Clock Tower 3 follows the story of Alyssa, a seemingly normal English schoolgirl (complete with the required short plaid skirt) who one day gets a strange letter from her mother. The letter warns her that something awful will happen on her 15th birthday and that she should stay out of sight until that fateful day passes. Being a typical teenager, Alyssa ignores her mother’s advice and heads straight home. Once there, she finds a house empty of life, save for a dark stranger. The stranger exudes pure evil as he speaks to Alyssa, keeping his distance, yet remaining a threatening presence the entire time. Just as quickly as he appeared, he departs, leaving Alyssa to search the house for her mother.

Here’s where the game really begins, with you, as Alyssa, searching the house for clues. After a short bit of this, you're whisked back in time to WWII London, complete with Stuka dive-bombers blasting your block to dust. After a short cut scene, the action begins as you roam the streets of the blasted-out London hoping to figure out just what’s going on.

The gameplay in Clock Tower 3 is pretty uncomplicated, demanding nothing more than your puzzle-solving and evasion skills. You move around the environments picking up clues and avoiding ghosts. Most of the ghosts are searching for a lost memento, which you need to find if you hope to get them off your back. While you're playing "The Sixth Sense" game of making ghosts happy, you'll also need to solve various mysteries, which are the core of each level.

In the first London level, you'll need to solve the mystery of who killed a child piano prodigy, which requires you to hunt around several buildings for clues and weapons. Did I say weapons? Actually, there are almost no weapons in this game, save for a bottle of holy water, which you must refill after a few uses, and a few holy arrows, which you can only use in boss fights. To escape from evil, you'll need to splash the ghosts with a dose of holy water, which confuses them long enough for you to get away. Since there are limited doses of the holy water, you'll quickly find yourself hunting down water fountains to refill the bottle.

Clock Tower 3’s gameplay is unique in that it uses a panic system instead of hit points or a health meter. Alyssa starts with a panic meter that’s set to zero, but as she encounters dangers, especially malevolent ghosts, her panic level increases. As her panic rises, she becomes clumsier and prone to trip and fall; making her ghostly encounters worse than they already are. To simulate her fear, the visuals will get blurry and more difficult to follow, and the controller will thump like an out-of-control heartbeat. The more fear she feels, the worse her pulse rate gets. If a spirit strikes Alyssa when her panic is at maximum, she dies, and you start the level over. To reduce her panic level, you have two options: lavender water, which you can find throughout the levels, or you can hide. Lavender water slowly reduces her panic level, but it’s not a good idea to use in close proximity to a ghost, since the ghost will just negate the effects of the potion with a series of quick attacks. The best option for reducing Alyssa’s panic level is to just hide somewhere. The more distance you put between yourself and danger, the more quickly the panic meter will drop.

Believing that placing a few angry ghosts in a level wasn't enough to scare players, Capcom took the liberty of putting a "boss" spirit in each level. Less like ghosts and more like screaming demons from the pits of hell, these bosses will appear and reappear throughout the level, forcing you to stay on your toes and learn the best hiding spots. Since Alyssa doesn't have any weapons until the end of each level, you'll have to use the clever "hiding spot" system in the game. Throughout each level, there are glowing spots that indicate places Alyssa can use to hide from the boss character. Whenever you jump into one of these spaces, the perspective switches to first person, allowing you to feel the fear as the demonic boss sniffs around the level looking for you, at times coming face to face with you in your hiding place, only to finally walk away.

If there’s one weakness in this system, it’s the AI, which is downright dumb at times. During chase sequences, the bosses are right on your tail, never letting go, which seems realistic enough. Once you hide, though, they become total idiots, even if they followed you into the hiding place to begin with. You'll spend plenty of time in these hiding places as the bosses come after you early on, and you can't kill them until you've solved the mystery of the level. Once you solve the mystery, you'll find your holy bow and arrow and get a little archery practice in as you fight to take the boss down. The bosses themselves follow pretty standard fighting patterns that may seem difficult to discern at first, but once you do, it’s all over but the crying for those evil fellows.

While the gameplay is excellent in Clock Tower 3, the graphics are just so-so. The amount of aliasing in this game is almost as scary as the monsters. Everything is jaggy, especially the character model for Alyssa. When placed up against certain backgrounds, Alyssa actually looks like a paper cutout doll taped to the screen. Any time the camera zooms in on a face or object, it gets ugly. Certain angles look fine, while others are almost painful to look at. It’s too bad they didn't take the time to work on this aliasing issue, since most of the environments and objects have nice texture and details. With the aliasing, you'd never know it.

Speaking of camera angles, the camera in Clock Tower 3 is completely controlled by the computer, lending a cinematic feel to the game yet infuriating you at the same time. I can't count the number of times I needed a quick peek in a different direction and had to actually change Alyssa’s direction to do so. The camera frequently causes you to miss small yet important details, like doors, as it points in pretty much the completely wrong direction at times. This is a real problem when the bosses are chasing you from room to room. There’s nothing more annoying than turning a corner and the camera not moving fast enough to point out that the boss is still directly behind you, ready to smash you to a pulp.

One last note on the graphics, and that’s the amount of gore in this game. I would not recommend this game for the faint of heart or for children under the age of 18. There are buckets of blood in this game, and when you couple that with some seriously scary monsters and their literally bone-crushing attacks, you and your kids may end up pretty queasy after a few hours of Clock Tower 3.

Clock Tower 3 is a downright spooky game made more so by the eerie soundtrack. At times nearly silent, while at others deep and bass-heavy, the soundtrack helps pace the game and pulls you into the dark world Alyssa is trying to escape.

Most of the game’s sounds are quite good, serving to immerse you more deeply into the game. Kick a bottle and hear it clank its way down the street, or listen closely and hear leaves blowing in the wind.

The voice acting for the most part is generic, though it does have some shining moments. Alyssa’s voice certainly expresses her panic, but the rest of the time, most everyone sounds a bit flat. The bosses, especially "Sledgehammer" (whom you'll know when you meet him), sound absolutely terrifying and will probably leave you psychologically scarred. There’s nothing creepier than Sledgehammer’s taunt of "Where are you Alyssa?" as he sniffs the air looking for her. I get shivers just writing about it.

Clock Tower 3 is very linear, and as such, the replay value is limited. There are, however, some extra costumes, full-motion videos and an enhanced difficulty level you can unlock with a little skill, all of which serve to boost the replay. While being scared out of your wits once might seem to be enough for some, others will enjoy playing the game on a harder difficulty setting for a bit more panic-inducing fun.

Surprisingly short yet thoroughly enjoyable, Clock Tower 3 is a fine work of survival-horror from Capcom. The panic meter, coupled with the lack of any real weapons, helps increase the "scariness" of the game. Well worth a purchase or rent, but if you do get it, be sure to pay your electric bill in advance, since you'll be leaving the lights on at night for a long time to come.