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Activision "reinventing" Tony Hawk

Ambitious DS project out this year.

Activision has promised it will be "reinventing Tony Hawk from the ground-up", presumably in order to compete with acclaimed genre newcomer Skate.

Speaking in an analysts' conference call, publisher boss Mike Griffith revealed there were two separate skating projects currently in development.

The first is solely for the DS and will use "new technology not yet seen" on the handheld. It's due out sometime this year.

The latter is the flagship console offering scheduled for sometime after April 2009. Griffith said the game would be given two years in development "to deliver the kind of breakthrough that the franchise needs".

"For competitive reasons we're not going to talk about it today, but we're very bullish on the kind of innovation this will bring. This won't be your father's Tony Hawk," added Griffith.

Which is a relief, because my Dad has trouble working his email and CD player.

Tony Hawk's Proving Ground was the last instalment in the series, but sadly failed to captivate us in the same way next-gen debut Tony Hawk's Project 8 did.

Skate, on the other hand, was a surprisingly accomplished first attempt by EA to offer the long established Activision series some competition.