Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Well, this is an interesting and different approach to a CTF map. DEATH STAR by PT32…

First, this isn’t your typical ctf layout. The entire level is based on a pretty cool theme and as a result the layout is more gimmicky and unorthodox.

The eyecandy is definitely the simplest to comment on. It’s not too outstanding, but it’s pretty solid and it works well aided with the theme of the level. However, you did use tiles that look solid in the background, and combined with the somewhat confusing and unintuitive layout I found myself running into walls occasionally throughout my playtest because I thought they were passages. Not too big of an issue, but it took a while to get used to and certainly didn’t help the layout look any less confusing. The elevator was a gimmicky but cool addition and a way to split the level into two nearly symmetrical halves.

…speaking of the layout, there is an interesting feature of an outside path that encircles the entire map. It’s basically a long, narrow winding passage that I would call something between a corridor and an almost vertical shaft. I actually really liked how this played out, because it was sort of the ‘hub’ of the level if you understand my meaning – its the most used passage because it connects to everything else in the map. The vertical gameplay was also a plus here, but it could’ve been capitalized on more (part of which I will get into further). I felt that it was too narrow, and some parts could have been less steep and used more slopes. I found myself getting “caught” in the walls of the passage while running at full speed a number of times and it really threw off the flow. This encircling passage and the elevator were my favorite layout designs, despite of the narrowness of the corridors. From here on however things start to fall apart…

The bases were placed in air vents in passages at the vertical center of the map, accessible through corridors from either opposite side (left/right). [REDACTED]

To explain what I mean, the carrots (both +1) are symmetrically placed at the end of two very long corridors on each side. The corridors end with a small room containing a +1 carrot. This is basically the worst death trap possible, because there is almost no chance that you will be able to heal without getting trapped there and having to fight your way out. To make it worse, this is one of the only areas the RF powerup can be unleashed to its full potential, and grabbing a +1 carrot only to be blasted to pieces by RFs from the guy(s) following you is NOT a good trade off. I played a duel in this map and I thought the big and elaborate layout would at least give me time to lose my pursuers and sneak away with the health, but even in this scenario I often found myself being trapped and killed often, and vice versa. The only chance someone had of escaping that carrot death trap was when one time by some miracle I ran out of RFs right before I was about to kill that guy who was hiding and praying for his life in the corner of the room. There seriously needs to be another way out of that room, probably into the elevator shaft or something. Otherwise, you can expect to be destroyed trying to regain that health and your opponent knows it. Basically it came down to people making a last stand and fighting to death instead of disengaging the battle and fleeing for health, cause it was such a death trap area.

The last thing I want to address about the layout is the large number of pointless dead end rooms. They slow the game down and make it more campy, most of them have no real purpose besides to trap you, and it makes the layout pretty confusing. It looks like a remnant of an SP map which doesnt belong in a multiplayer game – I think some of them should either have more worthwhile reasons to visit or just be removed completely.

The gameplay of the map was actually fun. Besides the annoying carrot death traps and the base areas (the dead ends weren’t too much of a problem since after a while people just instinctively avoided them) the level was fun and has the potential to play really well. It was enjoyable sniping people through the thin walls with EBs (and in the elevator :P), using the RFs as a super shotgun kind of weapon, and sidekicking people in the outer passage. Besides the RF I actually found the next best weapon to be the sidekick/buttstomp in this map. This gives a bit of an advantage to spaz here, but I really liked the tactics it brings. Often throughout my game here I would struggle for high ground, or find ways to cut my opponent off through other passages, or trap them in some room etc. It’s just too bad, because if it wasn’t for some of the inconveniences in the layout I would’ve had a blast with this.

The ammo placement is also the weaker focus of this map. I thought the free floating ammo was way too space here – it was barely enough just for a duel, and this is a pretty big level so I can’t imagine people would find it satisfactory for a team game. I think it could’ve used more bouncer and electroblasters. The powerup choice also did not fit the map. I liked the RF powerup, because it was only useful to it’s full potential in a few zones, and mainly serves as a close combat shotgun equivalent. Despite it’s limited power, its still the only weapon here that can deal 2h damage, which is a problem. The freezer powerup was completely useless, and it broke the balance of the game because the RF powerup it’s supposed to balance out with is the weapon of choice here. It should be replaced with a gun #2 powerup, which I felt was severely lacking in this map. In any case, having only one powerup capable of dealing max. damage severely breaks the balance of the game. Please replace the ice powerup :P

Next, the hardest part to do in my review was to actually find some people I can play this with online (nobody ever plays in my timezone lol). I did manage to have a duel here, although I think this level SHOULD be better suited for 2vs2/team games (once it gets more ammo and the camp scenarios are fixed). The issues I thought would affect the way the game played out did in fact do so (no surprise) – the carrot areas were death traps, the dead ends did make the layout confusing, and although I had no problem finding the bases (other people apparently did) I found it to be more of a problem to actually get INTO them. The gameplay was fun, as long as your opponents dont take advantage of cheap tactics like camping the base/carrot.

[REDACTED]

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Some of the passages could benefit from being less narrow, specifically the outer circular shaft. Every part of the layout should serve at least some purpose. I’m not suggesting that every dead end needs to be removed, but at least more incentive should be given to visit those places or else they become pointless and bog down the map.

As it is now, I liked the concept behind this. I liked the unorthodox layout and the interesting gameplay. I liked not having to rely on seekers, but melee combat and sniping with electroblasters and using the RF as a shotgun. For the most part I liked the eyecandy as well. Generally when levels are revamped into other game modes from what they were originally purposed to be they don’t turn out quite as good or balanced as they should be. This one actually came close to breaking that rule, but some existing faults and remnants of zones that don’t look designed with MP in mind prevent it from realizing its potential.

[REDACTED]

EDIT: So I got a chance to play the updated version of this after I bullied some unsuspecting victim into hosting it. I’ll quickly go over what I noticed that’s been changed and then give a brief overview on what I think. So firstly, a lightning shield has been added into a fairly out of the way warp (that I didn’t even notice the first time I played…) which was kind of surprising the first time to see a bunch of people with shields running around. I was never a fan of 40 second shields that are easily obtainable in MP, especially when placed in an unneccessarily out of the way campable warp room, and my POV doesn’t change now. I think this kind of breaks the game here (evidently there was a pepper powerup pre-existing in that spot..). On a brighter note, the partially opening doors to the bases have been removed. An additional passage has been added to the base, with some slightly bad flow, and wind events have been added in the base shafts to force encourage you to take it. The freezer powerup has been replaced with the bouncer. For some reason some gun9 ammo has been exchanged with TNT, and shafted to the R&D room confining it to the top portion of the map. The former deathtrap of a carrot room has been much improved by the addition of the passage cutting through the base area and the access to the elevator. Also, 2 more +1 carrots have been added to the bottom warp area, as far as I can tell I don’t believe they were there before. Basically, while some of these updates were good (since they were responses to the biggest criticisms this map faced) they are intertwined with new stuff I don’t like, such as the lightning shield, somewhat annoying wind tunnels (tho conceding theyre not as bad as the doors), and doubling of health. The balance of this is questionable, and the flow still remains clunky and complicated. Also maybe noticing this because I played with a pretty large group of people this time, those text strings everywhere get pretty annoying. I don’t want to be told where I am all the time, the nth time around. Can’t really make my mind up on the adjusted rating of this, I don’t like a bunch of stuff but effort has been taken to fix a lot of the original criticisms I had about this. So until I change my mind I will keep it the same.

*I had to remove some chunks of my review because J2O has this annoying character limit of 10k :(. Its not my fault if I have a lot of things to say damn it.

-REDACTEDBlacky

Small but good level, I like it. Eyecandy is great, gameplay too

yeah, good!

@KRSplat:

Thanks for the review, but could you please be a little more specific?

P.S.-The flags are in the Airlocks, in response to your question. =)

Fine enough, eyecandy is fine, though I expected much more.

Two functions crash jj2 and you give it 10.0? :p

What makes this level good? For starters, it’s made by Ragnarok, and a lot of things he constructs have the habit of turning out pretty darned well.

Just as this level, Starlit Basin, does.

It’s a battle level, but it feels more like war games on a deserted tropical island. Weapons and powerups are distributed liberally, and plenty of springs and escape routes are provided to make this stage a blast to play. I was a little skeptical about the blaster PU with accompanying fast fires right out in the open, but it’s not a game-killer.

Buggage is minimal, and the music fits the level quite well.

I think my only real complaint is that the Mystic Isle tilesets are so limited, and it’s difficult to come up with something original with them since everyone else has already done it to some extent. I feel that holds this level back to some extent, and that’s too bad.

In any event, Starlit Basin is still a very satisfactory level, and I’ll gladly give it my seal of approval. Download today.

Well, it’s been a goodly long while since I played through a decent custom Jazz 1 level pack, so I popped a Cherry Starburst in my mouth, took one final pit stop, then settled down in my chair for a grand old time with Blackraptor’s “Lost Ages” JJ1 pack…

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Carrotus Level 1

From the very first level of the pack, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the rest of Blacky’s pack. For one thing, the brown rock background cave tile seemed to be malfunctioning (although I do believe he pointed that out himself), leaving brown tile vines hanging in midair in a rather unsightly mess. The sound effects didn’t work either, although Blackraptor acknowledged that as well.

I was also surprised by the difficulty level playing on medium, especially that first “Thorn Tunnel”. Seemed a bit excessive on medium mode to me.

I felt that some of the events (like the goblets) didn’t match the level very well, and the music also didn’t fit the level (although, to be fair, there really isn’t that much of a selection, and there won’t be until some bright person figures out how to put custom songs in a JJ1 level). I would’ve maybe used a song like Fanolint, or maybe Scraparap or Dreempipes (not that my choices are much better, lol).

Edit: It seems that I was mistaken. There IS a way to use custom music in Jazz 1 levels after all, therefore your horizons have officially expanded.

Fortunately, that’s about where the downsides end.

I was blown away by all the ingenious stuff that Blackraptor did with the now virtually limitless JJ1 engine. Custom baddies (with custom ANIMATIONS). Custom moving tomato and airboard platforms. A very well laid out level structure. The Birdie baddies were especially impressive.

There was also a Fast Feet segment, which although not perfect (I kept getting hung up on stuff), it was good enough.

The only thing I was disappointed not to find was any kind of custom weapon (which is possible, by the way, because I’ve done it before in my own Jazz 1 levels). I invented this really cool spike knife gun using the Dreempipes mine shards…

…But I digress.

Overall, there were some snags and bumps, but Level 1 ended on a high note in my mind.

Carrotus Level 2

Hoorah! The cave walls worked in this level!

Once I got over my initial pleasure concerning this, I quickly became concerned with the level itself. To be brutally honest, it confused the sam hill out of me. I could not for the life of me figure out how to get out of that dadgum cave, and I wasted almost every last second of my time in a vain attempt to do so. At great length, I at last figured out that you’re supposed to ride the airboard from one end of the room to the other (with a tricky over-the-tree jump in the middle), then climb out a hole in the roof to daylight.

Sigh.

Fortunately, this level is well supplied with gameclocks, so I was able to escape the “dungeon” with my life, my sanity and a few ticks left on the dial.

The next part was much easier to get through, with some platform-action sequences featuring more bodacious custom baddies (Including some that look like gophers who’re high on meth), a HUGE clump of grape food, and some cherries, too. Then there’s a fake exit sign, some Marbelara dragons, and finally the end.

Thank goodness. I thought I’d NEVER get out of there alive.

Overall, Level 2 was astounding as a complex, custom-made level, but also frighteningly confusing.

Carrotus Bonus

Another level that was brilliant in concept, but far less than impressive in execution. I spent most of all of my time trying to get out of the airplane landing strip that constitutes the first room, so I never did end up finding my way into the rest of the level.

That was too bad, because I was greatly looking forward to it.

Jungrock Level 1

I’ll be honest. At first, I wasn’t too impressed at the thought of a custom Jungrock level.

“Aww, man,” I complained to myself. “This won’t be very original at all!”

Happily, I was quickly proved to be wrong.

Jungrock According to Blackraptor is a brand new place, with seemingly every piece of eyecandy reinterpreted and used in a way you’d never have imagined before. Remember the springy plants? They’re plain old eyecandy now. Remember the green thorns? So are they.

Jungrock’s also been infused by some jungular tiles from…well, Jazz 2 Jungle, naturally. The graceful background trees, the green flora and fauna, it’s here.

And just like in Carrotus, Blacky’s made use of his custom baddies, using the Turtemple Scorpions (although that doesn’t really count as a CUSTOM, per se), turning the Red Buzzers into Spark events, adding a flying brown owl, and adding a MASSIVE gray godzilla/dinosaur monster that lumbers around and feels surprisingly fitting on Jungrock. Maybe because it looks a bit like a rock monster.

Overall, I was initially disenchanted, but ultimately satisfied by Jungrock 1. Well done.

Jungrock Level 2

From the first time I fell into that blasted death pit, I couldn’t settle my nerves down until I completed this heinous level.

Let’s get one thing straight. It’s not heinous because it’s BAD. Granted, a little added directional guidance would’ve been greatly appreciated (since half the time I didn’t know where the devil I was going), and the curiously chosen goblets are back again, but those things aren’t what make this level so wicked sick.

It’s the gameplay that does the trick, and if it doesn’t kill me first, I might actually grow to like it.

There’s a number of instant death pits in this level (created by simply leaving out tiles at the bottom of the level), and sure enough, son of a gun that I am, I fell into one.

After that, I couldn’t make a midair leap without holding my breath over whether or not I’d fall to my death. Miraculously, sometimes I survived.

It’s a crazy adrenaline rush, but this adrenaline rush consequently makes the level a LOT more difficult to hack through. There’s a few gameclocks hidden around, but it still took me a while to master leaping into oblivion and hoping for the best.

Because it’s so tense, this level will DEFINITELY rub a lot of people the wrong way, and it would probably rub me wrong too, if I weren’t such a Jazz 1 aficionado. Fortunately for Blackraptor, I am, and I can appreciate a good challenge.

Overall, the supreme difficulty/challenge of the level is hard to adjust to, but it’s quite fun once you become accustomed to it.

Jungrock Bonus

I was very disappointed to find out that Jungrock has the same exact bonus level as Carrotus, so for a second time I wasted the entire level trying to figure out how to access the rest of the bonus. Quite aggravating.

Corrupted Sanctuary Level 1

At last, the golden goblets belong!

The next level of Lost Ages took me to Corrupted Sanctuary, a dark, grim, desolate world (I don’t care what Blackraptor says, this looks WAY more like a castle than a monastary) where Grave Hands spring up from the ground, black Cobras chase me around, and the Jungrock rock monsters sprout wings, breathing fire. The tileset was expertly used, with wooden beams occasionally criss-crossing the stones and hiding secrets (occasionally). The Medivo song was used here, and added quite nicely to the overall ambiance.

The Fast Feet segment here was shorter, but also less complicated, and therefore easier to execute.

On the less bright side, this level felt quite a bit shorter than the rest. I don’t know if this was because Blackraptor just ran out of steam, but it felt way smaller. I got to the end, and was like, “Huh?”

But oh well.

Overall, I was decently satiated with this level, and had some pretty good fun.

Corrupted Sanctuary Level 2

Complex. That was the word that kept popping into my mind as I played this level. Simply complex.

The stage starts off with a classic Jazz 1 tactic: A Spring Tower with One-Way Floors (although only the floors beneath the springs are one-way here, as that plays into the level to a great extent). As I bounced up the tower (and collected the requisite goodies hidden within the walls), I came to the top floor and entered a second spring tower.

The catch? This time, you’re going down instead of up.

The springs become your enemy here, hindering your attempts to cross, but never enough so to fully keep you from passing. The black bone maze was a perfect addition to the JJ1 tileset.

This level also seemed rather short, just like the first Corrupted Sanctuary level. It was a little disappointing, but I suppose it could’ve been worse.

Overall, this level was about on par with the first Corrupted Sanctuary level. Both were likely the weakest links in this pack.

Corrupted Sanctuary Bonus

Once again, this was a recycle of the first two bonus areas. However, this time I figured out that you could walk along the colored tiles lining the highways, and by doing so enter other areas (well, at least one area. I ran out of time on the clock by the time I figured this out).

Still, it was very frustrating, and I did not enjoy it at all, especially after having two previous cracks at the same level.

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Thoughts on the pack in general? Lost Ages was good in some aspects, not quite so good in others. The creativity was on point, with the custom baddies and events. The tilesets were also well done, with plenty of visually appealing elements to keep me engaged. The gameplay was sufficiently challenging, the cadence of the pack was good, and I enjoyed myself a lot at times.

Unfortunately, there were also times when I nearly screamed myself hoarse over the annoying things Lost Ages did (or didn’t do). The events didn’t always match the levels. The music of Carrotus didn’t fit at all. The bonus level was a valiant effort, but ultimately unsuccessful, since I had three tries to beat it and couldn’t find my way into the rest of the level on any of the three.

Oh, and there was no boss. Why was there no boss? I was disappointed by this, since the pack seemed to be climaxing up to it. Rather a big letdown.

In conclusion, I would like to thank Blackraptor for dragging me into a much longer review than I had originally intended. I had meant to just play a little bit now, then continue my playthrough tomorrow, but the excellence level (for the most part) of the pack had me riveted for upwards of three hours.

This is a terrific pack. Lost Ages certainly has its flaws, but for every single one of these, there’s two other things that are absolutely rockstar. This whole level pack is a barrel of fun, so if you’re looking for a good old fashioned time, Blacky’s JJ1 masterpiece just might be the pack for you…

Original and nice level. Tbh I dont like the flying spring. DR!

Clever but lacking. With such a name and a custom tileset you could have done much more than a nondescript industrial level (even if the tileset looks decent).

Confirming as a cheat tool, also possible malware; the program kept running even if stopped, and thus couldn’t be removed without killing the task. Jotti didn’t find anything though.

For someone who doesn’t make CTF’s that often good job. The music is great and this level has great eye candy overall. The only thing I wish you would have used was the “Imperial March” or other Star Wars music for the level music.

Not bad. This is actually very fun to play with and some features work with JJ2+ (I know I tested it). As far as bugs go, in JJ2+ the spammer and arzatory gives Stack Overflow exceptions. Other than that the utility works perfectly.
How do you unlock the Super Mario Bros. Animator Manipulator (The one that says [Shaker] next to it)?

All I have to say to you shellyJay is haters gonna hate. >:P

Isn’t this a cheat? _{_}

There’s only so much you can do with a tileset.

That, I think, is the primary flaw with Cmdr Dats’s Rock Haven stage. It’s a quality level, after all, with some decently well-placed ammo and some good mechanics. While the layout wasn’t the greatest in the world, it certainly wasn’t the worst.

Okay, so the music probably wasn’t the best song, either. But it was better than, say, a disco song (which would’ve been ill-suited for Rock Haven, in my opinion).

The biggest drawback here is a lack of options with the tileset. There frankly isn’t that much there, so JCSers have to get creative.

That’s not easy.

Nevertheless, Rock Haven is still a decent enough level, and is probably worth a download.

I’m not sure where to start with this.

On the one hand, Diamond Mines WAS a fun level, with some caves (presumably the mines) at the very bottom, a few open areas and grassy plains at the top, and some chambers and passages in the middle. Layout was pretty straightforward, and eventage wasn’t too bad.

On the other hand, the coin warp was a pain in the neck to collect coins for. The eyecandy, while all right, could’ve been better.

Also, the music didn’t really fit very well (see my article Here for how I feel music should mesh with a level). I would’ve gone with something maybe a little more natural, sort of outdoorsey?

In any event, Diamond Mines was STILL a good, quality level, and I think it’s worth a download.

Ah well, it was a good level, in the archaic days of mysticism and chivalry.

Now that I’ve got my Rather Useless Sentence out of the way, let’s have a peek at Stijn’s Rather Useless CTF.

For one thing, I was pleased by how smooth the gameplay was. There were no real places that I had issues with (Well, that’s not entirely true. I DIDN’T like the camper-friendly powerup warps), and the shrewd use of Float Ups (affectionately called Floaties) make uninterrupted movement a breeze, if you’ll pardon the pun. Perhaps the only case of the Floaties in RUCTF I didn’t like was the tunnel immediately above and to the left of the Red base, where you couldn’t go back down again without buttstomping, which was somewhat of an annoyance.

There were also a number of Layer 3 secret passages and shortcuts, most of which added to the level in a positive way.

Events were placed liberally, although I detected a considerable concentration of seeker missiles, which really takes away from a lot of the fun of playing a multiplayer level.

Music was all right, I suppose. It’s not the song I would’ve chosen (I would’ve maybe gone with Epic.xm or perhaps Purple Motion – Nova.s3m), but it fits the level well enough.

Is this Rather Useless CTF a Rather Good Level? Meh, I guess so. It was generally free of errors, decently fun to play and well-rounded (despite a few small drawbacks), so I’ll recommend its download.

Nice lvl. Playing with the frog was quite annoying but… It was fun :)

Gameplay = Very linear. Eyecandy = Very bad, but hey! this is not a mess of tiles. Seems you have the potential to make good lvls, but you need to train more.

“do not use this level if your pc is slow”
Really?