOKA started late in 2003, but it didn’t last very long. You and DS used to be in as well, so I hope remembering it doesn’t hurt too much. :P

I silently revived it last year since I began some new attempts at JCS, as I thought it’d be fun to release my levels under that old tag. For now it’s just a one-man group though. xD

@ThunderWalker: Thanks again for reporting that bug. That and other masking errors should be fixed now.

@Treya: Wow, that’s lots of cons VS pros.. Anyway, the vault reward was designed with ‘mechanic knowledge’ in mind, and I’m fully aware that it was a risky choice to surround the entire level around it. For weapons, well, in my playtests (with 4 to 6 players) the bouncers and hidden seekers did the job quite well, while ice was pretty much ignored. However, I fully agree that the final level size far exceeds the intended ‘duel-style treasure level’ I was going for. At least some people liked playing it, and in the future it could be a great addition to event playlists instead. Thanks for the 7 though, it’s a fair and good score (compared to the overrating-nature that haunts J2O lately)!

Now that’s not a tag I expected to see ever again.

I included the music file just in case someone deletes it, so that he will have it. :)

Slaz: Yeah. I kinda rushed the level for the contest, and you know... rushing isn't good. I will update the level in the future. Slaz: Ok gonna fix that soon! #2
Slaz: Updated! #3 Stijn: Well… As I said I rushed the level, though I am working on a better TH level. I have some battle levels that I didn’t show, I even have some Domination levels, and for the big part, some Singleplayer Episodes that will take a while to make, they have some cool AS codes in them (Hunger, Stamina, Wall-Climbing, Armor, Potion Effects, Fall Damage, Drop Ammo on Death…) Stamina and Wall-Climbing was not made by me, just found it on the snippets page, hunger is some sort of copy from stamina just that it does a bit of something else. Armor, Potion Effects, Fall Damage, Drop Ammo on Death ———- I made them. Those will be cool singleplayer episodes, there will be like 3, because in each episode you’ll have to play with a certain character. (Jazz, Spaz, Lori).

By the way, you don’t need to include default music files, as everyone has them.

I will review this once the deadline is over.

EDIT: Chances are, if someone loses the default music files, they either didn’t want them or tried to get rid of JJ2 (the completely wrong way, as you’re supposed to use the uninstaller). You can’t really delete an individual music file “by accident” considering it appears in the recycle bin and it’s not worth the effort deleting them.

Mainly it’s a great game, however the war game doesn’t really match JJ franchise. Jazz it’s a cool hero, not a serious one. The idea of making a new JJ game is great.

10/10 because you’re trying to revive Jazz Jackrabbit :3