As any dutiful teen would do, Alyssa goes straight home to find her mother, and upon arriving she's thrust into a sinister, otherworldly plot that involves ancient spirits and spans across several time periods in London. Alyssa receives a distressing note from her mother instructing her to go into hiding immediately for her own safety and to avoid the family home at all costs. You play the role of Alyssa Hamilton, a British teenager away from home at boarding school. Thankfully, Clock Tower 3 throws out this antiquated control mechanism, which doesn't work very well with a console controller, and replaces it with a more appropriate Resident Evil-style scheme.

The previous two Clock Tower games were critically maligned point-and-click adventure games released for the PlayStation. The cutscenes in the game are some of the best that you'll find in any game. Alas, Clock Tower 3's movie portions are stronger than the gameplay that underpins them, and the result is a game that you'll probably want to finish more for its storyline than for the fun you'll have actually playing it. The game's cutscenes, both prerendered and real-time, were directed by Kinji Fukasaku of Battle Royale fame, and his influence pays off in spades. The Metal Gear Solid games are probably the most well-known example of this phenomenon, and in Clock Tower 3, Capcom has provided us with a game that has similar intentions.

The other side thinks games can be more-that they can combine gameplay and high production values to create a visual and cerebral experience that's akin to an interactive movie. One side argues that games are a mere mindless pastime, a diversion meant to distract you from everyday tedium. There's a continuing debate in some circles about the potential artistic merit of video games.

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