That’s right. Remember that novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the one with all the symbolism you had to read in high school? It’s back. And now it’s a game.
At first, all I could do was laugh when I played this game. In the beginning, Nick Carraway must defeat a stream of waiters at Gatsby’s party with only his hat to defend him, desperately trying to get to Gatsby. The gameplay, while fun, is reminiscent of old school Nintendo games, but that’s not what caught my attention. The Great Gatsby is an example of the difference between games and stories. In the novel, most of what happens is filled with symbolism and subtle nuisances that are difficult to understand without the context of novel, of the writer, etc. The game is not same. Instead of rich descriptions and detail driven conversations, the game simplifies the entire story to a few sentences given at cut scenes and through non-player characters. Nick must get from point a to point b, someone says something, he must get from point b to point c, etc. While this is a fun game to play, the depth that the novel had is gone.
If you recall, there is a scene in the novel where Gatsby looks at a green light across the lake. This light is equated to America, to Gatsby’s dreams, to promise. In the game, the entire scene makes no sense. For no reason, there is a green light, Nick makes a funny face, and the next level begins.
Clearly, games and stories are not interchangeable. I do not get the same level of discourse out of the game that I would out of a novel. However, this works the opposite way as well. I would not like to read a novelization about Passage or Portal but I would like to play them. Games are not stories and stories are not games. There can be some mixture of the two, but they are unmistakeably different.