Call Of Duty: World At War Launch Party

Melbourne’s Swinburne University opens its

doors for Activision to launch COD: WaW

by TAXC

Guest writer from OzBoxLive.com – When one of our team were unable to attend the Activision event, we asked the guys at OzBoxLive if they wouldn’t mind doing a little feature on it if they were heading over that way. Cam was nice enough to dedicate many hours to the task and slave away to bring you this report. Many thanks to the guys at OzBoxLive once again.

©2008 Cam Rousseau

What one can say about the Call of Duty Franchise is that it is intense; the creators make it an experience rivaled by no other in the genre. This approach was given to the COD: world at war launch party. A 24 hour marathon event to celebrate the launch of this great new title.

Held in Melbourne at the Swinburne University, Hawthorn campus. This provided an unbelievable space under a state of the art under cover area in the middle of the university.

Custom engineered it had a clear roof with fresh air pumps continuously feeding fresh air into the area. The reason this is so important is that it was feeding air to more than 100 Xbox 360 consoles and 100 PC’s.

Microsoft generously donated the Xbox 360 consoles for the event, Alienware were the PC monsters that occupied the floor. Already having affiliation with the universities multimedia department, these are an obvious choice to showcase this awesome new title.

With the event starting at 4.00pm on Saturday the 8th, the line to get in was unbelievably long. Many frustrated people getting a little more animated when they were told they had to wait a little longer.

Upon entry to the venue, well organized was the only word I could say that described what was going on. Individual Gaming stations were setup for each Xbox 360 running on HD LCD tv’s, and comfortable inflatable gaming chairs. The venue was split up into three areas.

The main gaming pit, a Guitar Hero 3 lounge , which was always busy and a Press V.I.P Room. Once the venue opened up, people started to crowd in and occupy the machines and let loose. Xbox users handed in there drivers licence’s to get a controller, grabbed a seat and started to play.

With 700 tickets sold before the day and a spare 100 tickets available at the door, we witnessed over 400 people in the first three hours.

The turn out was huge, the Call of Duty Girls circled for two 8 hour shifts, taking photos and generally looking really good. Which was noticable distraction for some gamers as they walked around the Swinbourne Event area.

As the night grew on it was increasingly difficult to get a machine and play, especially in the P.C section.

At around 11pm a fire alarm was tripped and every one was told to leave the building until the all clear was given. Added a good mix up to the night as it got some of the hardcore gamers off the machines and gave a chance to some other people to enjoy the game.

It was around this time I grabbed a 360 controller and started the Single Player campaign and embarked on a pledge to stay all night or finish the game, what ever came first.

A DJ was hired to keep the early part of the night entertained for those who were not playing and gave them also chance to dance with the call of duty girls!!  wowaweewa.

At a around 2.30am I realised that my machine had no hard drive and all progress was lost. Damn.

Looking around at that time it was worth noting that many machines were still occupied and the place was still busy. I myself went home freshened up, got comfortable and pledged to go back and stay until I finished the game!!.

On return at around 3.45am it was noticeable that most people had gone home. With most PC machines still occupied I went straight back to the Xbox 360 section, with a strong coffee and a sandwhich.

Time turned at around 8am Sunday morning and the credits were rolling on my machine, it was cold and the sun was shinning. Time to go home and sleep for the day.

All in all, the event was very well organised, excellent venue and great turn out created an amazingly

successful turnout, even with the hickups, it was not really noticable and did not detract from the awesome game that is CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR.

Congrats to Microsoft and Activision, Alienware, Swinburne and the general public for making it an event that was so good if there was another one on next week I would definitely be there again.

©2008 Cam Rousseau

Filed under: Console gaming, Events, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 News Tagged: | Activision, Activision's call of duty, Call Of Duty World at War, Treyarch Call Of Duty 5, World At War