On May 1st, 1985, the first issue of Zzap!64 appeared on the shelves of all British book shops. It was brought to Italy around one year later, claimed as "The Italian version of the most popular British magazine", and having the name of "Zzap!" alone. At first it was nothing but a mere translation of the original, but little by little the number of reviews and articles made by the Italian staff increased a lot.
Reviewers (English ones at first, Italians later) became the reference point to readers, most of whom fully trusted their judges before deciding whether to buy a game or not.
Julian Rignall was one of the most serious reviewers among all.
He's been working in the Zzap!64 team since the very beginning: he'd been chosen because he was incredibly skilled in playing videogames - he kept the British Record for Defender (it was one of the most popular videogames at those times).
Readers liked his accurate reviews a lot, and they even voted him as Best Zzap!64 Reviewer of the year 1987. In December of the same year he was "upgraded" as Chief Editor - he had to write Editorials for the first page of all Zzap!64 issues to come.
He stopped working for the magazine in August 1988 (he was 23) and he moved to EMAP - the second best British publishing company: he was Chief Editor in such magazines as "The Official Nintendo Magazine" and. "The Official Sega Magazine".

In 1990 he married Glenys Powell, his longtime love since the times of Zzap!64 (she was part of the staff).
Then he'd been requested at Virgin Interactive, where he became Vice-president of the Videogames Project and Design section, and was the main leader in acquiring important licences from other software producers.
In 1997 he divorced (he claims they did it with friendship) from Gleyns, and this might be the cause that made his relationships with Virgin getting worse.
Tired of that workplace, he left it and went back to do the thing he can do better: writing.
He lives in San Francisco (USA) today, and he's the Chief Editor of "Imagine Games Network" (IGN).
As a reader, I personally liked him very much not because of his videogaming tastes (which differ quite much to mines), but because of his precision and the great passion he felt when writing articles, even when he got upset against really horrible videogames.
Well yes, there's always been people saying he's nothing but a "childish vicious player", "breaking down in cry and getting angry" if he didn't get the right joystick in official competitions.... (I swore I won't name the one who told me this rumour).
By the way, the importance of this buddy can't be diminished at all, so I think I can claim Julian Rignall as one of the people who wrote few of the most significant pages of the videogaming history.

IlTimido.