O2Jam NX

"An Excellent Online-Based Music game that shouldn't be overlooked"

Ever play Beatmania? This is basically it's clone on a PC. O2Jam Provides an awesome music experience on your PC that includes a good amount of extra features that other games like this don't provide.

This is an excellent, online-based music game that provides countless songs at many difficulties all for free! It incorporates a system that allows up to 8 people to compete against each other at a time. You can also Jam alone if you want to practice. Outside of it's basic features, it also gives the user some more options. Among those is an avatar system. The System allows you to customize your character with a wide variety of clothing, accessories and instruments. Although some of these can be earned by getting “gems” (A currency you get for completing a song), quite a few can only be earned by getting EP, which can only be obtained by winning various events or by purchasing EP. Enough with the special features for now, onto the gameplay.

Gameplay is the heart and soul of a music game. If gameplay is poor, the game as a whole will be sub par. Thankfully, O2Jam does an excellent job in the gameplay department. 7 different notes will fall from the top of the screen, your job is to press the corresponding key for each note as it falls in time with the beat. If you have poor hand-eye coordination, this game is going to be difficult for you and I would recommend maybe starting with an easier music game such as Amplitude or Frequency. Even in the mid-level songs, the notes comes fast and furious and without decent coordination, your going to get lost in the mess of notes. If you feel your are up to the challenge check this out, it's worth your time.

Speaking of difficulty, this game is tough. Even the most veteran of gamers will not be able to whip through this game without a good amount of practice. The late levels at high speeds will make your fingers burn up before you finally beat the songs. Thankfully for those who are less experienced with music games, you can slow the song down and drop the difficulty until you are more accustomed with the game.

One of the greatest features of the game is the amount of songs that are available. For free, you can download close to 150 songs to play. Another 100 or so songs can be boughten with EP or gems. A wide variety of style makes this a joy to play over and over as you can get new songs to play. Also, to add to re-playability, this game includes various “rings” you can wear to alter the note patterns. Some rings will randomize the notes and others will make them disappear as they fall. Other rings with other effects exist as well. Unfortunately, To acquire all the rings, you will need to buy them with EP or earn them from events.

Overall, the game is well put together. The huge amount of songs offers a large amount of re-playability and variety and the Player vs Player system is also done well, so even when you have to game mastered, you can still play against the best in your class. It's completely free to get the basic game so it's definitely worth checking out.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/07/06