Rockford's Cave

"Hallo, here I am. And today I'll speak about..."

Zzap!Raine... here they are!

I have to say that the move from the Zzap!64 editorial staff to this new one wasn't that traumatic... Well I had to give up the pleasure of going at Gordon's to play the latest videogames releases, and I have no more time to hutn that jumping idiot named Thing... but here's few advantages too! For example, I can stay here laying in my sofa, crunching diamonds and chatting with my brand new "virtual" editorial staff scattered around the world. today I'll speak about them all.
Let's start with Zaxxon1, my chief editor.

Zaxxon1's real name is Stefano Ferrari (no, he's nothing to do with the world famous cars) and he was born in Milan, Italy in 1969. In his spare time (er... did I say spare time?), he works as commercial technician in a software/hardware enterprise. He's mainly interested in motor-cycles, soccer and going to the beach!
What about his videogaming experience... well I first met him when he was nothing but a child, playing Boulderdash on his old rusty Commodore 64. He then became a true fan of Zzap! Italia since the very beginning, and we spent a lot of time together. He actually started playing videogames as Pong and other analogic home consoles back in 1981 or so...
His love for Commodore's 8-bit masterpiece still burns in his heart: playing SuperNES or PC doesn't bring him a better pleasure than inserting a 5,25" floppy disk in a C-1541 disk drive heh! He discovered emulation by chance, when seeking infos for Pacland on the Internet. What about his nick? Well, it's not a sort devotion to SEGA's shoot'em up: he just chose the name because... it sounds fine to him! (must be crazy...)

The one and only girl we have in our staff is called Liliana Vitalini and she was born in 1977. She got a degree in Graphics and Advertisement Technics, then left to England for over a year and started working as a professional graphician in Milan... then Zaxxon1 convinced her to join the Zzap!Raine team as illustrator, graphician and translator. At the present time she's attending a course to become tour operator and recently left most of her tasks in our mag...
Her videogaming experience is quite little... Her first computer was a PC 486 which she used for her job - but to also play Tetris and Pang. Her first arcade was Wonderboy in Monster Land, then she fell in love with puzzle classics: Tetris (Atari version) and Puzzle Bobble...
She never played with me on a Boulderdash porting (she didn't even own a Commodore 64 in the past - poor babe!), so we met when working here in the editorial staff. At first she didn't even know who I am, but then we became good friends and I like her a lot.

Paolo Facchini (aka Roy Jones) is a truly odd guy... not so brilliant at the primary school, is now trying to graduate in Communications Engineering while waiting to play Doom 3 and Halo 2 (oh God, this guy is what I call a "grown-up lamer"!).
His first videogaming experience was on an Intellivision, a wonderful 8-bit machine featuring such videogames as Atlantis and Dracula wow! Then came the 286 with a black & white monitor and finally, let's make a jump to the arcades: Bubble Bobble (his favourite), Double Dragon and Final Fight.
He came to knowledge of emulation in 1997, and he especially loves aracde videogames emulation: MAME, RAINE, Retrocade, Callus... he could finally play all the CPS-1 games he loved, plus the whole Bubble + Puzzle Bobble series. The newly born passion for retrogaming took him to offer as a contributor on Emuita's forum, Cps2mania and finally Zzap!Raine. Welcome aboard dude, but please stop writing in pseudo-Roman Italian: that's soo lame!

Luca "MADrigal" Antignano is the suspicious character you see here, and he was born in Sassari (Sardinia, Italy) in 1974. He's gonna celebrate his 30th birthday within a few days - if you ever asked him, he'd answer: "I think I'll commit suicide before getting 30", but well he changed his mind and he enjoys life a lot, videogames, a degree in Architectural Engineering and... women of course!
His passion for videogames was born in 1980, when he first played a Pacman coin-op, then begun fancying how wonderful it had to be to own a videogame in his own home... and he started to dream of Colecovision, Intellivision, VIC-20 and Spectrum. Then he got a Commodore 64 as a Christmas present back in 1984... it was the best gift he ever received, and had the power to change his life! Then he begun playing all sort of arcade games, walking around the whole town in order to go play Bubble Bobble, Ghosts'n Goblins and Black Tiger...
He discovered Italian mags as Computer Games, Video Giochi in 1984 and then Zzap! Italia in 1988 (it was the time of California Games). Then came the Shoot'em Up Construction Kit, so he thought: "I've had enough of just playing videogames... I'll build my own one!" so the Bubble Bobble II project came to light in 1989, and it was even reviewed in the last Zzap! Italia issue last year wow!
Nowadays he keeps lots of videogaming websites, reviews videogames, has a true passion for computer-graphics, programmes world-famous handheld simulators for PC and... enjoys RAINE a lot! He also collects old computers: his beloved C64, Spectrum+, Intellivision, Atari VCS 2600, and few analogic Pong's...

Redhot is 29 too, and his true name is Marco Castiglioni. He works as system administrator for important companies (which ones... who knows?) He loves his job though it forces him to spend most of his spare time too studying new product and technologies.
I know little about his videogaming experiences. I just remember he spent hours playing home videogames on his Commodore VIC-20 and C64, plus wonderful coin-op classics back in the early 80's (that's why he's the author of the Milestones section heh!) How strange... He claims his first coin-op videogame was Centipede... ugh! It was full of insects... I think diamonds are better, do you agree?
Nowadays he enjoys those old classics on emulators such as MAME and RAINE (of course), he hates consoles and "whatever isn't provided with keyboard" (except coin-ops heh?). He also loves multi-player challenges with friends: Half-Life is his favourite 3D videogame.
His nick is quite strange... he's a fan of the rock band Red Hot chili Peppers but... his favourite beer is red and... cold, not hot! OK man, go back playing your bass and let me speak about the next staff member...

Milos Jovanovic lives in Germany (but his family is Serbian), he's 23 years old now and he's about to graduate in a Communications Science (good luck, guy!) and... we know him as Talas. He's fond of gymnastics and loves Tsun (a Chinese martial art), boxing and all kind of tiring sports (ever tried diamond-crunching? ...try it!).
Once upon a time he trained his mind on Atari VCS 2600 videogames as Sir Lancelot and Robin Hood. Then came the time for an upgrade, and a brand new Commodore 64 entered Mr. Jovanovic's house. That's when I met Milos for the first time heh! His imagination was stimulated by games such as Save Ney York, The Last V8, IO... Time for Amiga, and then SEGA MegaDrive (he then regretted his decision) but also played SuperNES videogames at his friends' - he claims those were wonderful times! Not mentioning playing Dreamcast, PC games and emulators of course!
Looks like this guy is quite busy recently: frequenting his friends, kissing his girlfriend, sweating t-shirts in gym centres, studying (sometimes!) take most of his time... hey come back play with me sometimes!

Lee was born in Manchester, though lives in Bolton now, a lovely town in Great Britain. I know very little about his private life except he's a girlfriend, kid, job, maybe some pet (Thing? is it you with that leash around your neck?)... Let's talk about his videogaming honours. Oh here's another Pong fan (how many TVs did you burn with that eh?) and then owned almost all home videogaming computers and consoles... had to be a soooo much studious guy!
He begun writing videogames reviews and articles as soon as he discovered the Internet and the emulation community. His site, Lee's PeeknPoke, is his second home, but he also contributed the work on Zzap!64 #107, then entered the Zzap!Raine team with great passion. He said "It is great to work here at Zzap!Raine towers and follow the good ship Raine!"
His most recent interest is buying and modifying an arcade cabinet, and he's gonna spend entire salaries in order to buy classic PC boards. Hey don't forget to buy a Boulderdash game, and take me to your home sometimes.

Italy, Germany, Great Britain... Australia?!? Woho, here comes a new entry from the land of kangaroos! His name's Anthony Stiller and he's a true artist. Few of yous might know him as the main caricaturist (and reviewer too) of Zzap!64 #107. Let's see what he does for a living... he's IT consultant specialising in Data Warehousing but his true joy is spending his time with a lovely wife and two daughters (I prefer mining diamonds...). But he also loves computer and console videogaming, especially Role-Playing Games (he used to even play pen'n paper RPGs years ago). He still keeps his old rusty Commodore 64 and fires it quite often but rarely plays with me... And when it's turned off, he loves to listen to C64 videogames remixes wow!

Paul Morrison is a 32-years old guy living in Michigan, USA - though being a genuine British gentleman. He moved there in 2000, after marrying a beautiful American woman (I still prefer collecting diamonds not women heh!) who brought him a nice child. He's the youngest emulation fanatic to join our staff: he discovered a Commodore 64 emulator back in 2000 and got interested in the whole scene ever since, taking an active part in many message boards and websites. As a hobby, he then set up his own website, taking his inspiration from Zzap!64, Lee's Peek 'n Poke and Zzap!Raine.
Any spare time he has that doesn't involve video games sees him watching football, listening to loud guitar music by the likes of Yngwie J. Malmsteen, or trying to find the time to watch one of his many unwatched DVDs!

That's all for this month... I wish you enjoyed those bio's.

Yours,
Rockford