Peruvian Idle

The slow season of video game releases came to a quick end in September with several new games eating up a lot of my free time. As a result I watched the fewest movies per month this year and only dipped briefly into television.

🎮 Games

The PS5 Pro went up for pre-order and despite the consensus that it's a bit overpriced ($700) for a marginal upgrade from the regular PS5, I went ahead and ordered one anyway. It's set to ship on November 7th — a week after Extra Life, unfortunately. While the performance gains on existing games doesn't seem that impressive, it's really games that have yet to be released (GTA6) where it should really shine.

Sony also announced a sequel to one of my favorite games of all time, Ghost of Tsushima, called Ghost of Yotei, which I'm super excited for.

NBA 2k25

I have a love/hate relationship with this series. I absolutely love its dedication to realism and the depth of game modes, from playing a career as an NBA player to running a franchise over multiple years, to collecting cards to create a super team. But year-to-year the game seldom evolves in a meaningful way. This iteration feels especially stagnant, though they did streamline the ridiculous "City" that you have to run around in to do "chores" in MyCareer. Not to mention the constant pushing of microtransactions. Still, at its core it's an excellent game that I can't put down and I'm having fun leveling up my "Defensive Stalwart", a 6'9" power forward who excels at defense and rebounding and not much else. [PS5, Xbox, PC, Switch]

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II

I first learned about Warhammer 40,000 (or simply, "40k") in college. It's a tabletop war game where you typically spend more time painting little plastic and metal characters than actually playing the game. It's since spawned dozens of video game adaptations, which have been largely hit or miss until now. Space Marine 2 is a third-person shooter reminiscent of Gears of War, in which you and two fellow marines tear through an onslaught of alien forces. If it sounds a lot like this year's Helldivers 2, it shares a lot of similarities.

Where Helldivers 2 is campy and gives you the feeling like your marines could die at any moment, Space Marine 2 takes itself very seriously and makes you feel like the ultimate badass, mowing down hundreds of aliens (an almost unbelievable amount appear on screen at once) with ease. Space Marine 2 has a bit more depth, with a campaign, PvP, and an "operations" mode, which are similar to strikes in Destiny.

Like Helldivers 2, it also gets a bit monotonous after you've played through it, leaving very little reason to continue once you've leveled up your character to the max. Still, it's a gorgeous game and a great co-op experience with friends and randos alike. [PS5, Xbox, PC]

Shogun Showdown

Shogun Showdown is a delightful blend of Slay the Spire, Into the Breach, and Darkest Dungeon. The game takes place on a 2D board and enemies spawn on either side of you, telegraphing their next move above their head. You can move, turn around or add attacks to your queue and each action causes the enemies in turn to play their own actions. You take on wave after wave of enemies until you reach an area's boss. If you win, you can spend money upgrading your gear and buying skills and consumables at the shop. Making it all the way to the end and defeating the Shogun unlocks a new "day", which adds a new layer of difficulty to each run. There's a deep collection of fun and interesting weapons and skills that you can unlock through repeated playthroughs and five unlockable characters that each have their own unique ability.

It's a simple game that plays more like a puzzle game than anything, but it's extremely satisfying when you have the perfect synergy of weapons and abilities and tear through wave after wave, unscathed. I highly recommend this one if you love the aforementioned games. It's a ton of fun. [PS5, Xbox, PC, Switch]

Astro Bot

From the moment you fire up Astro Bot, you can't help but smile. Everything about Sony's take on Super Mario Galaxy is genetically engineered to bring you joy, with cute characters, a wide variety of clever abilities and mechanics, and making excellent use of the DualSense controller's many functions.

I showed this game to Ryan and all he wants to do it play it constantly, leaving me very little time to play other games. (It's a good thing I ordered the PS5 Pro, I guess!) It's easy enough that he can pick it up and make decent progress but as the game progresses it does get pretty tricky! Your goal is to rescue 300(!) bots hidden across various levels, with many of the bots and levels themed around classic Sony properties like God of War, Bloodborne, Last of Us and others.

Astro Bot is just so damn fun and I'm constantly in awe of how clever it is. Highly recommended whether you have kids or just want to feel like one again. [PS5]

Other games I enjoyed

Still chipping away at the last few gold joker stickers in Balatro. Given how little I played this month it's a small miracle I added 12 more, leaving 30 to go. Shout out to my friend Josh, who managed to get the platinum trophy before me in about half as many hours played. I played a bit of the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 beta and was pretty lukewarm on it. It features a new movement system called Omnimovement, which I found kind of clunky. This game makes a 15-kill streak look boring. (Or maybe it's me.) I'll still probably end up buying it and sinking a regrettable amount of hours into it. I spent more than 10 minutes playing Vampire Survivors and I finally get what the hype was about (three years late). It's like a weird auto-shooting bullet hell game that has some interesting power-ups and roguelike progression. I'll probably go back to it if I can carve out the time. Finally, a new Zelda game, Echoes of Wisdom came out a few days ago and I loved what little I played of it. It's a modern take on A Link to the Past from the SNES where you play as Zelda. (Zelda, it turns out, is NOT the boy.) You have a wand that gives you the ability to copy various objects like rocks and furniture, which makes for some interesting puzzles. Looking forward to playing more of it.

🎬 Movies

Rebel Ridge

I had a blast with this. Jeremy Saulnier made a Reacher movie. I couldn’t tell you if Aaron Pierre can act because I was lost in his hazel eyes the whole time. Pierre plays a Marine who has a run-in with some small town cops on his way to bail out his cousin with a large sum of cash, which gets confiscated. Shades of First Blood with Don Johnson filling in admirably for Brian Dennehy as a crooked chief of police. I loved how Pierre's character goes to great lengths to avoid conflict and when it ultimately erupts, he efficiently takes guys down with non-lethal methods. (If you're looking for a bloody revenge tale, you'll be disappointed.) The definitive civil asset forfeiture movie. [Netflix]

The Remains of the Day

I decided to check this out based on Todd Vaziri's recommendation and I'm glad I did. Anthony Hopkins is so compelling as a butler who is so into butlering he blinds himself to his naive, Nazi-enabling boss and the hot housekeeper (Emma Thompson) that clearly is into him. His slow realization of this is fascinating to watch. Also, wow, I haven’t seen Christopher Reeve in much outside of Superman and he’s so charismatic in this. What a loss. Young Hugh Grant and Lena Headey, too! Lots of similarities to Phantom Thread and Past Lives. [VOD]

Other movies I enjoyed

Snack Shack is surprisingly charming and heartfelt. It made me oddly nostalgic for being alive before the internet. I loved the reverse Die Hard premise of Trap in its first half. The second half goes off the rails a bit, but Josh Hartnett is dialed in and committed for the entire runtime. I’ve been burned too many times by M. Knight but this one was fun.

📺 TV

Pachinko

I'm so happy this show about a Korean family, told across multiple generations, is back for a second season. It's been like two or three years since the last season and I remember very little about the first season except the vibe. I'm only a couple of episodes in but I'm enjoying it so far. (Shoutout to Anna Sawai, who has a small role in this, and recently won an Emmy for her role in Shogun.) [Apple TV+]

Other shows I enjoyed

Sadly, I hardly watched any TV this month. I did check out The Penguin on Max, but was pretty underwhelmed despite loving The Batman and a great performance from Colin Farrell (though the makeup is doing a lot of the work). Looking forward to new seasons of Shrinking (Apple TV+), What We Do in the Shadows (Hulu/FX), The Diplomat (Netflix), and the start of the NBA season in October.

📱 Videos

• Dawid Godziek rides a bike on a moving freight train, jumping from car to car. Moving in the opposite direction of the train, it almost looks as if he's not moving at all.
• No Rolls Barred plays a communist version of Monopoly. This video is an hour long but had me laughing constantly.
• A devastating documentary about adoption in South Korea. My nephew was adopted from Korea and I was curious why my sister-in-law and wife got such a cold shoulder from people when they went to pick him up. This doc explains it.
• In David Blaine: Do Not Attempt, Blaine travels the world visiting some of the most bizarre and dangerous skills, and tries to learn them. Really the only person who could host this.
• I had heard of Grace Hopper but this 1982 lecture for the NSA makes it clear how brilliant and extremely funny she was.
• The GeoGuessr World Cup has contestants dropped into a random point on the Earth in Google Maps and they have to guess where they are. It's astonishing how fast and accurately the best players can do it. A surprising amount of drama in this video.
• Samuel L. Jackson breaks down his most iconic roles. This could have been three hours long and I would have loved it just as much. What a treasure.
• Derrick Rose retired from the NBA after a 16-year career. Here's some of the best plays of one of my favorite players of all time.
• This video of a guy being fed a five-course meal by a Rube Goldberg machine popped up in Ryan's YouTube feed and had us both laughing hysterically.
• Hall of Fame NBA center, Dikembe Mutombo, died of brain cancer at the young age of 58. This one hurt. Mutombo was one of the greats both on and off the court. ESPN looks at his enduring legacy.
• This 2013 Geico commercial featuring Mutombo always makes me laugh.

Thanks for reading!

I hope you enjoyed this issue of Peruvian Idle. I send this out on the first of every month. You can subscribe at peruvianidle.mikeaparicio.com or via RSS.

What are you looking forward to in October? Let me know!