Hi there...

Welcome. Come in. Take a seat. Relax. We've come a long way together in 2025...

- 50 episodes (thus far).

- Over 100 video games reviewed.

- Nearly 2 days worth of audio content (if "audio content" means "acoustic bile").

It's all here on an erotic but well maintained spreadsheet and we're about to grade the living shit out of it...

Yes, its back, our annual episode where we retroactively rank all of our video game reviews in each ridiculously, arbitrary score bracket and decide which video game will rule supreme.

Mmm. Glorious.

We bet you've never been so excited to find out which contestant will be crowned 'The best 3/10 video game that Living La Vita Loca podcast reviwed this calendar year'?

Gather your workbook documents of choice, surround yourself with auditing equipment and dive in with us. Conditional formatting has never been so fun!

Thank you for listening this year. Enjoy the pod!

Is there such a thing as a "Christmas Shoot 'em up"? Yes there is. Its called Deathsmiles II. Its very good.

Have we played Deathsmiles II for the festive season because that would be relevant and make sense? No.

Instead, have we picked 10 random shmups and distributed them equally between both co-hosts in an attempt to determine which video game would theoretically top the music charts as the equivalent of Christmas number 1? Yes.

Are we probably insane? Also yes.

Join us in this ridiculous 2 part exercise as we rank some of the best (and most average) shmups we've ever played:

- DoDonPachi DaiOuJou (2002)

- Darius Gaiden (1994)

- Earthion (2025)

- Danmaku Unlimited 3 (2017)

- Raging Blasters (2021)

- Andro Dunos II (2022)

- Raiden V: Directors Cut (2019)

- Crimzon Clover World EXplosion (2020)

- Thunder Force IV (1992)

- Radiant Silvergun (1998)

Merry Shmup-mas one and all!

Is there such a thing as a "Christmas Shoot 'em up"? Yes there is. It's called Deathsmiles II. It's very good.

Have we played Deathsmiles II for the festive season because that would be relevant and make sense? No.

Instead, have we picked 10 random shmups and distributed them equally between both co-hosts in an attempt to determine which video game would theoretically top the music charts as the equivalent of Christmas number 1? Yes.

Are we probably insane? Also yes.

Join us in this ridiculous two part exercise as we rank some of the best (and most average) shmups we've ever played:

- DoDonPachi DaiOuJou (2002)

- Darius Gaiden (1994)

- Earthion (2025)

- Danmaku Unlimited 3 (2017)

- Raging Blasters (2021)

- Andro Dunos II (2022)

- Raiden V: Directors Cut (2019)

- Crimzon Clover World EXplosion (2020)

- Thunder Force IV (1992)

- Radiant Silvergun (1998)

Merry Shmup-mas one and all!

"You thieves! You thieves… You filthy little thieves! Where is it? Where is it? They stole it from us. My Precious."

We can't help but feel that Gollum wouldn't condone this week's podcast with his clear no-nonsense policy on pilfering...

Welcome to part 2 of our deep dive into the Uncharted series. We conclude proceedings with a review of the 'Legacy of Thieves' collection. Released in 2022 for the PS5/Windows, this collection features remastered versions of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (2016) and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (2017).

Long lost family, deception, intrigue, drama, globe trotting, crates and of course, the 10000x multiplier... Pirates! As the Black Eyed Peas once said, "Lets get Uncharted in here".

Enjoy the pod.

There is very little blurb needed to sell this one. Rich (Nate) and Fazz (Sully) once again welcome Fiona (Elena... mmm, maybe Chloe, actually) to the pod booth to help us navigate a course through the Uncharted series.

Over two episodes, we're deep diving every home console release of the PlayStation exclusive series from Naughty Dog. Let's hope we don't bump into El Dorado whilst we're down there...

This week it's the turn of 'The Nathan Drake Collection'. Released in 2015 for the PS4, it includes the remastered versions of Drakes Fortune (2007), Among Thieves (2009) and Drakes Deception (2011). There's no time to waste as fortune & glory awaits. Now, does anybody know what is Tibetan for "RPG"?!?

Enjoy the pod.

Hi pod fans

Here be bonus treasure dug up from our archive. Way back in March 2023, we launched our podcast with a review of Uncharted: Golden Abyss (PS Vita).

Prior to our coverage of the whole (home console) Uncharted series over the next two weeks, we've excavated our previous opinion on the handheld effort from 2012.

Enjoy this low effort bonus episode of Living La Vita Loca!

"Hello there children!"

Welcome to another edition of #FreeplayFortnightly where we both pick a video game that we want to play and keep it secret from our co-host. We then review said game on the podcast and ask our co-host to score the game out of 10 based on our review. Simple? You bet we are!

The games we've picked out for random review this week are:

• South Park: Chef's Luv Shack (1999, PS1)

• Batsugun: Special Version (1994, Arcade via Steam)

'Bullet Hell' vs 'Butthole hell'...

One of the best shooter games ever vs 'Asses in Space'...

Getting spanked over and over by a video game vs spanking a monkey over and over in a video game...

Come on down to Living La Vita Loca Podcast and have yourselves a time!

Ey up Pod-packLast Autumn, we gave Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story a 9/10 review (Episode 76). We couldn't get enough of the stellar gameplay and fascinating yarns provided by Minter via Digital Eclipse. We wanted more... Rather than head back into Minter's older back catalogue, we decided to take a look at some of the more recent video games which weren't covered on the Llamasoft compilation. Hand(held)ily enough, one such game is a PS Vita exclusive... kinda...TXK (2014, PS Vita) is a tube shooter based on Tempest, which had already been reimagined by Minter as Tempest 2000 in the mid 90s. TXK was a little TOO based on Tempest/2000 for Atari's liking and legal pressure ensured it never left the PS Vita. Fazz ignores those wrangles and concentrates on tube tangles instead.Next up, Rich wriggles his way through Minter's VR-enabled action shooter Polybius (2017, PS4) which performed well commercially and critically at the time. Interestingly, after this release, 'The Yak' & Atari decided to kiss and make up to release Tempest 4000 (2018, PS4). Tempest 4000 started life out as a VR version of TXK but Atari asked for the VR aspects to be removed and we were left with effectively an updated console version of TXK after all. What a kerfuffle!Speaking of kerfuffles, we round off proceedings with a conversation about the latest release from Digital Eclipse and why it has had a less than (Llama)soft landing. Enjoy the pod.