Jazz Jackrabbit 2

The Good
Jazz Jackrabbit 2 is quite simply a quantum leap from the original Jazz Jackrabbit, a technicially magnificent game in its own right. Jazz Jackrabit 2 perfects the jump-'n-run style found in other classics (Sonic the Hedgehog comes to mind) with the following features:

• Demo-coding power! Arjan Brussee, originally of the famous demo group Ultra Force, did such a great job on Jazz Jackrabbit - no matter the resolution, Jazz Jackrabbit 2 will run absolutely smooth and look great on any adequate computer (I could run it in just about any resolution on a Pentium 166 with a fast video card). Jazz 2's engine is a marvel of modern programming technique, and without a doubt the best game engine in any platform game to date.
• The music in Jazz Jackrabbit 2 is absolutely marvelous. Written by one of my favorite trackers, Alexander Brandon of Straylight, Jazz 2 has some of the best music in any computer game to date, professionally tracked and with great quality samples. It creates the atmosphere for the whole game, and damn well too.
• The graphics in Jazz Jackrabbit 2 are simply amazing (see screenshots): lighting effects, sprites, explosions and just about everything looks magnificent. Epic simply outdid themselves this time by creating the best-looking platform game ever.
• The level design is great - a few touches of puzzles and generally thoroughly pleasing gameplay.
• Coolest menu system in any game to date!
• The controls in this game are excellent. 'nuff said.

In short - Jazz Jackrabbit 2 rules!

The Bad
Only a few complaints:

• The introduction sequence is simply horrible. While the actual idea isn't a bad one, the execution is simply not befitting the quality of the game, with pretty bad drawings and non-smooth animation. The only spot of light in the intro is the wonderful music.
• The game is unbelievably easy! Even in the toughest level, it's unlikely that you'll ever find yourself in a really bad situation where you're out of lives and have to rely on luck.

The Bottom Line
The best platform game on any platform to date. You can't beat Jazz Jackrabbit 2 - it's as close to perfect as it gets.

The Good
I really enjoyed playing this game. It contains many different locations and enemies, like first "Jazz Jackrabbit". There are also the same weapons, but Epic added some new ones, such as freezer, heat-seeker and pepper spray. But it's good to conserve ammo for bosses, and killing regular enemies with blaster. Blaster has once again unlimited ammo.

Game is much easier than it's prequel. There aren't insanely hard levels like Orbitus from "Jazz 1". But fights with bosses can be a real pain in a butt (especially queen, bolly boss and Devan himself, while other are fairly easy, like tuf turtle boss and robot).

You can select two completely different characters to play: Jazz or Spaz. Jazz, for example, use his "ear-copter", while Spaz can smash enemies by his feet.

Graphically it looks good, even today. Everything looks like taken from cartoon movie. "Jazz 2" also introduces more complicated backgrounds than "Jazz 1". I really enjoyed "psycho" and "jungle" levels design. Sound effects are brilliant. Music is like from first "Jazz" but in much better quality.

"Jazz 2" also contains multiplayer! You can play on split-screen, through LAN or Internet. Multi has five types of gameplay: cooperative (you're playing the same levels like in single player, but with friends), deathmatch, race (you've got to run through level several times), treasure hunt (collect 100 diamonds and run to the exit) and capture the flag (yes, CTF in platform game!). When you buy this game, you also get "Jazz Creation Station" (abbreviated to "JCS"), which let you create your own levels!

The Bad
When you want to play "Jazz 2" by LAN or Intenet, you can't play race and cooperative. I completely don't know why they aren't included.

Maximal screen size is 640x480. That's odd - other games released in 1998 had much bigger screen size. One episode contain levels based on three first planets from "Jazz 1": Diamondus, Tubelectric and Medivo. Designers were run out of ideas?

And the worst thing are walls - you can sometimes jump into walls and get stuck. You can see it in the end of "castle" levels, when you defeat queen. While in original episodes it only appears in this level, in some user-made levels it appears very often, especially in levels converted from "Jazz 1", which had many narrow tunnels, like in Diamondus.

The Bottom Line
Well, "the good" section is much longer than this "bad" section. Despite these bad things, you will probably enjoy this game. I always keep this game for parties - simple rules and split screen for max. 4 players make this game perfect for such things.

The Good
In Jazz Jackrabbit, Devan made plans to destroy Carrotus, but not before Jazz thwarted his plans, causing him to escape. Now in this sequel, Devan is up to his tricks again and steals Eva away from Jazz. He then plans to wed him, so Jazz must stop him once again.

The introduction shows Jazz and his wacky brother Spaz (the guy who made a cameo appearance in Jazz Jackrabbit: Holiday Hare 1995) fighting a turtle together. In Jazz2, you can also play Spaz as well as Jazz. They both have different abilities. For example, Jazz can jump into the air and use his ears as helicopters, whereas Spaz can double-jump to reach some platforms that are sometimes impossible to reach.

There are four episodes in Jazz2, plus the 3-level shareware demo. Each registered episode has six levels instead of just three, with a total of 24 episodes in all. One level involves you going underwater to get to the next area. The episodes have to be played in sequence (ie: You can’t play episode two without complete episode one). This is to prevent gamers from playing them out of order.

Enemies in the game include turtles, rats, monkeys, mosquitos, and wasps. Some enemies who have a method of attacking you are quite bizarre. For example, each turtle in the game tries to take a chunk out of you whenever you get too close to them, while the monkeys throw bananas to hurt you. Out of all these enemies, the wasps are the worse: you can attack them with any gun and still miss them. Some of those heat-seeking missiles work well in this situation.

You also have the option of playing single player mode or party mode. Party mode is where you compete against two or more friends locally, through a local area network, or over the Internet. When you play locally, you and your buddy play through a split-screen view. The games that can be played locally include Co-operative, Battle, Race, Treasure Hunt, and Capture the Flag. When you play through single player mode, the object of the game is to run through each level, shooting enemies with your pistol, and collecting gems (finding 100 of these results in an extra life), coins, weapon power-ups, and food. Some of these items may be hidden in crates, in which Jazz or Spaz can break by slamming into them. Collecting several amounts of food will result in a “sugar rush”, where you are invincible for a short period of time.

Halfway through each level, there is a vendor that can gain your access to bonus areas if you have the required amount of silver coins found in hidden areas or hovering in the air exposed. These bonus areas usually contain rows of food. Gold coins can also be found which gives you ten silver coins.

A health indicator is displayed on the top-right corner of the screen consisting of five hearts, and as usual, when they have expired, you lose a life. However, if you collect one or more carrots like in Jazz Jackrabbit, one heart is added to the health indicator.

You’ll likely to see blocks that can be broken either by shooting pellets at them or by slamming into them. But sometimes you’ll see blocks with a certain weapon power-up on them. This means that you have to use a specific weapon to shoot them.

Jazz Jackrabbit 2 can also be played in a higher resolution other than 320x200. That means that you can also play the game at resolutions like 400x300 and 512x384. The maximum you can set the resolution to is 640x480, but the sprites look a bit small. There’s also a listing in the Episode Solution called “Home-Cooked Levels”, which is not an episode at all. If you select this, you can play additional levels created with JCS, the Jazz Creation Station. With JCS, you can create your own stuff, including tilesets, single player levels, and levels that are designed for multiplayer. You can even create full episodes and add your own music.

The music in Jazz2 in this game is far from average, especially the music from “Funky Monkeys”, and also the music when you revisit the levels from episode one in Jazz Jackrabbit in “Flashback”. The sound effects are excellent too. I like when Spaz makes weird noises when a spring bounces him up in the air. In the underwater level, the sound effects are sensational.

The Bad
Jazz Jackrabbit 2 may be the game that outdates Sonic the Hedgehog, but at least Sonic doesn’t have bugs. While playing one level, I occasionally got an “Access Violation”, forcing me to restart my system. I also had a message telling me that my sound device was busy, but in fact, there was no other application I was running that also used my sound card.

The Bottom Line
A lot better than Jazz Jackrabbit. Too bad about the bugs. ****½