Activision Activate Asia 2006. Sydney, Australia. (News)

Maurice Branscombe, GamePro Australia

01/08/2006 11:32:55

Taking a break from Hong Kong, the show's venue for the past few years, Activision's annual Activate Asia event took place yesterday in Australian GamePro's home town of Sydney. We took ourselves along a caught up with some of the publisher's top titles for 2006 and beyond.

Showcasing some of the company's great franchises, we were shown in-game action from titles such as Call of Duty 3, Tony Hawk's Project 8, Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.

In a world first the visiting crew from Red Octane, the developer behind the strum-em-up success story Guitar Hero, unveiled an extra three songs that will be featured on the tracklist of that game's sequel, Guitar Hero II. The three new songs announced were Anthrax's 'Madhouse', Motley Crue's 'Shout at the Devil' and 'Trippin on a Hole in a Paper Heart' by the Stone Temple Pilots.

The most exciting part of the show however was a tech demonstration by Lucasarts. The company behind the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises further unveiled their Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) and Euphoria technology, both of which promise to completely revolutionise the way realism is recreated in a game environment. In a demonstration of DMM, we were shown several different surfaces, ranging from plywood, to hardwood and on to glass, ice, rubber, jelly and even carbonite. When interacted with, by throwing a mini R2-D2 model at them, the surfaces would react in a completely realistic way, the likes of which we have never seen before.

The Lucasarts crew even showed us a very special Jar Jar Binks - encased in carbonite! The carbonite Jar Jar was quickly decimated with a few good blows from a R2 model, denting the carbonite out of shape before ultimately crumbling it to pieces. A more fitting fate for the Gungan we have never seen.

Somewhat unfortunate however was the complete absence of any original IP, with all of the company's future releases being either licensed products or part of existing franchises.

Nevertheless, Australian GamePro declared Activate Asia 2006 a success, and to celebrate that fact we retired for a relaxing drink with a few of the hired Stormtrooper and Boba Fett impersonators...