Scissorman Returns
He comes out of nowhere, determined to slice you into pieces with his human sized pair of garden sheers. As he approaches, the music heightens, your character becomes panicked and harder to control, and you frantically look for a hiding place where you can evade the fate of so many other characters in the game, or for some quick item to use in defense, buying you some time to escape. It sounds fun, and frightening, for a very good reason -- because it is both in droves!
The graphics are typical early Playstation fare, and while not presenting a technical marvel, it gets the job done. The audio presentation however is excellent. Music begins exactly at the right time, and builds up in moments of danger, highlighting the need to escape while simultaneously accentuating your own sense of panic. It's true that some will be put off by the point-and-click control scheme, but as someone who has been a fan of such games for years, that aspect didn't bother me at all. If there is any one merit-subtracting aspect of gameplay in this game, it would have to be the way in which things as asanine as choosing to talk to certain characters in a hallway can have a completely unexpected non-sequitur effect on the rest of the game's flow..
The game centers around a young girl named Jennifer Simpson, one of only two survivors of a series of murders at a mansion in Norway. The killer is Bobby Barrows, one of the twin children of the Barrows Family, owners and residents of the mansion. Jennifer calls him "Scissorman", and this aptly describes this villain as a serial killer who murdered his prey with a giant pair of scissors. The incident takes the press by storm, and is soon all the talk in Norway. A professor of criminology at a local university in Oslo, Helen Maxwell, takes Jennifer under her wing, both as a surrogate parent/sibling, and as a case study. Suddenly, a string of copycat killings start taking place in Oslo, and Helen, with the help of Jennifer and some colleages, decides to solve the mystery of "Scissorman" and stop the killings once and for all. You will achieve one of eight possible endings. Some of these endings are satisfying, some are mysterious, some are very tragic, and some are just plain baffling. There is legitimate replay value in this given that the endings themselves are surprising and compelling.
The story is actually a sequel to a game which was never released in the United States or Europe, which told the story of the Barrows family, and their two serial killing twin children. The game had its fair share of scares, and in many ways explains the loose ends of the story we experience in this game, its sequel. The missing explanation for what led up to the events in this game is fairly annoying for those who never had the experience of playing its predescessor, but the very presence of Scissorman all but makes up for the oddities you might find in this Norweigian killer thriller. Scissorman is the coolest and most intimidating serial killer to date, and the first time he chases you down the hallway of an abandoned school building, you'll know why. It doesn't get any more heart-pounding than this.
This game probably isn't for everyone. Those who don't know how to point-and-click should stay away, as well as the pregant, or those suffering from heart conditions. For those of us who can stand the heat, and enjoy being on the edges of our seats, there are few games that fit the bill like this one does. I fully recommend it.