Clock Tower

Developer - Human
Publisher - ASC II
Players - 1
Extras - Memory card, Mouse

The bit on the box

"Experience Scissorman's deadly shears at their raw, unedited best in this terrifying horror adventure. Feel the fear as you search for the most horrific serial killer known to man."

Graphics

Unlike other point and click adventures, Clock Tower avoids using cartoon graphics and opts instead for using 3D polygons. This is a nice change, and while this technique works well, it does mean that the backgrounds and characters have less detail than you would normally expect in a game of this type. Thankfully this actually enhances the game rather than ruining it, as it all fits in nicely with the B-movie horror feeling portayed throughout. In fact, the bleaker the scene the scarier things are (a good example of this was the final scenario, set in a well detailed castle, was less scary than the first scenario, set in a university with bare featureless walls). The animation is well done, but nothing special.

Sounds

Now this is where Clock Tower excells. It uses a unique system of sound and silence, a technique used in many truly scary horror films. Most of the time there is no background music, and only the sound of your own footsteps. This seems dissatisfying at first, until you realise it was meant to be like this, as it sets you up for when the villain of the game , Scissorman, approaches or bursts out of his hiding place. Scissorman has his very own piece of music, which only plays when he is in the near vicinity, and frankly I didn't know what was worse, having him leap out when I least expected it, or instead hearing him approaching from down a hallway, theme music steadily getting louder. This sound style works so well that I even found this game to be scarier than Resident Evil. The most disappointing part of the sound is the voice acting, it is truly terrible and worse than the acting in the aforementioned Capcom horror classic.

Gameplay

Clock Tower definitely uses one of the easiest control systems I have seen in a point and click adventure, as it is simplified to the extreme of only using one button most of the time. There are two parts of the gameplay though, straight forward adventuring (searching desks, rooms, solving puzzles) and then there is getting the hell away from Scissorman (in which the control system changes so you can use previously unusable items). The latter system works extremely well, as you have to frantically search for a way a delaying Scissorman or escaping from him, using anything you can find as a weapon or hiding place, with varying degrees of success or failure. This gives the feeling of being involved in an interactive horror movie, rather than the action horror genre that the Resident Evil games created.

I feel a verdict coming on

The difficulty level of Clock Tower seems a little easy at first, but once you have progressed into the third and final scenario then things get suitably harder. Also there is a fair amount of replay value, which each of the two main characters having 5 different endings each, influenced by how well you do, and also the opportunity to control up to 5 different characters at varying points in the adventure. No two games are truly identical either, as the whereabouts and frequency of when Scissorman appears seems entirely random, and I never managed to discover a pattern to his movements. If you are a fan of horror, then this game is a must, if you are a fan of adventure games, then this is one of more entertaining ones. If you don't like adventure games, horror or otherwise, then I doubt Clock Tower will change you opinion, which is a pity because it really is a great game. Play at night at your own peril!

Review by D.R.T.Barrett