Living La Vita Loca

We now declare the 2024 Living La Vita Loca Olympiad open! And what scenes we have in the retro gaming community today as 3 titans of Olympic video game history come together to do battle. First out of the starting blocks, we have Olympic Gold, a Barcelona 92' Olympic offering on the Sega Mega Drive. It brings back great memories for Fazz. Or some memories at least. Pirouetting onto the podium nex...

Golf is a good walk spoiled.’ – Mark Twain We couldn't agree more Mr Twain so let's skip the walk and play some golf video games instead! We've got a special guest starring in our pro-am tournament this week, Paddy Gunn, host of The Swiss Football podcast and @swiss stadia social account. - Paddy tees us off with Mario Golf: Toadstool tour (2003, Nintendo Gamecube) and Mario Golf: Super Rush (2021...

Hi podfans! Due to unforseen circumstances, we are subbing in a slightly shorter remote pod this week before resuming normal service next week. We're using the break to take time to thank all of the listeners we've had so far and look forward to all of the listens yet to come. Fazz tells us why he's in Handheld Heaven right now We also take some time to demonstrate how very little we know about Es...

Hi podfans Welcome to another edition of 'Freeplay Fortnightly' 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! After a little chat about backlog evasion, Rich leaps into action with the 1998 Sega Saturn action game, Burning...

Ole ole ole ole... This week on the pod, we're on the ball as we take aim at some 'soccer' games as part of a Euros/Copa America 2024 special. Last year, we gave the EA Sports FIFA series its moment in the Sun but now it's time to turn our attention to some of its rivals... First up, it's the mid 90s and Sega/Nintendo are regularly duking it out between each other in the 'Console War Conference le...

Is it a game? Is it a movie? No... its some kind of freak show in the middle called Full Motion Video. We were inspired to take a dive into the history of interactive FMV games by a random purchase from the Xbox store by Fazz. Where did they come from? (Night Trap, 1992, Sega CD) (Sewer Shark, 1992, Sega CD) Where are they now? (Bloodshore, 2021, Xbox Series S) And what is the future of interactiv...

Hi Podfans It's the showdown that you didn't know you needed: One of the most ported games of all time with cute suicidal protagonists. One of the most famous cinematic characters of all time with a desire for destruction/redemption. And Brian Lara (who Fazz reckons could take Godzilla out with a bat on a dying wicket). Lemmings are 6cm average height. Godzilla is upto 150m tall. Brian Lara hit 40...

Keep rollin', rollin', rollin', rollin... When Limp Bizkit released that track in 2000, we're pretty sure that they were just predicting the arrival of Katamari Damacy 4 years later... For the uninitiated, the Katamari series consists of a small prince rolling around a sticky ball (Katamari) cleaning up a multitude of the King of All Cosmos balls(!)ups. The Prince does this by rolling up all sorts...

Driving games... We love em here at Living La Vita Loca! So what about the well known game series that is literally titled 'Driver'? Surely there's nothing that'll put us in a spin here... right? This week we've popped the hood on several games from the Infogrames franchise to see if they are 'wheely' good or 'ariely' bad... sorry. The games drifting into our rear view mirror are: - Driver (PS1) -...

Hey podgoers We've got some real abandonment issues this week... Before we get to psychoanalysing that, we spend some time celebrating some of our favourite podcasts and YouTube content providers with effectively an IOU starter. And gravy. Thicc gravy. Now, about those abandonment issues... First up, Rich wiggles his worryingly strong digits in the direction of Typing of the Dead (2000, Microsoft...

Hi everyone and welcome to RE-living La Vita Loca... wait, hang on a minute! Yes that's right, we're so unoriginal we're running it back on a few franchises we have hit already... but for good reason! Firstly, we're heading back a whole 4 episodes to dip back into the world of Sonic The Hedgehog. Just weeks after 'murdering' the Blue Blur, we're bringing him back through popular (some) demand with...

Hi Podfans. Are you ready for a hat-o-full of crazy, irreverent indie gaming kookiness? Take your pick from the following in this weeks 'Freeplay Fortnightly' episode... • A main protagonist who is dating birds in a powerpoint format (Hatoful Boyfriend, PS Vita). • A skating sim where aliens REALLY want you to land a hardflip on a rainbow (Olli Olli World Rad Edition, Nintendo Switch). Which ever...

Yiasoo and Bonjour podfans! You join us as the podcast swan dives straight into Cyprus at the start 13th century and somehow ends up in French Louisiana at the end of the 18th century through the magic of the Templar Animus. This week we both take a 'stab' at playing the PSP and PS Vita versions of the Assassin's creed franchise, Bloodlines and Liberation. Bloodlines (PSP) was released in 2009 as...

SURPRISE POD FANS!!! We bet you didn't see that coming did ya? Well thats not the only shock in store this week as we asked each other to 'Do Something Unexpected' in our latest Freeplay Fortnightly episode. Whatever that meant was left up to each co-host and it seems that this particular podcast isn't very retro at all. First order of business... a very surprising, unplanned high score SHMUP batt...

Hi there Ropodniks This week on the pod we decided it was time to talk about Sonic the Hedgehog. Back in Episode 18, we voted Sonic #3 on our list of Video Game Mascots and last week #BAFTA voted Sonic #4 in their list of most Iconic Video Game Characters Ever so he's clearly a very important spiny mammal to us all. So why are most of his video games bang average and does he deserve the pedestal h...

Ho now Podders Welcome to our Freeplay Fortnightly episode 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! This week we review two classics. It just so happens that one is only 40 days old and one is about 9300 days old. And...

Hi Podghast warriors This week we're dipping our toes into the area of Alpha Centurai where the planets of Vekta and Helghan reside. Thats right, we're fully inside the 'Killzone'. A series, it turns out, we know very little about. But we're not sure that's actually our fault... We're taking an (isometric) view on the battle between the warring ISA/Helghast factions through our Sony handhelds. Faz...

Hi Murderous Podronauts Welcome to our Freeplay Fortnightly episode 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! This week there was fear in the camp we'd picked the same game for absolutely no reason other than we are jus...

Hi Pod Peeps "This must be just like living in (Dead or Alive) paradise and I desperately, desperately want to go home..." David Lee Roth. This week we take a dive into Dead or Alive, understand the allure of Soul Calibur and we do it all through the power of our aging but beloved Sony handhelds. Rich loves a fighting game. Fazz loves debauchery. There's a bucketful of both in this week's pod. Do...

Happy Birthday to you... Let's not do a game review. Why not look at a long list by GQ? Happy Birthday to yooouuuuuu! Hi Pod Party Well we made it... a whole year of podcasting that nobody asked for. How did we celebrate (nobody asks)? We take GQ magazine's 100 greatest video games of all time article from 2023 and draft our own squads of '10 best games we've played' and '5 games we want to play b...

Greetings Podders. Motorstorm dropped as a launch title for the PlayStation 3 in 2006/2007 and took the world... by... storm?!? Yeah... That probably works. But what then? Well after a well received follow up in the form of Pacific Rift, the series went the only place it could go next, the PSP... And the PS2?! Arctic edge-y? You bet. The last time Motorstorm was spotted in the wild was in an RC ve...

"This is definitely a good idea..." Concept: We both picked 4 x PS1 demo disks at random from the UK Official Playstation Magazine with no prior knowledge of what is on each disk. We then played through each disk and brought our thoughts/feelings back to the table. What we actually brought back was a weird bowl of nostalgic goo full of random crazy Playstation tidbits. Were demo disks a great valu...

It's a funny word 'Tomb'. If you say it enough times in a row, it can lose all sense and meaning. How about if you play a bunch of Tomb Raider games in a row? How about if all those Tomb Raider games are a spaghetti mess of remakes and remasters and retelling?! Yes yes... we're fully aware that Tomb Raider I-III remastered has just dropped but is the newest retread of Lara Croft's life really nece...

Hi podboppers. Welcome to our Freeplay Fortnightly episode where we both pick a retro 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! This episode unravels within the first four seconds and then gets crazy from there. We just about pull ourselves toget...

Hi didily ho podderinos... Welcome to (2) episode 47 (74) of the podcast. Tenuous link: 742. 742 Evergreen terrace. Get it? This week on the podcast we're reporting back from the Leeds Video Game Market we attended at the weekend which was... fun??? We've also played Pursuit Force (PSP) and The Simpsons Game (PSP) which were... fun??? We'll also have a little silly diversion talking about our favo...