Report: Modern Warfare 2, board-based Tony Hawk confirmed

For a site that doesn't allow messages of more than 140 characters, Twitter has been the source of much gaming news of late. Two weeks after GameSpot UK correspondent Guy Cocker used it to reveal that Eidos' PR agency was trying to delay negative Tomb Raider reviews, Newsweek games reporter N'Gai Croal has employed it to apparently bust open Activision's entire 2009 lineup.

In a series of "tweets" sent this afternoon, Croal recounted events from a presentation in New York announcing Activision's new deal with in-game ad firm Massive Inc. First and foremost is that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will arrive in fall 2009. Although big, the news isn't particularly surprising, given the schedule that has Infinity Ward and Treyarch alternating development duties to ensure a new game each year. Treyarch's Call of Duty: World at War was released to strong reviews last month.

Also not totally unexpected was apparent confirmation that the next Tony Hawk game will feature a skateboard-controlling peripheral. Croal quotes an executive as saying, "You're not going to be playing Tony Hawk with a controller in your hands." This would seem to confirm a June market-research firm leak that teased a game called Tony Hawk's Adrenaline. The PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 game would have players "put down the controller, step on the board, and feel the sensation of going big... Shift your weight to turn and balance grinds, kick back on the tail of the board to ollie, and lean into airs to pull off huge spins."

More intriguing is Croal's mention of not one, but two driving games from Project Gotham Racing developer Bizarre Creations, which Activision bought last year. The first was described as "Mario Kart meets Forza" by an Activision executive. The second will be a James Bond-themed driving game unassociated with any particular film, much like 2004's James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing. The multiplatform hit, which featured many vehicular sequences, was considered the best Bond game released while Electronic Arts held the film license. EA gave up the 007 IP in spring 2006, and Activision snapped it up just weeks later.

Unfortunately, though the executive at the presentation was apparently quite chatty, Activision as a corporation appears to have clammed up. As of press time, reps for the company had not responded to requests for comment.