Games I'm Playing: January 2022

Wordle

This one seems to have gotten really popular out of nowhere, and I think for good reason.

Each day there’s a new five letter word to guess. When you make a guess, each letter in your guessed word will turn:

• Gray if the letter doesn’t exist in the target word
• Yellow if the letter is in the target word but in a different spot
• Green if the letter is in the target word and in the same spot

You only have a total of 6 guesses, so there’s more puzzle and strategy involved than in many other word games. One strategy that I’ve just found that seems to work for me is to spend your first few guesses trying to guess as many common letters as possible. If you’re lucky you can get a pretty good idea of the target word by your third or fourth guess.

Rocket League Sideswipe

This is the somewhat new mobile game based on the car soccer game Rocket League. It feels really similar to the full game, the main difference being that everything is locked to a 2D plane.

I think it works really well. Having one less dimension to worry about makes it a lot easier to keep track of what’s going on and execute plays. That also makes it easier to introduce the game to new people so you always have friends to play with.

I was never very into the main game but Sideswipe has been a lot of fun so far.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

This was one of my most played games on the Wii growing up. This time I’ve been playing the Gamecube version on my phone using the Dolphin emulator.

The touchscreen controls can be a little awkward at times, but with some customization it’s perfectly enjoyable. I don’t have a whole lot more to add here, other than how much fun it can be to come back to an old game years later.

A few others

• Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners
• Beat Saber
• The odd Phasmophobia or Garry’s Mod night with friends