Welcome to my Tavern!

 Oh, Hi There! Glad to here you come in, take a seat and grab a pint.

Welcome to my Tavern! I'm Markus, I'm from Italy and I'm the owner of this little place.

I started playing videogames since childhood, my earliest memory being of my father bringing back home a Super Nintendo. Since then I've always been a passionate videogame player, there just was something in videogames that just hooked me and couldn’t look away. 

Whether it was the colourful worlds of something like Super Mario, the haunting atmosphere and monsters from Castlevania or the wonderful music of Donkey Kong Country, I just couldn’t get enough and was constantly looking for new games. Playing games was also like a family activity at the time together with my father and sisters, so we were constantly going together in trying to beat some of them. We also completed the Pokèdex in the first generation of Pokèmon by working together! 

During my childhood platformers were kind of my main go to genre, it was just the best kind of challenge for me, learning to get my way through the stage getting constantly, better and better until I was finally able to conquer the final boss. 

I loved all the crazy worlds I was put through and many times the music they had was what I needed to keep going and retry. I remember putting so much money into Metal Slug that one day I was actually able to get through the end on a real arcade machine and even now I’m able to beat it with 3 to 6 credits. It’s my little badge of honour when it comes to arcade games, especially since I’m not that good at fighting games or the likes.

In my teenage years I got a lot better at understanding English and thus I was able to play some games where there was a lot more emphasis on story that were previously locked from me by the language barrier. That’s where my world was opened to JRPGs, like many of my generation the gateway into the genre was Final Fantasy VII. It was love at first sight, everything in that game just clicked right with me from the start: the incredible music by Nobuo Uematsu, the struggle of the heroes desperately trying to save their planet from the corrupted Shinra, the feeling of becoming stronger and stronger throughout the game while the stakes kept getting higher and the characters get put through and emotional roller-coaster.

It immediately made me a fan and since then I’ve not only kept up with Final Fantasy but I discovered other games in the genre like Tales Of, Suikoden, Chrono Trigger, Seiken Densetsu 3 (Trials of Mana) and Terranigma. Even today they are still one of my favourite genres along with action platformers, and while I am still trying to expand my horizons and trying to find new appreciations for genres that don’t entirely click with me, I can always fall back on these two to just have a good time.

As many of my generation I watched a lot of Disney movies growing up: stuff like Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Robin Hood were pretty much always on in my house thanks to VHS and I loved them to bits. The gorgeous animation, the catchy songs that we sang all the time and the stories where the underdog hero will always find his way to defeat the bad guy was something that really stuck with me, especially when Disney didn’t miss the opportunity to make you feel really sad before the great happy ending.

Of course I wanted more but on TV there was only one moment where I could find some animation, it was right during the afternoon after coming back to school where I was first introduced to a lot of anime. There was stuff for everyone: from sports, high school romance, fantasy epics and historic drama. I basically watched everything that was on because it was my time and had to make the most of it. 

The ones that stuck with me the most were: Sailor Moon, because it looked like a female version of Power Rangers and I was already a big fan of that, Saint Seiya because it felt really epic, you have knights each related to a different constellation fighting each other in the name of the Greek gods and some of the episodes were really gripping; and of course Dragon Ball where the fights were just so awesome that you couldn’t just look away. These last two in particular were an institution in elementary school. 

We were constantly discussing our favourite scenes, imitating the characters, and discussing who was the strongest! Once Pokémon also arrived on TV, we were playing the card game, exchanging figurines and fighting each other's teams in the videogame. These cartoons were something that united everyone in the classroom. 

Growing up I was always on the lookout for new shows, anime in particular because they felt like the ones that were trying to be more adult rather than other channels who kept focusing mainly on stuff strictly for kids, outside of stuff like Family Guy. 

Nowadays I try to keep up to date with new stuff from everywhere around the world thanks to streaming. One genre in particular that I’ve grown very fond of and should be held in much higher regard, it’s stop motion animation. I genuinely respect and admire the artistry behind it, the amount of mechanical work and framing that goes into creating every single movie like Coraline or the more recent Wendell & Wild. They are able to use all of this to create some visual spectacles, but unfortunately we don’t see those types of movies that often.

Movies and TV Series are also something I spend a lot of time watching and I always gravitate towards a lot of heavy action packed adventure, I think it’s because I used to watch movies when I want to unwind and growing up with stuff like Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park and Star Wars really makes me gravitate towards that kind of genre. I love stuff like Fast & Furious because for how shallow the story can be I’m there for the crazy stunts and having a laugh. 

I still try to better myself and keep my mind open, not focusing just on the crazy action but also taking note of the story these movies want to tell. I’m also open to something that is much more dramatic and heavy in tone, one recent example being Whiplash, a very brutal depiction of the struggles of a young aspiring jazz drummer and how much he has to sacrifice both physically and mentally to achieve his dream. My closest group of friends are doing a lot of heavy lifting into opening my mind to a lot more horror movies that go beyond the standard slasher stuff, and I am finding a new appreciation for how varied the genre can be. Not to say there’s anything wrong with slashers, the Nightmare series is one of my favourites and believe it or not one of my very first horror movies I saw as a kid was Hellraiser, but horror in the mainstream is just the very tip of a giant iceberg. 

The genre has a gigantic variety of stories to tell that can be very thoughtful and scary in their own different way. And just like Stop Motion I love the practical aspect that comes into creating some of the special effects, especially with the creatures, which can create some really impressive imagery.

Finally I'm trying my best to become a much better reader. As a child I mostly read comics, stuff like Topolino (Mickey Mouse), an Italian only weekly comic which is basically a collection of stories featuring various Disney characters which is still ongoing after 75 years. It could span from many genres still with children in mind but you had fantasy stories, treasure hunting stories, detective noir stories and even some ghost stories, I kept collecting it very regularly for a while until I pretty much outgrew it in favour of either manga or Diabolik. 

Diabolik was my first introduction to the concept of the Anti-Hero, he was a thief, his only goal was to just keep hoarding more treasures for himself and his lover Eva Kant, he had all sorts of tricks up his sleeve and can take the place of everyone thanks to his disguises. He isn’t necessarily a cold blooded murderer but if the situation required it he wouldn’t bat an eye about killing someone with his knife. I found him really cool and loved watching his stories unfold, watching him planning, seeing how he could get himself out of a bind if the situation went south and see him facing off against the other rotten characters from the criminal world. I basically stopped following him on the regular because it’s a very formulaic comic and after a while you tend to see the pattern way too much to get invested but I still find myself reading some of his stories from time to time. 

Books were something I actively avoided because I felt like they were something the teachers were forcing on me. I only read what I had to because of obligation and almost never read anything else by myself. It wasn’t until my teenage years where I started being more open in reading and mainly it was fantasy books thanks to being exposed to movies like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. 

It became more fun and investing because I was using my imagination and having to visualise every single scene in my mind creating my own little movie, there were days where I could read for hours without even noticing. Unfortunately I was never consistent about it and had many years where I just never opened a book. 

One of my resolutions for this year was to read at least one book per month and thus far I'm keeping it up very regularly. As you can see I dedicate myself to a lot when it comes to consuming media, but I really have to find the time for everything and not just sticking to just one thing all the time.

Once I started using the internet more regularly I was always drawn, especially thanks to YouTube, to review channels and I always wanted to join in on the fun. But for one reason or another, be my own laziness, a lack of a good PC to produce content of actual quality and overall shyness to actually put myself out there, I always hesitated into doing so. But I still ended up writing some text reviews from time to time, but even that stopped because of lack of motivation. Recently an itch to actually start creating something has sparked and thus I decided to open up because I wanted to share my feelings about various stuff I enjoy. 

So, what can you expect?

Mostly it's gonna be reviews about videogames, movies, and books or comics, talking about what I liked, what I disliked and whether or not I can recommend it to you.

This is something I really wanted to start in order to have a place to share my thoughts without them getting lost in a social media chaos. This is also a big exercise for me not only to see if I can actually keep up with a creative endeavour and finally find a consistency and fun in managing that, but it's also a way to engage in the media in a much more intimate way not just as a causal enjoyment but also an enriching mind opening experience. I will still have time to just sit back and talk about media that's more just about having fun for me but I also want it to be more than just that.

I also have a Youtube channel where I used to post some let's plays very back in the day. I'm planning to try and resurrect it so maybe I can give you the chance to see some of the games I'm gonna talk about in action for yourself. One day if my connection allows it, I might get into streaming but that's not in the plan at the moment.

Hopefully you're gonna enjoy it and keep the conversation up, I'm open to critiques for getting better with my writing. 

See you again soon! Hope you have a great day!