I decided a couple of days ago I wanted to have a little bit of fun this New Year's by replaying the entirety of one of my top two games of the year - Tales from the Borderlands. I finished the first episode on the thirtieth, probably a smart decision considering I'd both played it and watched @austin_walker's pleasant playthrough during Extra Life, a stream I'd definitely recommend watching if you get a chance. After having some fun downtown on New Year's Eve, I went home and started burning through the rest of the game in pretty rapid succession. Fueled by a wonderfully greasy burger and fries and cheered on by my snoring pug (who rides shotgun on all my console gaming excursions by laying across my shoulders on top of my recliner), I managed to get through the game far more rapidly than I did during my PC play through.

Knowing when the QTEs were coming was definitely a big help, but perhaps the best part of the experience was the bigger, more vivid UI that comes from the console's lower resolution and slightly poorer graphics. I know it's a bit weird to say that's a good thing, but certainly in the case of Tales and Game of Thrones, it was a definite boon to play the games on a much lower resolution and have bigger arrows and button keys.

It was just as fun as my first playthrough. I Kept most of my options the same, since if there's a sequel that tracks my progression, I'd like to maintain most of the mindset I had when I approached the game originally. That is to say, I played Rhys as generally friendly and drippingly sweet to Sasha while playing Fiona with a bit of bravado and swagger.

**Spoilers ahead for the end game**

I also deliberately made some good and boring choices in my ending selection of characters to help in the final boss battle. Since I warned Felix, I got his ten million but opted NOT to hire the experienced Vault Hunter - if you spoil who this is below, please put it in spoiler tags. I was mostly curious if it changed Sasha and Fiona's endings at all, but they stayed exactly the same.

My second playthrough confirmed to me what I suspected, that as a cohesive whole and on a second viewing, that game is pretty phenomenal and tentatively takes the spot of my new favorite adventure game of all time. High praise, considering how much I adore games like Quest for Glory, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, and the first season of Walking Dead, but I think this game truly deserves the crown.

There's a sense of purpose to the game on its second play that I didn't get in the months separating each episode individually. As a whole package, it's easier to see how the little bits fit into the machine as a whole better. It's also easier to nitpick the game's one weak plot point (first episode spoilers - Felix). In a weird way, though, having that one weak point early in the game makes the later episodes all the more impressive in the ways they improve by leaps and bounds. Even when the game is being gamey and dumping you in contrived situations to fill out weaker points in the plot, there's still a ton of great character development and interaction going on.

Going to bed at four in the morning (I took a few breaks in there now and again) was definitely one of the best ways I've spent a New Year's solo.

I figured I'd keep my recent game-ending streak going (I finished all of Fallout 4's endings on or around the 28th or so) by playing out the last mission of Just Cause 3 tonight. Unfortunately, this wasn't quite the high of Tales from the Borderlands. I guess I should probably tell you now there will be endgame spoilers, but honestly, the story for Just Cause 3 is such a non-existent thing that I don't think anyone would really care.

Again, the developers fail to play to the game's core strengths - a problem I had with side quests as a whole - and instead have this island hopping, madcap destructothon end with Rico fighting a helicopter in a volcano. Sounds potentially neat, but it's the most barren, ugly, boring landscape in the game, coupled with the most boring, lackluster boss fight I've seen in quite some time. You circle rocks and shoot a helicopter when its shields are down. The whole thing takes about ten minutes. That's it. Roll credits.

See what's wrong here? It emphasizes literally nothing about the game's high points. Having me bring down a mountain on top of the helicopter, or setting off a volcanic eruption with my mad C4ing skillz, that would have been something. Having me hang off a series of helicopters while trying to bring down the boss? That might have been something. But nope, the whole game devolves into a piss-poor cover shooter wherein I had to call for ammo a time or two. Yippee.

I don't know. Just Cause 3 is really fun when it works, but it obstinately doesn't try in so many different ways. I'm looking forward to jumping back into Tales of Zestiria tomorrow or the day after. The beginning of that game seemed promising, aside from the bizarre loot and skills stuff. Hey, it's a Tales game. I expect it to be somewhere between middling and good, and that'll be that.

What are you playing in the New Year?