Like most gamers I’m familiar with the Call of Duty series, in fact it’s one of my favourites so when I got the opportunity to go to the launch party for the newest in the series Call of Duty: World at War hosted by Alienware my geek squeal of glee rang out across the land. I arrived at Swinburne University to discover I was 20 minutes late and the place was packed. 100 sweet looking Alienware PCs and 100 Xbox 360 were lined up inside the atrium and everyone single one was occupied by gamers who all looked pleased to finally be playing one of the most anticipated games of the year.

Brendan at the front of the line.

I decided not to jump in too quick, after all this was a 24 hour launch party, a marathon not a sprint. So after tracking down my mates Brendan and James we browsed the event discussing the somewhat import change in setting World at War has from the previous game in the series Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. I came to the conclusion that despite the trip back to World War II we were all still just as excited to play World at War.

After waiting patiently we each got a computer and started up a game of Team Death match. Given the popularity of COD4’s multiplayer it wasn’t a surprise that World at War played very similar, it still had the rank system, experience, customizable weapons and of course call in support. Is there anything more satisfying than calling an airstrike on somebody? How about sicking a pack of attack dogs on them?

Brendan (Back), James (Front), George, and I.

After a while I checked my phone to discover a couple of hours had gone by, so taking a break from the game we discovered another familiar face. None other than George for AustralianGamer.com after saying hi, taking a quick photo and asking her what she thought of the event so far, we headed off to get some food (Chinese in case you were wondering, it was delicious).

Back at Swinburne Brendan left to play some more Death match on the Alienware PCs while James and I grabbed some 360 controllers off the event staff and sat down in the inflatable chairs to start the co-op campaign. Now being the skilled gamers that we are over the next few hours we completed that campaign despite the fact we could barely hear it over the event noise. We both agreed the game was best played on the harder settings but since we had already started on medium we played through it using only the knife and the very awesome flamethrower when it was available. The new feature of getting awarded points during the co-op campaign gave it a bit of competition as we raced through the levels trying to get more kills than each other.

Night has fallen and the gaming goes on.

Shortly after we finished the co-op campaign is when things got exciting (in more ways than one) the DJ finally got going after fixing power problems he had been having all night, the promo girls hit the dance floor and a few of the more sociable gamers joined them. Then the other bit of excitement as the fire alarm sounded and the atrium was very slowly evacuated. After a few minutes standing outside we were allowed back in only to learn the alarm had been set off by someone leaving through the fire escape for a smoke. Remember kids, smoking ruins the fun.

Early morning and the crowd has thinned.

Having completed the game, taking a break to chat with the people there and playing some more Death match we decided to call it a night… or day actually. Sure I wussed out and didn’t make it the full 24 hours but I was tired and I get cranky when I’m tired. So to conclude it was a fun event I recommend keeping an eye here for any similar events in the future and if you’re a fan of the series or of good FPS games I recommend picking up Call of Duty: World at War. Finally big thanks to the guys at Alienware for running the event and supplying all the cool Alienware computers. See you guys online and remember to fear my dogs.