O2Jam was a rhythm game franchise from the 2000s that died and was largely forgotten except by a dedicated group of loyal fans. Those fans were very excited to experience O2Jam’s rebirth in O2Jam Online, which was released on Steam just last week, but to say they’ve been disappointed would be a massive understatement. O2Jam Online is a technical disaster that’s so heavily monetized that it makes most mobile games look like baby’s first slot machine. Worse yet, those technical issues appear to have affected the game’s monetization such that players are paying out the nose.We’ll dive into that monetization first since it’s easily the worst part. O2Jam Online is technically free to play in that you can freely download the game client, but you can’t actually play the game unless you pay to unlock songs. And those songs only unlock for either seven days or one month--there’s no way to permanently unlock songs. In fact, there’s no way to permanently unlock anything as even cosmetic note colors purchased only remain available for seven days or a month, then you have to buy them again.The whole thing seems designed to push players to pay for a subscription to gain access to most of O2Jam’s content, but there’s a pretty big problem. The subscription should charge players monthly, but it’s actually charging players daily. Say goodbye to your credit score if you sign up for this one.
But wait, O2Jam Online gets worse. As noted by PC Gamer, there are technical issues that cause the audio to desync, and there's both stutter and lag that'll cause the player to miss notes. The game lets you rebind the keys, but when you actually go to use the rebound keys you'll find they haven't been rebound and all. The game's resolution doesn't go any higher than 1080p, so it looks awful on 2K and 4K monitors. Even the game's name is wrong as there's nothing "online" about O2Jam Online except for a global leaderboard. There are no multiplayer game modes.
O2Jam Online currently has an astounding four percent positive reviews on Steam after more than 1000 negative reviews. This makes it the lowest-scoring game on the platform, although Steam250 still has it at 18 simply due to its algorithm. We expect that number to drop precipitously as more negative reviews come pouring in.