It’s been awhile I haven’t put up any kind of post about games. In fact, I’ve been struggling to find a writing theme for my site which eventually ended up as personal blog rather than what I planned before (it was still something personal stuffs but with more varieties.. oh well). For example, there’s one unrelated post in this blog that seemed out of the league (*points at MiG news*). Nevertheless, let me write something about upcoming PC Games of 2009 that make me feel amusing just by thinking about it.

2009 is the year of sequels. Many existing games are currently having their continuitions under development and some of them gonna be released this year. Of course there are also brand new games that look promising such as Rage, Dragon Age, Alan Wake, Tom Clancy’s End War, Men of War and some others. Anyway, I will only give a slight preview over my personal favorites for upcoming games (without any preference order).

Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor

Yeah, the best World War 2 real time strategy out there. I am not playing with the “best” word here. From the first original title to its first expansion, Relic have delivered us with awesome and realistic games involving WW2 theme. Fallschirmjagers, Calliope, King Tiger, Priest and many more cool units. The next expansion will have no new faction. Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor gives players new campaigns, units, multiplayer modes, and maps. Having three new campaigns with new units are excellent enough to add up unto this excellent game.

As much as I hope they include more factions into the game, perhaps balance issues might plague the game once more if being added just like when Opposing Fronts were released some time ago. Nevertheless, this is a must buy game for me. No exact date of release yet. Perhaps March or April?

Diablo 3

The new sequel of Diablo that will be unleashed upon its fans who have already waiting like 7-8 years? Blizzard is currently putting their best efforts to make the game as fun as possible like before. We have already seen several sequels of other games flopped and ended up being some hype. So, Diablo 3 is being carefully made to become the best hack-and-slash RPG ever for this time around. Ever since the popular World of Warcraft already taking the top spot of RPG titles, the Diablo 3 development team tries to differentiate both games by having Diablo 3 concentrated more on PvP more rather than more economical bla bla stuffs like in WoW. Good move as I am not into using skills to combine several liquids or dusts to make a kind of aphrodisiac potion.

Will it be coming out this year? I doubt so but it is something that we should hope to.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II

Another games that will be released from the same maker of Company of Heroes. Apart from graphical enhancement and new game engine, what can we expect from this new sequel? First and foremost, the game will be more on tactical sides. For that matter, there will be less resources gathering matters that need to take care off. More units customizations with different war gears and items especially weapons. The destructible environments will make the more to be more challenging and exciting. With no buildings, will the game be more like DotA that focusing on heroes and tactical squaddie?

This is one great game that should be collected. When we will be able to get it? Perhaps June or July.

Empire: Total War

Aah, the great Total War series now brings us back to the 18th century era. What can we tell upon that timeline? It is the Age of Sail. Yup, there will be real time naval battles unlike its predecessors. Apart from that, we can see the colonization of India and the New World which is America. We also can recreate the American Independence battles which introduces more rifles and firearms. Currently, Creative Assembly still deciding on what factions they should add into the game as of what we know, there are many nations and factions of the European origin. Some factions have already been confirmed such as Great Britain, France, Sweden, Ottoman, Prussia, Russia, Spain and United Provinces (which is the Dutch).

The released date has been confirmed on the 3rd of March 2009. A must have for those RTS fans.

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.

The new air combat game from Ubisoft. Set on near future where some private military forces attacking the United States. Well, what you can expect from Tom Clancy anyway, huh? It might be just a good game if not a decent game. But, really, we have less and less simulation/arcade-ish games involving air combat games on PC recently. Especially modern air combat. With F-35 that we can control, how could I ignore this game? Heh, surely this game tries to compete with Ace Combat series that already have dominating the console games for air combat simulations.

Still no exact date of release. Maybe around March or April. I might be waiting for reviews before buying this although my hands feel itchy to play air combat simulation games for some time.

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty

Again, the mother of all RTSes. Now on the second sequel. By the look of its screenshots, there’s actually nothing that really impress me much. I know, it’s Starcraft. Who doesn’t get the hype of it anyway? Well, Blizzard will surely try to make the games not getting far off from its predecessor and putting new elements to make the games feels brand new. If we really want to compare with other ancient games that still alive until now with sequels, Red Alert 3 is a good comparison. In RA3′, there’s like a large gap between RA2 and RA3. Hardcore fans like to whine everything about … anything. Despite the developers put more effort on gameplay, some fans are biased towards old units and also the storyline. Being a spin off of the original Command & Conquer series, I don’t really care about RA3′s storyline. But things are different for Starcraft II. This is a game that I really want to get just because of it’s story. The Starcraft expansion has already left us with many hangovers and I’d really want to know its continuition.

Just like Diablo 3, there’s no exact date for releases. However, Starcraft II will be coming out before Diablo 3 as the game was announced earlier than the latter. I sense Diablo 3 might be released at the end of the year or maybe next year.

Well, those are games that I am willing to get them this year, hopefully. Hmm, what should I write next? Politics? lol

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