Jazz Jackrabbit, that side-scrolling pistol-packing hare from the surprisingly popular shareware title from Epic MegaGames, has returned in Jazz Jackrabbit 2.

　　This April, Epic MegaGames intends to release the shareware and full version of Jazz Jackrabbit 2, which it says will feature better graphics, better gameplay, more levels, and best of all, multiplayer support.

　　"When the team finished Jazz 1 they still had several ideas for cool things to do with the genre on the PC, and the programmer had a ton of ideas on how to push the game technologically," said Craig Lafferty, PR manager at Epic MegaGames. "The ability to add more detail with better animation and a much improved (and all new) game engine was really enticing. And there was a large demand from gamers who had purchased Jazz 1 and wanted more!"

　　The short list of features in Jazz Jackrabbit 2 includes 30 levels (and many secret levels), graphics resolutions up to 640x480, 16-bit color, Intel MMX support, eight-level parallax scrolling, ambient and stereo sound effects, dynamic lighting and scaling, over twelve weapons, and a full-featured game editor.

　　The biggest improvement has been in the multiplayer side of things, which will offer three separate configurations: up to four players on just one screen (at home), up to eight players on two screens (connected via a modem), or up to thirty-two players on eight separate screens via local area network or the Internet. Jazz 2 multiplayer games include deathmatch-style play, treasure hunt, and capture the flag.

　　"I think the multiplayer aspects of Jazz Jackrabbit 2 are what stand out the most," stated Lafferty in an interview. "When you first hear the idea, multiplayer in a platform game seems like an odd idea at best. But it only takes a few minutes of playing to see how much it adds to the game! The team started with the standard deathmatch idea and added all sorts of other multiplayer gameplay modes that are a blast to play. Capture the flag, race mode, treasure mode, all offer a unique multiplayer game and offer a nice change of pace from the first person kill-fest that dominates multiplayer.

　　"Just like with a 3D game, there is nothing like playing against another human opponent, and when you can take and have eight human players in a platform world running around trying to shoot each other, it adds so much to the platform genre it really surprises a lot of people."

　　Getting into the multiplayer games was also made easy with Jazz 2; all you have to do is enter an IP address or connect to a master server which lists all of the games in progress.

　　"From point of view," said Lafferty, "the fact that anyone can have a blast with Jazz is really nice, because it doesn't contain blood and guts, so my nephew can play it and have just as much fun as a die-hard gamer can."