O2Jam is now Free to Play, and the International Tournament

[ross]

For those of you who have never heard of O2Jam, it is a computer game, originally from Korea (and spread to many other East Asian countries) based closely on Beatmania IIDX, but with a couple different twists. First, the fact that it's a computer game means that you're not using a controller, you're using your keyboard. The timing windows are also a little more lax, sort of like PIU. So what does this mean for you? It means that the songs can be much more complicated and fun.

The other element to O2Jam that makes it so fun is that it's actually an ONLINE game. If any of you are familiar with Gunbound, there are a lot of striking similarities and you'll be very comfortable with the setup very quickly. Playing with others is what the game is all about, and it prevents the game from getting boring, that and the song list of 162 totally free songs that you have access to immediately after downloading, 9 songs which you can buy with in-game currency, and 97 songs which you can buy with real money (averaging less than a dollar per song, some are even as low as a quarter). Like Gunbound, you can customize your character with tons of avatar items, including various clothing items like shirts, pants, shoes, cranium accessories, gloves and hats, but also you can customize your character's face, skin color, get instruments and even a little pet.

And best of all, there's no longer a monthly subscription fee for the game. Well, you say, what if I haven't played O2Jam in a really long time or even never before? Now's an awesome opportunity to pick it up! With more songs than ever, you won't get bored. Furthermore, I have found that people with experience in music games (especially IIDX, but also DDR and others) tend to catch on to O2Jam very quickly, some even passing the harder songs within their first week, many quickly becoming better than those who have played O2Jam for much longer.

On top of this announcement, the International community of O2Jam (i.e. those who do not have a native client) would like to announce that we will be holding a tournament in celebration. Now that Malaysian O2Jam is free again, we internationals thought it'd be high time that we got in on the tournament action, since the many O2Jam tournaments in Malaysia are all on-location. We also figured this would be a good way to spark some renewed international interest in O2Jam, since a lot of people seemed to be turned off by the monthly subscription.

So what does that mean? That means in the month and a half until the tournament (January 14th), you have plenty of time to get into the groove of O2Jam and become a serious competitor in the International Tournament. I highly recommend any international who plays O2Jam to sign up, because you never know, and I have a feeling it'll be a lot of fun, if, for no other reason, meeting all the other internationals. And you never know who you'll meet-- I've met a couple people on O2Jam that live within a couple hours, and one who actually lives in the same town as me, who I sometimes hang out with.

If you're interested in reading more about the International Tournament, or are interested in joining the International community, come visit us here!

Hope to see you guys there =)
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aka rossman231