Can Cloverfield Be Translated into a Video Game?

Can Cloverfield, the highly anticipated and successful American monster hit translate into a video game? First impressions suggest no - that it would translate as well as a film based on the Blair Witch Project. It causes any experienced gamer to become a little queasy when considering the idea of movie based video games of late - ever since the Nintendo 64, there has been a steady, consistent decline in the quality of movie based video games, to the point that many simply utilize the same recycled game engines intended only to create allusions to a successful box office hit, but offering none of the quality game play necessary to mark sales. In a way, it is as though all the creative potential for a movie based video game was utilized to make the ultra successful 007 Goldeneye for Nintendo 64, perhaps the last major movie based video game success.

Therefore the notion that a first person video log can be turned into a kind of successful video game seems mildly absurd. But is it possible to gut out the current calamitous state of the game industry's handling of movie based video game and transform it into an enjoyable success? It would require more than a little thinking out of the box, but it can theoretically be done.

One has to ask what Cloverfield acts as first. Specifically, it is a movie intended to capitalize on the horror of a general perspective. Rather than having a "fourth wall", defined in classic cinema as the walls attributed surrounding the viewer that separate them from the characters, the audience is expected to be a real part of the movie. You are not given the narrative benefit of seeing a context of things, but realizations dawn on you as they dawn on the characters, and the terror/fear that comes from the movie is not derived from directorial techniques or suspenseful music, but rather the notion of imagining yourself in such a disaster (aided by a first person account of everything in the film).
Cloverfield, first and foremost, opens as many questions as it answers. Therefore a logical conclusion would be to create a game that taps into the inquisitive minds of all those die hard fans that left the theater truly curious about the fate of New York. Forget Rob and Beth, any keen viewer who engages themselves to the film acknowledges that Operation: Hammer Down incinerated both of them. A game that truly wishes to capitalize on the magic that is Cloverfield has to take you on a ride that goes beyond the movie.

Therefore it should be considered that the video game based on this particular film has to not be a direct console translation of the silver screen, but rather the point of view of a different set of characters immediately following Operation: Hammer Down. Consider a game that is based on Trauma Center: Second Opinion that omits the anime story and concepts, and instead injects the player into a United States being ravaged by the monster that brought about the annihilation of New York.

Since this would not be a video game that is intended to appeal to your conventional gamers, it has to be considered that story telling will be your key motivator for sales. People desperately interested in seeing how the story continues to unfold will be the ones to buy it, and therefore the game needs to be aimed at them.

You would take the role of a doctor, we can, for the sake of this example, say the character's name is Dr. Franklin Paras, a man who for a time was contemplating retirement, but found himself pressed into service in the wake of the monster attack. Actually living in New Jersey, he was helicoptered into New York to give his opinion on the bizarre effects on the blood that the smaller creatures' venoms had. Specifically, Dr. Paras is a hematologist, who also studied venoms or something of that sort to make him pertinent to the story.

In between levels/missions where you are expected to do the typical escape or get to the helicopter, armed tentatively with a pistol that you use clumsily, there could be several parts that are intended to closely resemble Silent Hill. When you are finally able to avoid imminent death, you are given the chance to examine patients, and based on accomplishing several objectives in what can be described as Trauma Center style minigames, you eventually learn more and more about the monster, its effects, and you slowly unravel the whole of the Cloverfield story.

For the sake of action, the player could take on the role of a marine interchangeably, where it is his job to procure civilians, protect Dr. Paras, and in the final levels of the game, aid in an attack on the monster that has moved further north.

In truth, this is the only way I could imagine the Cloverfield franchise translating to video games - any other way would come out as cheap, corny, and ultimately a squandering of both money and gamers' time.