What a ride.

In my eyes, Red Dead Redemption 2 is an absolute masterpiece - and I hardly ever use that word! It has everything I could possibly ask for in a game: an unique and memorable cast of characters, catchy soundtrack, enjoyable gameplay and my favorite story in a video game.

There's many great things to be said about this game, so I'm starting with the immersive world, the scenery and sheer amount of detail put into just about everything. I expected the open world to be as generic as a Far Cry open world outside of the cities, but was pleasantly surprised. Not just in the sense of how it looks in terms of graphics, but also in terms of structure and pathing. It's just a joy to explore and you can always find something new on a trip. Whether it be a random encounter or change in weather, the game will keep you entertained while riding from A to B. Speaking of the weather, I absolutely love the many different weathers in the game. Ranging from a thick fog to a heavy sandstorm, there is a lot of variation in the weathers and not just the "standard" sunny/cloudy/rainy/stormy weathers present in most games. You know your game looks good when photo mode doesn't do it justice and seeing the scenery in-game is just a better experience overall.

As I mentioned before, I believe Red Dead Redemption 2 has one of the best written narratives in gaming and is my favorite story in a game as of right now. The characters act natural and the relationships between gang members also come off as pretty realistic to me. I like that unlike in other games not everyone got along with each other, just because they're part of the same crew. In terms of best written characters in the game, I'd say Arthur and Dutch easily take the top spots. I've also really enjoyed the characters of John, Sadie and even Micah. Arthur is just an amazing protagonist in general and Roger Clark really delivers his lines and the emotions within them. Then again, I believe all voice actors did a really good job for this game; I don't remember even one voice sounding off for a character. And they certainly had a lot of fun recording the lines, you can feel that.

Now onto some other positive tidbits about the game. The customization is great and you've got many different outfit parts to mix and match. Honor as a mechanic is also well done, because you indirectly influence some parts of the game depending on your good and bad deeds. Having high honor will allow you to get discounts in shops and new outfits, while low honor will make NPCs dislike you and you'll get worse loot from enemies. Also here I'd like to add that (in my opinion) there's hardly any real filler content in the game and everything has atleast some meaning to it.

But what about the gameplay itself? Hunting and tracking down animals, fishing and playing cards is a fun way to spend your time, but what's important in a game like this, is how the gunplay feels - and I believe it feels really good! Thankfully the revolvers have a certain power to them already, but rifles are also great to use with their extended zoom.

If I were to mention flaws about RDR2, there really wasn't anything major things that bothered me, just two little things that got annoying at times. The worst offender by far was "Mash A to run/boost horse", which just exists to give you thumb pain for no reason. Second point is the game forcing two weapons on you before any big fight, spoiling the surprise already. I also believe having two large guns on your back looks silly, but as I addressed earlier, this can't really be called an "issue", since it didn't hamper my enjoyment of the game overall.

Personally, I believe I have made my point clear - I like this game! A lot actually. And that's because it is a good game and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a world to just get immersed in. Now excuse me while I go think about Arthur Morgan again.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a breath of fresh air in more than one way for 2D Mario games and has easily become one of my favorite platformers out there.

The artstyle is great, the controls are responsive and precise and the animations are just smooth. You can really feel the amount of dedication the developers put into the game, every level has an unique Wonder Flower gimmick and the talking flowers were a personal highlight for me. It's really just a blast to play!

There are still some nitpicks I have with it. First of all, why can't different players in multiplayer equip different badges? I don't think this can be blamed on hardware limitations. Second thing, there should've been a way to play traditional online co-op and not just the "ghost mode". Oh well, maybe Nintendo thought it wouldn't work after the amounts of lag in Mario Maker 2's versus mode. Who knows! Then there's the thing with the Yoshis and Nabbit (you've probably heard it a thousand times now). They really shouldn't be locked behind a whole difficulty and the other way around, cause if you're a legit fan of these characters you can't play them without having a whole different experience. Last but not least, something feels off about the structure of levels in general. While they all feel unique in a way, they're... too simple at times. I'm not talking about the difficulty, I'm talking about the placement of things. Can't quite put my finger on what it is.

Overall Wonder was a fantastic experience though and I'll surely be going for 100% completion. Despite the small flaws I've mentioned, it's one of the most fun games this year and I really appreciate the hard work of the developers, hope they got a fat paycheck for working on this :p

This is a total ROM conversion for the original Mega Man X which can be downloaded here: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/8167/

I have been working off and on with this project for a couple years now. It's no secret my favourite character has always been Zero from the Mega Man series. The way he has always been eager to lend a helping hand to X and his comrades. How he would continuously save the world against overwhelming odds. That his life followed such a complicated trajectory across multiple sub-series' but he consistently tried to be a force for good despite his background, being made by the evil Wily for world domination. As a young child, he was an inspiration to me. So naturally my mind was blown the instant I discovered he was playable in X3. Doubly so when I discovered the Zero Project for X3.

The original Mega Man X is my most played game ever. For a while it seemed like every revisit, I learned something new about the game; be it the stages changing depending on the boss order tackled, or the enemies losing their body parts when hit with certain weapons.

This is why I wished for a world where this game could feel fresh to me again. After being wowed by the X3 Zero Project, I felt a rush of excitement to try my hand fully incorporating Zero into the world of X1, so I got to work. Over 2 years or so, I was faced with numerous self-doubts.

"I'll never be smart enough to edit the text."
"These files are in bin format? I can't open these with PowerISO, what can I do then?!"
"I'll never figure out how to change the music!"
"I wish I could change the 1up icon...."

I'm here to tell you that if you want to achieve something hard enough, you CAN get it done. Your biggest enemy is yourself, and everybody is their own worst critic. Creating this hack was a long journey and I learned so much about so many things that go into game creation, particularly the retro classics.

Assembly language coding. Music sheets. Which objects are transparent VS opaque. Pallet swapping. Health and ammunition variables. Scripting and font colours. It simply goes on and on.

To all those who love Mega Man as I do, I hope this hack is something universally enjoyable. I much prefer to spread my love for things I am passionate about than to focus on the negativity, which is why I went above and beyond to put this together. That the levels, stages, cutscenes, music, physics, graphics, and so forth can have so many significant changes to make the world truly feel like a what-if alternate universe where Zero was the main character, rather than some mere character swap. The overall aim was to have a game that was somewhat harder than the original Mega Man X, but still make Zero feel powerful and different enough that his campaign wasn't just X's campaign but harder.

And of course, I have to give a huge shoutout to everybody over the years who helped this project come into fruition. Xeeynamo for creating a level editor. xstuff for helping me with graphical and music edits. denim for compression and decompression programs. GoldS and Power Panda for disassembly files that gave me a great headstart. Falchion 22 and Peru for initial hacking elements I mixed and matched. cerberus-rack, brongaa12, Kensuyjin33, and fallensoldier420 for graphical work relevant to Zero’s canon design. Umiliphus for graphical work relevant to Dr. Wily’s sprite. Maël Hörz for HxD, the greatest hex editor I have ever used. And of course, Vis for the amazing cover art I submitted to IGDB. https://twitter.com/PD_CGT_games/status/1718036539622531354?s=20

I truly believe working with so many people to learn romhacking skills in the past couple years and gaining so many new perspectives around the hobby has not only made me a better coder, but also a better person. I thank everyone who helped push my dream of a fully integrated Zero in MMX1's world to reality.

"Sigma, you should have studied the blueprints closer! There is only one Zero!"