Super Red Green Blue

By Robert Jones

Steve, a video game obsessive, has reached his 30th birthday only to realise that his life has not turned out how he had once hoped it would. His business is failing, his most recent girlfriend has just left him and video games, the one thing that has been with him constantly since childhood, are increasingly becoming alien to him. In a last gasp effort to understand what went wrong, Steve begins to recall his life’s past relationships, both with long-lost loves and with video games, hoping that within them he may find the key to a happier future.
A book for anyone who has ever played a video game, Super Red Green Blue takes the reader on a hilarious, heartfelt and intense journey into video game culture and the nature of obsession.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Nov 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483421346

Robert Jones

Robert Jones was born in Gloucester in 1957 and read Philosophy and English at Cambridge. He is a director at Wolff Olins, one of the world's best brand consulting firms, and has worked as a consultant in corporate communications for 16 years, with companies such as Andersen Consulting, Cameron McKenna and the National Trust. He lectures at Oxford Business School on marketing.

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JONES

Copyright © 2014 Robert Nicholas Jones.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-2135-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-2134-6 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 11/13/2014

CONTENTS

Chapter 1.   SUPER RGB

Chapter 2.   REBECCA’S WORLD

Chapter 3.   SECOND HAND

Chapter 4.   FRAME ADVANTAGE

Chapter 5.   NEON RUSH

Chapter 6.   HARD RESET

Chapter 7.   THE BANNERMAN CHRONICLE

Chapter 8.   ACTION REPLAY

Chapter 9.   CONVENTION FEVER

Chapter 10.   1UP

My top five video games of all time, in quality order, are:

1. Super Mario World

2. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

3. Chrono Trigger

4. Deus Ex

5. Final Fight

These are the games that, as I pass the 30-year mark, I have not only enjoyed the most but, on reflection, have shaped my life into what it is today. You see, that is why this list is untouchable. It’s not just personal taste, a one-way process whereby I choose which games stay with me and I enjoy, but rather a kind of discourse in which my opinion alone is not the only deciding factor. To alter this list is to fundamentally alter who I am.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more each of these games has directly shadowed a particular past relationship of mine. They have, in their own crude way, plotted the direct and disastrous path my life has taken up to this point, with each heralding yet another calamitous finale. I don’t know if there is a link, however this idea of video games being fundamentally entwined with key relationships in my life is something that, right now, I am finding hard to shake.

CHAPTER 1

SUPER RGB

‘No, you can’t buy this copy of Warbringer: Ghost Ops and I’ll give you three reasons why.’

Jeff was arguing with a customer, again.

‘One. This is the same smegging game as last year’s Warbringer: Desert Ops, which itself was the same smegging game as the year before’s Warbringer: Black Ops. All you do is hold forward on the control stick while scripted shit automatically happens all around you.’

‘Yeh, but dude, you like shoot stuff and things explode and…’ began the customer, a late-teens skater with dreadlocked blonde hair.

‘Exactly! It’s the same fucking corridor shooter that, and stop me if I’m wrong, which take the hint I’m not, a one John Carmack perfected almost 20 years ago. You’re basically trying to buy a 20-year-old knockoff for,’ Jeff quickly flipped the game box over on the counter, ‘£54.99! Seriously! It’s fucking extortion my friend. In buying this game you are basically walking up to mister video game corporate shill and saying Please can you pull my pants down and stick your…’

‘Damn it Jeff, just sell him the game,’ I swiftly interrupted, moving to the counter while flashing an appeasing smile at the teen.

‘Ah, there you are - why do we have this in the store?’ replied Jeff, holding the game box up by thumb and forefinger as if it were a soiled pair of underwear.

‘Jeff, we have this in the shop,’ I began, ‘as it is the latest entry in the phenomenally successful Warbringer series, you know, the one that year-after-year smashes video game sales records worldwide. Now, I don’t know if you realise this, but we are currently standing in a shop that sells video games.’

‘Yeh Steve, I know, but it’s fucking Warbringer. Seriously man, don’t we have standards to maintain in here?’

The youth, who had been watching this interchange with a stoned puzzlement suddenly caught up and, after a momentary pause, said:

‘Who’s John Carmack?’

Jeff spluttered.

‘This is just what I’m talking about. Fucking standards man. He doesn’t even know who Carmack is. Sheesh! What next…’

Jeff turned to the youth.

‘John Carmack is only one of the gaming gods, the man who basically invented the first person shooter single-handedly and is probably responsible for much of the network code still running under half the shooters today. He made a little title called Doom, you probably haven’t heard of it.’

‘I do apologise for my colleague,’ I said, picking up the game box, opening it and retrieving the game disc from the storage cabinets behind the counter, ‘sometimes he forgets the conception of what a shop is for and, also, just how old he is.’

‘Only as old as you Steve, it’s just that I’m keeping it real, staying true to who I am, laying down the necessary truth bombs.’

‘Oh, Doom,’ said the guy. ‘I know, that film right, the one with that wrestler? Yeh, that was wicked sick.’

‘You liked the film? Just… what… why in hell would you…’

I flashed a warning glance in Jeff’s direction. Jeff held up his hands and backed off muttering.

‘Now, is that all for you today?’ I said turning back to the youth.

He paid, put the game in his backpack and left, then once outside in the morning sun, dropped his skateboard to the pavement and rattled off down the street and out of view.

Jeff began reclining feet up on the shop’s couch, located at the back right of the store in front of a large television screen, picking at his belly button fluff.

‘Seriously Jeff, why don’t I pay you to work here?’

‘You don’t pay me, although you should, because I am the Master Chief of video games. I’m like Solid Snake, there are many challengers to my supremacy however none can slay the serpent.’

‘Didn’t Solid Snake die at the end of Metal Gear Solid 4?’

‘That was inconclusive and, anyway, it’s beside the point. There is, I can assure you, no one in London who knows more about video games than me and you should consider yourself lucky that I bestow my gifts here. Now, why don’t you apologise for stocking such modern corporate bilge by going and getting us all a coffee? I’ll have a large mocha and one of those donuts with sprinkles.’

‘Seriously? You just keep turning up here and putting off potential customers. Why don’t you go and get a proper job?’

‘You know why, Steve, because I need to keep my mind pure and clear so that I can formulate my opus, the Bannerman Chronicle. It will be the greatest game ever made,’ Jeff responded, drifting off into a dreamlike gaze.

‘Oh yes, the fabled Bannerman Chronicle. The game you’ve been trying to get funding for, what is it now, three years? I mean, you haven’t even explained what it is. Genre? Plot? Characters? Mechanics? You do realise you need these things right?’

‘Oh, my friend,’ said Jeff, still staring into space, ‘the Chronicle is almost indescribable. It will transcend genre. It will redefine video games as we know them for ever. And anyway,’ he said, snapping back out his reverie, ‘I’m now crowdsourcing the funding. My genius will no doubt be recognised within weeks.’

‘Right,’ I said, ‘well if you want to stay here till then you can go and get the drinks.’ I moved to the couch and dropped a £20 note onto his head.

‘Fine. But I baggsy the main screen for when I return as I need to teach some fucking 13-year-old Japanese douchebag how you play Phantasy Star Online 2. I’m going to stick his fucking Gunblade where the fucking sun don’t shine.’

And, with that, he left.

So, let me bring you up to speed. That was Jeff Bannerman and, as you may have gathered, he likes video games. He is also, without doubt, one of the most annoying human beings I have ever known. Loud, crass and sarcastic, Jeff makes criticising other people his full-time occupation, doing little else all day other than mooching around here, playing video games and doing his best to put off almost every customer I have. The thing with Jeff though, the really fucking annoying thing that I wish were not true but is, is that he does actually have an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of video games. When he says no one in London knows more about games than him he is almost definitely telling the truth. And that is something in which he takes much delight, reminding all and sundry of it every bloody day. Anyway, Jeff lives in the same apartment building as Neal - who we will get to later - and helps to make my life the unqualified success it is today.

Which, I suppose, brings us onto myself.

My name is Steven, Steve for short, and I run this shop, Super RGB, a new and secondhand video games store in London, England. Yes, yes, I know, a bit of bad time to be running an independent games shop, but right now we are getting by, or as I should really say now, how I am getting by. That’s because as of five days ago my long-term girlfriend of two and half years Jessica dumped me and, packing a bag, has now moved out of my apartment to stay with her friend Richard. As you can probably guess, I fucking hate Richard. Officious prick. We never got on while Jessica and I were together and now, well, some things are just better left unsaid. Needless to say that whenever I try to call Jessica good old Dick is taking as much pleasure as possible in reminding me that she doesn’t want to talk to me right now.

Anyway, along with my failing love life, thanks to Jeff’s best efforts as well as the omnipresence of the large GAME store down the road, business is also down. Sure, the shop still has its hardcore following, typically middle-aged men looking for long out of production carts from bygone consoles, however really the main issue is that the industry just isn’t what it used to be. It wasn’t always this way, just as one time I would have actually cared that I had been ditched, I would have cared that the one thing that has been with me since I was five years old has been slowly smothered by corporate indifference and greed. Well, you know, fuck them. I didn’t leave them, they left me.

The door went. It was Neal, head down in his Nintendo 3DS.

Neal was my right