My love of DJ games…Goodbye dj games…

DJ games. What are they? DJ games are music beat games where the player has to press a button at the exact moment when told to do so. Theoretically it sounds easy enough. It is not as easy as one thinks. There are many variations that can be made to this simple concept, such as having 6 different buttons/keys to press, multiple button pressing, button holding (hold a button down until told to release) and other stuff.

I first fell in love with DJ games in 1999, after graduating from high school. The first DJ game I ever saw was EZ2DJ 1st tracks. It was in the local arcade in Kajang. Tried it, played it, loved it. The game concept was simple. It proves that you don’t need a overwhelmingly complex game concept to make a popular game.

At that time, I am proud to say I was the best EZ2DJer in Kajang, unbeknownst to me there was a better player far superior than me in Kajang. The first time I saw him play, I was in awestruck. The hardest song in the game was Ztar WarZ. Looking back… 9 years ago…. It was a satisfying experience to manage to complete that song. Looking back… It’s actually a moderately easy song by today’s standard of songs. I exaggerate. It’s somewhere around intermediate level. Expert level songs are plain crazy and at times almost unaccomplishable.

I was so naive and I was living under a blanket. Once I ventured outside of Kajang, I found that there were gazillions of many overwhelmingly better players than me. It made me more humble. Regardless, if I love a game, I will still play it even if people criticize my skill or style.

Over the years… I have been playing EZ2DJ and Beatmania. Beatmania is actually the original DJ game, that EZ2DJ based off. It has way crappier graphics and music at that time, but in the years it evolved into a DJ game which could rival EZ2DJ. I would estimate that I spent over RM1000-2000 on these games over the course of these 9 years. Probably might have spent more. Don’t really want to bother myself in doing an exact calculation. Anyway, my “DJing” experienced a sharp decline in 2003. My budget/allowance did not allow me to play as much as I want/used to. My skills dulled. I would rate myself as a level 6-8 EZ2DJ player. I could not complete certain level 6 songs but I managed to complete certain level 8 songs. Level 9 and above were way too much for me. I no longer “practiced”, I no longer played to “perfect” a song. My habit declined to just “surviving” a song.

The next big thing for me would be O2Jam. O2Jam can be described as an online DJ game. Actually I think only EZ2DJ and Beatmania are the only games that can qualify as a true DJ game. The reason is because they actually use a DJ scratchboard and for EZ2DJ’s case an actual foot pedal. A better definition for O2Jam would be it is an online “beatgame”. O2Jam…. I loved it as well… One of the reasons why I love it so much is because it is free to play, with some restrictions.

Besides O2Jam, there was another online beatgame available, which is DJMAX. DJMAX is accepted by the EZ2DJ community as the spiritual successor to EZ2DJ as it is very similar, and it features many songs which were composed by many of the composers from EZ2DJ. In my opinion, DJMAX is superior to O2Jam, as it focuses on “DJing”.

DOWNFALL of DJ games…

Amuseworld (company which produced EZ2DJ), has been sued by Konami for copyright infringement, it’s design was too similar to Beatmania. Konami won. Amuseworld has since ceased to produce any further iterations of EZ2DJ stopping at EZ2DJ 7th Trax (have not seen this machine in Malaysia yet).

DJMAX, O2Jam… Ceased to exist… I guess they were not making enough revenue.

E-Games, which is a Malaysian based online game service provider is now in some state of bankruptcy. It had more than just O2Jam, but the other games that it had were kind of meaningless to me.

I remember I once argued with a friend over how O2Jam should be. My arguement was O2Jam should be a single player game. My reason was there was no reason to make it online. O2Jam forced players to play with other players once they were above level 10. It can be frustrating looking for other players who want to play the same song/speed/modifiers that you want to play with. The whole premise of playing with other players on O2Jam was a competitive one. Sure, it’s nice to compete once in a while but it offered no incentive to players who played solo. Players who played solo were not awarded gold just because they played by themselves. I find that kind of retarded. Another thing is the background. All it shows is the players avatars on some backdrop staticly animated. Looking at that background for 10 seconds would be the same as looking at the background for 1 hour. It did however display each player’s health bar and “JAM” status.

My friend argued that it should be online. I still don’t get why it should be online. If you want to compete, all you need is a scoreboard. If you want to chat, you already have MSN/Yahoo Messenger. Well maybe, you want to show off your “cool avatar” which basically does nothing but just “pleases” the eye?

Playing O2Jam online can be frustrating due to the other players themselves. Some players lag, some players are rude, and some players are hackers/cheaters. I kind of hate hackers/cheaters. They spoil the fun of people who don’t hack/cheat.

O2Jam was destined to die off… It is hard to make profit when there are gamers like me who don’t spend a cent on their game, and there are hackers who cheat and exploit the game so that they do not require paying for songs.

BEATGAME REBIRTH

DJMax, has been made into 2 portable DJ games, DJ Max Portable and DJ max portable 2. Both exclusively on the PSP. A good move. It is now a single player game, and it is possible to challenge your friends using the PSP wireless LAN connection. Players pay a one lump sum for the complete game.

EZ2ON, similar to DJMAX online but I would say it is the true successor to EZ2DJ. It features songs from EZ2DJ and the producing company has a contract with Amuseworld. Unfortunately it’s in Korean and you need a Korean Social Security number to create an account. In other words, if you are not a Korean Citizen, no EZ2ON for you…. (I wanna be Korean now)…

ALTERNATIVES TO ONLINE DJ GAMES….

XDO, also known as Super Dancer Online Extreme or Extreme Super Dancer Online. It is a beatgame disguised as a dance game. Why do I say that? To the very core, this game is meant to be played using a dance mat, they even have an avatar system that encourages intense “dance” workout. If you do not play for a certain amount of time, your avatar will grow fat, else if you do play regularly your avatar will remain thin/fit. Kind of an ignorant insult to “fat” people. One of the key features in this game is that it only uses 4 keys as opposed to “traditional” DJ games that use 5 to 7 keys. Comparitively it is much easier to play (Don’t flame me on this, I know 4 key songs can be though as hell but if the song was done on 7 keys it would be so though one would assume it’s impossible). This feature… This…. Easiness… Is an attractive feature to casual gamers….  Hmm… I might have to pick up XDO… :p TO LOSE WEIGHT!!! ;D