Get Amped with the ‘Avatar’ Amp Suit Toy this Christmas

James Cameron merges action figures with Augmented Reality.

The big movie coming to Hong Kong this Christmas is James Cameron’s Avatar. A sci-fi epic about a human soldier (Sam Worthington from Terminator: Salvation) infiltrating the alien race called the Na’vi, it’s about their battle for survival (trailer below) and is one amazing show. One of the cooler set pieces is this Amp Suit, what looks to be an upscaled version of the Aliens Power Loader where the human characters get in and ride this around fighting blue aliens – the ultimate sci-fi!

Mattel Toys is releasing an Amp Suit toy in time for Christmas and what sets it apart from other robot toys is that it has the iTag system built in, which means it works with your computer to bring real-life 3D images to your computer screen. If you haven’t seen this in action before, it’s kind of hard to explain so have a watch and get ready to head down to Toys R Us afterwards with about HK$200 to avail of your own:

You saw this Total Immersion technology this Summer on movies like Star Trek and Transformers, but this is taking it to the next level with actual toys. Makes sense really since we usually have tons of robots and superheroes decorating our computers to begin with! Learn more at the official site AvatarItag.com – remember you also need a webcam to make it work!

If this version of the Amp Suit is too “kiddie” for you, Sideshow Toys has a limited edition HK$9,350 (US$1,199) version that looks amazing, but the downside is that it doesn’t move and it doesn’t interact with your computer.

And, if you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing it yet and are wondering what all the fuss is about, below is the newest trailer for Avatar which looks better than the first one ,but gives us a better feel that you have to see this in IMAX:

Here is a 6 minute video review and a real hands-on experience of the Mattel Amp Suit with iTag from CollectionDX:

And one more video of the Avatar iTag technology in action by a Mattel professional: