Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Nice work! It acts better than i excepted!

Had the honour to play this level yesterday. Checked it out again today and want to give you my impressions.

Gameplay and flow
I am not a fan of too hilly and bumpy CTF levels. Neither do I like too plain and simple layouts. Considering this, Black Jack offers the perfect compromise between both extremes and is the way to go. The following spots are worth being highlighted:

— The pit over the two bases: this comes in extremely handy if you have two hearts and are lingering around your home base, being ready to score. If you have RF ammo and a little bit of skill, your chances are high to get 3 hearts again. Perfect middleway: not easy, but possible.

— The pillars near the two bases: behind them, you are semi-shielded. Electro blaster is placed just right there – great! One way-events are being used and seekers can be shot through the pillars – even better!

— The carrot area (obviously): I really like the concept of the carrot in the wall. Regarding that one can shoot through it, but at the same time might be attacked hard from behind with RF, this carrot is just not campable. Excellent! The only drawback is the slightly too thick mask of the wall, making it unable to immediately get the full carrot from time to time. However, as I guess that there is no better tile in the tileset for this, it’s ok.

— The little caves at the bottom with a warp in them: two aspects have to be covered when it comes to those caves being found to the left and right of the bullet bouncer PU. On the one hand, it’s the level’s size that makes them crucial: this level is BIG. And I really mean BIG. It could possibly serve as a 4v4 level if such thing existed. If you need to get up again quickly, the warps in the caves are your way to go. Same goes for the warps near the carrot area by the way, which bring you to the area described in the next list node. On the other, they are conveniently placed near some of the MP starting points, and they have a seeker crate in them. This level lives of an excessive ammo spamming, and without anything, you are lost (unlike in some other CTF levels). Once you die, you will be grateful for these seekers.

— The area above the carrot: this is where you will be warped to when exiting the carrot area via the springs. An RF powerup is placed there – just like for the electro blaster near the bases, the perfect place. I found myself exiting through this warp many times yesterday – being roasted by CJ with RF just a millisecond later (from the tiny platforms of course). You can also spread RF to the upper corners of the map, killing a fool trying to get the carrot (see list point one for such folks).

— The semi-isolated areas near the bases: vis-à-vis of the top of the bases, you will find apparently sealed areas with broken “tubes” (not the ones you will be sucked through). A good point is that they are not sealed at all – “real” tubes can bring you to the upper hall again if you need to fly away quickly. However, I don’t see too much importance for them for the gameplay. You cannot really attack the base itself, but you can easily be shot with electro blaster from the opponent. I guess Superjazz designed the bases so that you HAVE to jump around them and not stay there and be ready to score. In this case, you eventually may would really be hit from that area. Yet still this is not as effective as attacking from below, shooting seekers up, or even shooting RF missiles from the middle area to the bases.

— The bullet bouncer powerup area: located at the very bottom middle of the level, this area has one purpose: it brings air into the level. Even the most hardcore levels for tricks and stuff like Happy Semiconductor need an area where you will simply be able to move. If this was not the case, you would repeatedly feel smashed in narrow corridors with low-hanging ceilings. As mentioned in list point #4, this area sometimes is a starting point if you die. I myself am glad if I am not lost nowhere in a level when being roasted. This place gives you both space and a good orientation, because you know where you are. Needless to say that again, the powerup placement is done very well (bullets at an area where you can instantly use them). Well done.

— The “caves” below the CTF bases (you can access them from the bottom of the level near the Toaster PUs): there is not much I can say about them other than that they can be handy to reach the base a bit quicker than using the far left (or far right) spring area. However, I got stuck there yesterday at the lower edge. Having checked out the masks and One Way-placements, I can say that this might have been a bug in JJ2 though, because they are fine. Maybe one more row of “One Way”-events would have been needed? I am not sure.

Ammo and powerup placement
Some parts have already been mentioned before. There are four powerups: one RF in the top middle, one Bullet Bouncer in the bottom middle, and two Toaster powerups in the bottom left/right areas. Also mentioned is that they are placed where they need to be (except for the Toaster PU which actually can be put everywhere distant from other PUs). There’s a whole plentiness of ammunition (also seekers which for good reasons have no powerup). The bigger a level is, the more ammo is needed. Also, this way of level design offers a somewhat new gameplay experience. You do not only have to focus on tricks and how to reach area xy (I am a bit biased to this), but you also just have room to fight or even bullfight. I think most of today’s CTF levels lack this feature, and I assume that there are some people around being unable to show off their whole potential due to this fact. This level countersteers this trend. Conclusion: great.

Eyecandy and music
This is where it becomes very subjective, hence the shorter section.
Overall, the eyecandy has been done well too. The metal pillars with a “snake-like” curling of pipes around them is a must if you use this tileset. You can find them at the bases and bottom middle area. If you check out the level from a distance, they sort of border the entire level. I like that. However, keeping in mind that this level is almost entirely symmetrical, I also would have mirrored these pipes below the bullet bouncer area.
Next thing, the chains: I just finished my first CTF level which featured a similar concept: if platforms are tiny, they are “held in place” by chains (like near the RF PU area). It polished the overall view very well. I may would have put even more of them into the level, e.g. below the carrot area – but as I said, this is a subject of taste.
A thing I actually rather disliked were the fences (e.g. in the pits above the CTF bases, or even worse, below them at the Toaster PU). They sort of disturb the eye in my opinion. Luckily enough Superjazz used them sparingly.

All in all, what’s important is that the eyecandy is not very disturbing.

The music choice leaves me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it represents the cliché-like imagination one has of medieval castles (I mean, isn’t that tileset related to Medivo?): hollow, vast, high ceilings, and tons of echos if you are in them. The music represents this a bit, yes. However, overall there is not much going on in that soundtrack, while the gameplay can be very fast and exhaustive. Sort of a contradiction. However, who cares? And I know how hard it can be to pick the right song. Just wanted to jot this down as a side-note.

Conclusion
I eventually see myself absolutely overwhelmed by this level, which you can also tell by the review. No, I am not biased towards Superjazz or anything (in fact, this is the first long review I have ever done). The only thing that might have influenced my uber-positive impression is that the current mappool for the ladders is horrible. I wish this level got uploaded earlier, and I bet it would have got acceptance by all clans. Besides ladder affairs, this levels has a lot of potential to become a classic.

Download recommended? Guess it.

Rating: 9.7 out of 10. Yes, I am serious. I have thought a long time about it, and for some reason there is the ability to give such a high rating. This level deserves it. Definitely.

Download and enjoy!
Lynx

(edited for a slightly better reading)

Finally Vivando made a new CTF level after a long time, and a good one. After hosting this, playing for like an hour, I wanted to give this a full review instead.

Eyecandy:
The EC here is amazing in every detail and I see SJ put quite some effort in making this. Not too much, not too less, just perfect. The music choice was well chosen, it fits the level just right.

Gameplay:
Black Jack has some interesting gameplay to offer, it suits perfect for public games like in Zeal Alpha, or events. The ammo placements are good, interesting C placement, good balanced bases, also suitable for all rabbits, hell, some even want this level in the CTF Ladder mappool!

Download recommended?
Hell yes, this is a good CTF level build by a good JCSer. Too bad you came too late with uploading this, otherwise, it might have gotten in the mappool. Who knows… =P DL now!

Take care,
Laro B.

A great map with a nice flow, good-looking eyecandy and a fitting music track. I enjoyed playing on it! 8.6 and a dl rec.

Overall a decent episode. The storyline was nicely unconventional and interesting, sequel from the previous episode of course. The episode ended in a bit weird way for me, but it’s alright I guess. Graphical side is top-notch in this one, very professionally done. Hard mode was still too easy for me though. Looking forward for the 3rd part. GJ!

Bad.

imo buildings in the impossible metropolis are upside down :/

A well done CTF map. The eyecandy is good and decent. Huge amount of ammo, but well gathered around the map. The level is symmetrial and automatically balanced. No flow issues (or maybe a few, but not that they bothered me a lot)

A well deserved 8.4 and a download recommendation!
Good job!

Two of the CTFs were absolutely phenomenal, being Minimal Duel and Antiquity, probably deserving near 10/10 ratings.
The battles, generally all screamed great design, especially Sodan Valtakunta, Firebreather, Frozen Lake and Robot Village.
On the whole I’d say most of this pack is nearly the best type of leveldesign you’d get nowadays. DL PLZ.

The first level, Delta Halo was probably a 10/10, however the other levels were good but just not up to the AMAZING standard of Delta Halo! The CTFs were very well made and this pack is very deserving of its rating. Great job!

Solid levels, good design overall. Great eyecandy, especially Delta Halo which looks beautiful. Great to host or play online with a crowd of people. Highly reccomended.

Eyecandy:
This hotel has good design. Elvelator is good but is stolen from EvilMike. I Had tested it on a server before uploaded on the j2o. The bas is the Theater is too small even the hotel. I Know the hotels is little boring.

Gameplay:
There is nothing special on the gameplay. Just a peaceful zone. Peaceful is good.

Bugs:
There is bug on the elvelator. Even happen on the Evil Mike levels at the dynamic elvelator.

Rooms:
The rooms are enough big, but there are not enough rooms. Even is nice idea for renting room. On another level on his city creation on Hotel renting rooms and on Houses/Flat will selling (For example 650 coins for home).

Other ideas:
- You can make a park.

EDIT: Next time use True Rabbit Hotel tileset.

Ah…
Now back on to review!
Well it is a pack which continues RoE -1.
Its pretty good in the sense I played it on my server.
The eyecandy is still awesome and level design is just correct for an sp pack.
Its pretty hard for pretty novice players though but I beat it.
GJ! and I hope that RoE 3 will come soon!
Btw, I didn’t find any typical bugs.

Well what can I say…

This is a pack with everything for everyone, and everything in top quality. There are levels like ‘Firebreather’, and ‘Minimal Duel’ for the duelist people, yet there is also the +16 player-suited map ‘Medium’. My personal favourite is Sodan Valtakunta, what’s yours? Download and enjoy!

Upon being chided by certain reviewers, I have decided to focus a little less on my fellow posters and a little more on the subject of our postings.

After all, Laro B’s RoE Episode 2: Spear of Darkness may not be my very favorite singleplayer pack in the world, but it’s a good one, nonetheless. It certainly deserves more credit than I gave it initially.

Let me tell you why.

Demonic Mines

RoE 2’s starting level has very solid Layer 3-4-5 eyecandy (although I was less than impressed with the background details) and great gameplay. I liked how the music, lighting events and environmental TnT all significantly contributed to the mood of the level.

On the other hand, I felt that the background layers weren’t utilized very effectively. True, DM was supposed to be a dark level, but there was too much darkness for me. Maybe a few more holes punched through to reveal the sky would’ve helped.

Overall, I was pleased with the first level, although a few minor faults prevented my complete enjoyment of it.

The Dark Castle

Wow. What a level.

For starters, let’s be generous. I haven’t seen a level use the Medivo tileset this well in a long time. If EVER. It’s ridiculous, the amount of detailing Laro B got into TDC, and every bit looks as if it belongs. The gargoyles are perfect, the combination of windows, lava falls, edge-tiles-as-eyecandy and so on is impressive, and the structure is uncommonly good.

This level is freaking HUGE, and it’s very fun to play. It’s also got a sick music track, one that works exceedingly well for TDC.

Once again, though, I did have some issues.

There’s a wall bug behind the carrot barrel in which I got trapped in the wall by bad masking. That’s not good. In addition, while most of the level was great, I wasn’t a fan of the Layer 8 background at all. Red on red on red on red is only so pretty, and eventually it got kind of boring.

I also found the section cordoned off by trigger blocks to be quite annoying. I mean, really. I spent most of the level trying to find a trigger crate to open the blocks, only to learn that there wasn’t actually anything TO open.

Ooh, I felt like hurting somebody real bad after that…

Also, a few of the Boll platforms over the pits were a little tricky to get onto. Not impossible, just mildly challenging.

So, once again, the second level was good, but a few quirks messed it up.

The Darkness

Aha! A boss level!

This happens to consist of a darkened arena with lava falls and spike traps, as well as a…devilish…Bilsy boss.

Sigh.

While the eyecandy was excellent as usual, although the music track worked quite well for the fight, despite the fact that the darkness added a new and exciting element to the fight, I was not impressed with the attemped Bilsy prison.

Using wind events to keep Bilsy locked in does not work. It only succeeds in making the area inaccessible to Jazz. Bilsy can teleport around the level, thereby neutralizing almost every form of containment imaginable for it.

Because Bilsy is thus exposed, all one has to do to beat it is buttstomp on its head.

Still, it was a decent enough level, and didn’t sink the pack TOO low.

Hell

This was the first level in this pack that I didn’t really like.

Don’t get me wrong, it had good gameplay and structure, and the song, although not a perfect fit, still fit well.

That’s about where the upsides end, however.

Even though the Dam Nation tileset admittedly leaves much to be desired, so does Hell’s eyecandy. The only background eyecandy is lava. The foreground eyecandy is used well, but is often sparse in places (this wouldn’t have been so bad if there had been some decent background eyecandy to pick up the slack).

Lighting events were used, but hardly maximized.

The tileset version chosen wasn’t the greatest, but to be fair, there isn’t much of a selection out there, since the Hot version was already used in Episode 1 (I would’ve probably used the Day version).

Overall, a so-so level.

Caves

This level features a number of elaborate passageways and rooms, a veritable block of digital Swiss cheese that fully lives up to the level’s name.

Unfortunately, though the Caves had really good eyecandy and a killer atmosphere, I felt that it still had a number of problems.

What, in particular? For one thing, movement was seriously limited. I lost track of how many times I got hung up on awkward roof angles or trapped in small tunnels (although the One Way Events helped).

I also didn’t like the high number of baddies that were placed in dark areas or obscured from sight. There were plenty of carrots in the level, but I never knew if I was about to jump into a darkened room and get killed by something I couldn’t see.

Finally, while they worked well enough, I didn’t feel that the Sparks were an appropriate baddie choice.

In the end, though it had some shortcomings, I was somewhat satisfied with the level.

Iron Mountains

This was a solid level, but not for the reasons you might think.

It’s not because of the solid Layer 3-4-5 eyecandy employed, nor is it because of the good level structure and smooth-as-usual gameplay.

It’s because of the end boss.

It took me a while to figure out what I was supposed to do, but once the Rocket Turtle disappeared, I learned I was supposed to fly up this shaft, all the while dodging some Schwartzenguards placed behind walls. This made the fight challenging, and also more enjoyable than the first boss battle.

Mistake me not, though, there were plenty of problems with Iron Mountains.

It has bland background eyecandy.

The music track is arguably the weakest selection of the whole pack.

The inappropriate Sparks were back.

Parts of the jungle tree swamp hid baddies, which was very annoying.

There was also a 10-coin warp, which took some effort to hunt down the money for and only provided a few mere un-powered-up Seeker missiles.

Overall, yet another so-so level.

Woods of Light

This level is a recycle of an RoE 1 level (like about half of this episode is), played through in a different direction and different tileset. This time, the Rocket Turtle chase does work, and you can engage in a race with it.

Trouble? I beat the Rocket Turtle to the end by at least a full sixty seconds, but I STILL couldn’t go to the next level.

The level has some of the best eyecandy in the pack, as well as great gameplay and excellent eventage, but all that means very little if the level can’t be completed. I played it fully through two or three times, monitoring closely each time (both passing the Rocket Turtle at the very end AND allowing it to finish before me), and I even looked in the JCS just to be sure, because I couldn’t believe it.

As far as I can tell, it’s impossible to beat this level without cheating. I don’t understand how everybody else seems to have overlooked this detail (Unless I’ve missed the boat on the proper execution of the Rocket Turtle, which is entirely possible).

Plus, unless I used the uber-cheap upper route (which eventually I did), the level was very easy to get lost in, and it took me forever to figure out I was supposed to use the Lizard’s helipack to get to the end.

Nippius Blizzard

I hate this level. And there may or may not be a level on J2O that I hate more.

Oh, sure, it had some good eyecandy, and once I got used to the brighter-than-usual foreground, it was a nice atmosphere, but let’s be honest. There’s no enemies. No ammo or food. No carrots. No nothing.

Just a whole lotta rooms with spike pits, and absolutely no way to replenish your health if you fall when you fall into said spikes.

Oh yeah. And some wierd dressed-up kitties in random places.

It’s the most markedly empty Jazz 2 level I’ve seen in my life, and unlike in some levels where emptiness is actually a good thing, it drove me insane here.

Also, the layout was so confusing that I had a tough time finding the end.

The music compounds the emptiness and solitude of this level to an unimaginable degree. It’s impossible to overstate this. It’s a VERY good level/song pairing.

If this level had had some carrots, it might’ve been one of the best levels in the pack. Instead, it’s one of the hardest levels around, since you have to make it to the end on exactly five hearts, no more, no less.

Summary? Not the best level of the pack, but decent enough.

A Few Overall Thoughts

I was impressed by the level of eyecandy throughout most of the pack. RoE 2 seemed to have a high standard of prettiness, and (usually) ended up hitting said standard consistently.

However, I had some trouble accepting the pack’s story. In my mind, it was confusing, poorly grammaticized, and contributed very little to the episode.

The story levels were similarly a little uninteresting for my tastes. They weren’t terrible, but they weren’t the highlight of the episode, either.

Plus, the only thing I know of keeping this pack from being 1.23-compatible is the C + C tileset, so why not just use a different one?

On a more positive note, I liked the music a lot. It picked up a lot of slack.

In the end, I think that RoE 2 was a missed opportunity. The first part won Singleplayer Level of the Year last year, if I’m not mistaken. That makes it hard to look at this episode, which I feel takes the RoE saga a small step backwards.

It’s not quite as good as Episode 1, but Spear of Darkness is still worth a download. After all, let’s look at the positives. These levels have good structure and great eyecandy, as well as some nice music. Just because it’s not the greatest thing out there doesn’t mean it isn’t a good pack. It is. Download today.

Quality on it’s finest. Snooze did a good job with this pack. A must for every jj2’er!

By far snz’ best MP pack yet. A close to perfect balance of eyecandy and gameplay has been achieved, as tough as that is. There’s also a huge variety, featuring levels ranging from all shapes and sizes. They show off the epitome of snz’ JCS talents. There isn’t much more to say; if you fancy playing awesome new levels then download immediately!

RoE v2 definitely deserves the name “worthy follower”. Yes, there are some spelling mistakes, bugs (e.g. rocks that would make one get stuck) and the like, but still, being able to create such an amazing series of SP levels is quite a challenge. I really enjoyed the gameplay, eyecandy, and ideas (especially in RoE17), and can surely recommend it.

I actually love this level. I found out more rf tricks here than on semi, and as I think you know, I love rf tricks, even more in places like this! The gameplay is fine, everything is mosly fine. You can add some more eyecandy, but hopefully you didn’t overdo it x)

Bet this episode deserves a 3D version from the Unreal Development Kit. That would be awesome.

Not that it isn’t ok in 2D.