Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Heh. This was a fun level to play.

I really liked Sparks Factory for a number of different reasons. For starters, the gameplay was amazing. It’s a Boss Challenge map, where you have to navigate your way through a short level and break into a boss arena. Sort of like starting from the last checkpoint of a Jazz 2 level and going straight to the boss.

In SF, you are required to find twenty coins and activate a warp, which leads you into an arena with the Schwartzenguard. Easy enough, right?

Wrong. The whole time that you’re searching for coins, the Schwartzenguard is throwing flailarangs at you. Since you’re in a Sparks factory, Sparks are constantly being spawned to come after you. The eyecandy was quite whimsical, with Sparks parts moving through tubes and belts as if in a real factory.

The only thing missing from that is the factory ambient sounds…

SF is relatively free of bugs, and the music, while not terribly interesting, was nonetheless quite fitting.

My biggest beef with the level is that there’s too much going on. Don’t get me wrong, factories are USUALLY busy, and there SHOULD be plenty of activity here, but for such a concentrated are there seems to be an inordinate amount of eyecandy. It’s kind of distracting.

In any case, Sparks Factory is a good level, and it’s worth a download.

Let’s say a few words about Evilmike’s CTF level, Helldome.

First off, the eyecandy was great. EM used the Where Bad Rabbits Go tileset to construct an environment indicative of the gates of hell (or at least, how hell is most commonly depicted), and it’s pretty wicked. No pun intended.

Plenty of various types of ammo. Springs are placed so as to help the player quickly move from side to side of the level.

The “deathpit” at the bottom of the level warps you back into the level. Now, I didn’t really like that for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it takes your flag away if you’ve stolen another team’s flag, and that’s very irritating. Secondly, if you (Evilmike) are trying to convey the image of a CTF gone to hell (literally), shouldn’t there be some…I don’t know…death involved?

I also wasn’t a big fan of the music. Sure, it provided an action-oriented environment and it was kind of a little spooky, but it was also a little too ‘technological’ for me. Didn’t fit very well, in my mind.

In the end, I think an 8.2 sounds about fair. Good job with Helldome, Evilmike, and a definite DL rec.

It sure seems like I’ve been reviewing a LOT of Ragnarok’s levels lately, doesn’t it?

Never mind, because most of his levels, including this one, are pretty danged good.

Dusk uses the Traditional Japan set brilliantly, with imposing Japanese palace-things on both sides of the level, a small handful of pagodas housing CTF bases in the middle, liberally distributed ammo pickups and a couple of powerups, namely the RF and Toaster ones.

Eyecandy was placed without qualm or reserve, and it really enhanced the overall appearance of the level. Take, for instance, the rock caves in the upper midsection of the level. Instead of just making a plain old flat wall, Rag punched a cheese grater through the back, creating holes left and right, some of which he placed waterfalls behind. It was the sign of what all good JCSers do, which is work with what they have and make something really good.

One problem I DID have with the eyecandy was that all of the waterfalls seem to be moving at the exact same speed. Seriously. I would’ve liked to see maybe some moving a little faster, some moving a little slower, but instead everything moves at an identical rate. Bummer.

Eyecandy aside, the gameplay was smooth, bugs were generally avoided, and the whole level rocked.

I didn’t download the song (since I’m paranoid about that because I got nasty spyware the last time I tried that), so I won’t include it in my rating. Knowing Rag, though, it’s probably also really good.

Therefore, it seems in the end that Ragnarok has continued his winning ways with Dusk of Serenity, building another champ level that just happened to take DL of the Month in its respective month. Great job once again, Rag. DL rec.

EDIT: Waterfalls fixed. Rating modified.

10, 5 No warp target.

Nice eyecandy, gameplay is fine, music fits well. Download recommended.

I’ll give a short review of this level.

Even thought It’s small, It’s very fun and exciting to play, I don’t play DOM as much and I don’t like it that much, but I really enjoyed playing a bit on this map, nice job Ktos.
Rating, 9 ~ Skele.

It’s kinda hard to move here, idd. There are a lot of sucker tubes, and you don’t know exactly where will you exit on the end. I see, you fixed tilebugs and it’s a little better now. Maybe overloaded with ammo and warps, just like Ktos said. Eyecandy is good, and also OVERLOADED WITH CAKES! You get fat if you eat much cakes. DR!

This is good conversion!I see a good disaign!Sorry for my bad english!

[Review changed to quick review, see the review rules.

Nice story , and i’m waiting for the next episode ! The eyecandy rocks , my eyes are going INSANE !!! And the gameplay is nice . And i like that you don’t put much enemies like in the devres (EvilMike’s episodes) ! You own the JCS ,man ! Good luck on working at the second episode (of course if you are working)!

My favourite levels are the Woods of Light and Caves! These levels had nice eyecandy and they toasted my eyes !!! I hope that the next episode will be too .

And Gus is right don’t use Triggers and scenery events on mirrored tiles ! That really causes access violation .
By the way you’re using a TSF only tileset and you don’t mark the upload as TSF only ?

I like the eyecandy in this level and the PU concept is cool, although I also think a game in it would be too chaotic. Still, you’ll get a good 8.2 and a DL rec from me.

Good luck in the contest!

EDIT: I adjusted the rating a bit after playing it in a server.

Whoa. What a level.

I was very much impressed by what Ragnarok was able to do with the JJ1 Battleships tileset, taking it and building a race the likes of which are rarely seen.

Lost Luggage Landfill is expertly built. There’s clever Spring traps that can both punish and reward a player, depending on how they’re used. There’s loop-de-loop segments, where the racers go through one section, then make a return circuit through it. Like basically everybody else here has said, gameplay was completely on point, and this level rocks.

That being said, I was VERY confused by the segment at the beginning (which I am quite disappointed to find no one else addressed in their reviews) with the in-wall trigger crates, which although doubtlessly intended as a whimsical flourish of excellence, ended up frustrating the bejeebers out of me.

Which was too bad. I dunno, maybe I’m missing something important regarding the fancy sequence, but I’d be willing to bet that’s the bug that Daemon was talking about in his review.

Rabbit trails.

Contrary to what he insists in the upload description, Rag seems to have an uncanny knack for building race levels. Lost Luggage Landfill, once past the annoying intro, is a terrific race and a blast to play. Ragnarok’s good, and his levels even better. Download today.

It was cool testing this, the bouncers and electros make a nice gameplay, good music choice(by me xd) and eyecandy is decent too.

I’ve played this somewhere, and I liked it! It’s a good idea to use this tileset instead of “default” one, called Top Secret.

There aren’t a lot of people who build race levels. Still less who actually care about them.

No, I’m completely serious. Next to Treasure Hunts, quite possibly the most irrelevant and unspectacular multiplayer mode of Jazz 2 in terms of quality custom-built levels is the Race category. For whatever bizarre, unappealing or totally unexplained reason, JCSers just don’t want to put in the time and effort required to create a decent course.

Because of this, J2O members generally pay little to no attention on the rare occasions when a race (or a Treasure Hunt, for that matter) is uploaded. After all, nobody ever makes worthwhile maps, so what’s the point?

As a result, the vicious cycle comes full circle, returning to the JCSers who are not properly encouraged to try and make these sparse and often unappreciated styles of multiplayer levels.

My point is compounded by the glaringly obvious fact that, despite being a Featured upload with 446 downloads, Ragnarok’s race level has but one quick review and but one full-length review.

True, that full-length review may happen to be a Featured Review, but that’s mostly because it’s the lone votable review for the level, and is thus the most likely review to be sampled on the front page of J2O, which in most cases greatly contributes to Featured Review status.

The whole thing’s a terrible shame, really, because Nature’s Plot of Land is one of the best races I’ve EVER seen. And believe you me, there’s nary a level to challenge it.

First off, the structure is fantastic. NPoL meshes perfectly with its Mystic Isle tileset, going from expansive, roomy caverns one minute to steep, foreboding cliffs the next, then magnificent waterfalls, then winding subterranean rivers…the list goes on and on and on.

Ragnarok then avoids the classic blunder, the biggest of which is getting involved in a land war in Asia, but only SLIGHTLY less significant is to never put warps where they don’t belong!

Princess Bride quotations aside, Rag chose not to take the cheap way out and use a space-age teleporter in a naturalistic, outdoorsey environment to warp the player back to the start, instead employing a really cool sucker-tube-aided passage that flings the player through still more earthy tunnels, magically depositing them back at the start.

Beat that!

NPoL uses Mystic Isle brilliantly, with just the right amount of eyecandy dotted in various places to make it seem natural. A-plus there.

Then there’s the obstacles. Oh, be still my heart! Ragnarok showed a masterful flair for levelmaking with the obstacles he placed in this race. Spring traps (Cleverly executed ones like the Blue Spring right at the beginning never grow old). TnT booby-trap crates. Freezers to immobilize fellow players, powered-up RFs to knock them backwards (plus an ingenius method for procuring them), Keep-1 springs (A lot of people miss this crucial level-building trick, which prevents springs from automatically killing a player’s left-to-right momentum) that send the racer flying off the edge of a cliff.

The TnT crates are especially devastating in the underwater segment.

I was also VERY happy to discover certain types of ammo that Ragnarok left OUT, namely the seekers and toasters. Seekers used to be my favorite weapon, but they’re so overrused now that I’m absolutely sick of ‘em. Toasters would serve little purpose on a race anyway, so it’s good that they’re not wasted here.

The weapon I was most pleased to find present was the Pepper Spray powerup. Pepper Spray is so underrated, due to its complete uselessness in singleplayer. Nevertheless, it is instrumental in multiplayer, thanks to its minuscule size and difficulty in subsequently avoiding. It works great here.

NPoL had a great song, too. Its fast pace kept me hopping through the stage (as any good race song will), yet it was organic enough to be completely appropriate for this level. Hats off to Rag for an excellent selection.

Not much needs to be said about buggage, since it’s basically nonexistent.

The absolute ONLY criticism I have is the “Bouncy Cliffs”, where one tile is slightly high enough that, without a full head of steam, it requires a few tries to successfully climb up.

Think about that for a minute. THE WORST THING I CAN FIND TO SAY ABOUT NPoL IS THAT ONE TILE IS PLACED ONE SPACE TOO HIGH.

Summary? Nature’s Plot of Land took my breath away, not because it was such a tremendously well-executed upload on all fronts (which it was), but because it went almost completely unnoticed by prospective reviewers. I probably wouldn’t have even played it at all if I hadn’t picked a random level of Ragnarok’s to evaluate, in exchange for his own review on one of mine.

And just think of what all I would’ve missed out on.

7.8?! Heck, no! This race deserves better. So much better.

It was an almost perfect upload, so I’m going to give it an almost perfect rating. Nature’s Plot of Land was a terrific level, and I think it’s just plain ridiculous that people don’t make races like this more often.

Wonderful job, Ragnarok. Wonderful, wonderful job. Two thumbs up, a standing ovation and an immediate and unconditional download recommendation go to you today.

Its great!Now I can play j2b files!Sorry for my bad english!

[Review changed to quick review, see the review rules ~cooba]

I’ve decided to write full review, mostly because I couldn’t match in 350 character lenght rule for quick review(really, if the max lenght was around 600 I could easily match and create much smaller review, but I couldn’t so I wrote a full one. Isn’t it quite stupid when I can’t decide if the review is quick?).

Before I rated this map for 8, but I haven’t tested it really, just run around for few seconds to see how the level is. Still, its not that bad but its a bit annoying. Hard to move around. Actually, it feels like the creator of this didn’t liked players so he made a lot of spots where he can easily fall to sucker tube that brings them back or forcing them to make some jumps in rather strange way, like demanding players to make everything perfect(jumping to RF area is quite annoying). I don’t like lower path, because it sucks, takes much time and can be annoying because of pits and sucker tubes over players.

This level for me feels like its much smaller than it is. Why? Overloaded with some events. You tried to put everything in it, not really good way of creating gameplay. Too many warps, too many sucker tubes of which two are pointless and the only reason they are there is to annoy player. I want more space, I would understand if it was 20×15 level, they are supposed to be crowded. This one though should use more space. Just few minor changes, sometimes even One Way Floor event makes level feel a bit more spacious. This level lacks One Way Floor event. It also lacks space. Seriously. It’s hard to move and sometimes its made on purpose, trying to master this level might be very annoying, tiring and pointless because probably noone would like to play there anyway. Also, springs leading to warps the most to the left/right could use oneways under them.

Ammo placement is fine, I can’t say it’s not, although it would be a little more comfortable to put oneway floor under RF power up. Everything is almost fine, but there is just… too much of everything. Too many seeks mostly, no way you can run out of ammo. There should be more bouncers instead of seeks in my opinion. Also, probably for a level like that you won’t get sugar rush during the game anyway, but it’s good to see all of those cakes around.

Eyecandy is nice, hard to say anything else. Warps next to bases(to which you can get via sucker tube) have got layer 3 bug(hard to notice that while playing, but actually whole eyecandy is only visual problem, and I have noticed this), thats the only bug I have found. Everything else is fine and the level looks nice even on low detail(I mean, nothing what looks like serious tilebugs), though it doesn’t matter that much. I have found annoying only one place where tiles used for regular levels are on layer 3(right and left from RF powerup), at the beggining it was confusing, later I got used to that.

Overall: without much space, annoying, hard to move, overloaded, but its looking good. I just found it hard to move here, and that is the most annoying thing about this level. It’s not a bad level anyway, not that bad to rate it less than 7. The thing I liked the most here was eyecandy, and its worth downloading just to see how it looks(because why not).

That’s all I guess.

Edit: Oh, thats nice. I feel this one will be more playable now so I raised the rating. Thanks and good job anyway!

An interesting level with an interesting concept, I like the warp. The eyecandy is alright, I really like the middle area of the map. As for the gameplay, I rarely play Domination so I do not really know what a good DOM level needs, but this one is fine enough for me so I’ll give it a fine rating and a DL rec.

Good luck on the contest!

[Review changed to quick review. ~cooba]

Great pack, fun levels.
Good eyecandy, the levels look good without being too busy for the eyes.

Fixed.

Huh. Well, maybe.

I guess I’ll change the label, just to be on the safe side.