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[Fallopian Tube]

5.0 Presentation
The menu screen looks nice and the idea of a girl with a giant mallet is promising, but the end cut-scene is about 15 seconds long and the story is almost non-existent.

7.0 Graphics
Some areas look brilliant, others look very bland. Malice looks good, but her enemies are pretty boring and lack any cool animations.

5.0 Sound
Bad voices meet with a ho-hum musical score. At least you can collect hearts and make Malice extra happy.

6.0 Gameplay
Pretty standard, straightforward stuff. If it was more fun, then the game would be passable, but it's just not exciting at all.

4.0 Lasting Appeal
This game is shorter than Gary Coleman standing in a ditch. I don't have a pet turtle, but if I did, even he could finish this game in less than eight hours.

5.8
OVERALL:
(out of 10 / not an average)

Wha' Happened?!?
At one point Malice was set to feature the voice of Gwen Stefani and the music of No Doubt. Those days are gone. So, apparently, are the morphing abilities of Malice's Clockwork Hammer and the impressive graphics. Three E3's back, Malice was shown and while the gameplay wasn't there, the visuals were pretty sweet. A grassy area that now features some rather weak nubs of grass once had four-foot high blades that Malice would run through. The framerate was ass, but the game looked like it was going to be a real knockout. Looks like we all got suckerpunched. Heck, check out screenshots from as late as January -- there are creatures in those screenshots that never appear in the final game. What gives??

 

[cvxfreak]

I remember this game being in development before the Xbox launched. It's quite a shame all that extra development time went to waste with such a mediocre product.

 

[Wario64]

Why the hell did they even bother with this game?

 

[Ferrio]

Its times like this you wish you could bring up old threads.

 

[hobbitx]

I still remember how sweet Malice looked back in the day. I remember I saw a movie of this game playing on G4 with no background music and it was kinda creepy.

 

[DDayton]

I suddenly remember this game being announced for GC release. Heheheh... this thing HAS been in development for a while.

 

[Jonnyboy117]

It was definitely planned for PS2 at one time, but I don't remember a GC version ever being mentioned.

 

[Deleted member 284]

Its times like this you wish you could bring up old threads.

Ho boy, that would have had at least three bannings and cause five more.

 

[AniHawk]

Heh heh, I remember this being mentioned alongside the likes of Halo way back in 2001.

 

[Agent Dormer]

I think in EB's pre-Xbox release magazine they talked about Malice. Kinda sad it didn't pan out.

 

[mjq jazz bar]

Didn't Argonaut develop the original Star Fox? What the fuck happened to them?

 

[AniHawk]

Argonaut Games

Known Developed Games
Dreamcast Red Dog: Superior Firepower
Game Boy Advance Bionicle: Matoran Adventures
Game Boy Color Croc
GameCube Bionicle
I-Ninja
Nintendo 64 Buck Bumble
PC Bionicle
Croc 2
Croc: Legend of the Gobbos
Disney's Aladdin in Nasiria's Revenge
FX Fighter
I-Ninja
PlayStation Aladdin Nasira's Revenge
Alien Resurrection
Croc 2
Croc: The Legend of Gobbos
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
PlayStation 2 Bionicle
I-Ninja
Malice
Orchid
Powerdrome
SWAT: Global Strike Team
SNES Star Fox
Xbox Bionicle
Carve
I-Ninja
Malice
Orchid
Powerdrome
SWAT: Global Strike Team

 

[mjq jazz bar]

So, not a huge output of successful games, but I'd say Star Fox was an accomplishment.

I-Ninja came out in a lot less time than Malice, and turned out to be a pretty nice sleeper hit.

Strange company.

 

[brandonnn]

Didn't Argonaut develop the original Star Fox? What the fuck happened to them?

Dylan Cuthbert formed Q-games (and worked on Blasto, Ape Escape 2001 in between), and Giles Goddard formed Vitei (and worked on the GameCube version of Doshin). I don't know that any of the original StarFox team still remain at Argonaut.

 

[Rhindle]

It was definitely planned for PS2 at one time, but I don't remember a GC version ever being mentioned.

It's actually out on PS2, at least in Europe.

I think this was the first game that Microsoft. They then took it multiplatform, and PS2 essentially became the lead platform.

 

[inpHilltr8r]

Dylan Cuthbert formed Q-games (and worked on Blasto, Ape Escape 2001 in between), and Giles Goddard formed Vitei (and worked on the GameCube version of Doshin). I don't know that any of the original StarFox team still remain at Argonaut.

Last I heard, Carl was still there. He was lead on Buck Bumble, which you could look at as being an unofficial sequel. Hell, you can think of Starfox as being the consolised Star Glider.

So who here has played the SNES Starfox II?

*puts hand up*

 

[Fallopian Tube]

Starfox II was horrible, I'm glad it never came out.

 

[inpHilltr8r]

Orchid - XXXXXXXX canned

...also missing:

StarGlider I & II (ST & Amiga and loads of ports)
Stunt Race FX (SNES)
Alien Odyssey (PC)
FX Fighter Turbo (PC)
Ren & Stimpy (SNES rental only, was originally for SNES CD)
Scooby Doo (SNES)
Birds of Prey (Amiga ???)
Creature Shock (PC, CDI, 3DO, Saturn, Playstation) (Jag CD version canned IIRC)

BRender (the mid 90s 3d graphics library that wasn't Renderware, or Rendermorphics (AKA Direct3D))

The Mario / SuperFX chip.

...canned games of note:
Tank Girl (film license that sank with the film)
Kanaan (PC FPS, some screenshots from 98 are still around, had vehicles, multiplayer and was kinda impressive for the time)

 

[Brannon]

...I'm just going to sit here and drink this Barg's Root Beer and think about the properties of genetically enhanced plywood. This act will make more sense than the people responsible for even thinking about releasing Malice this late in the game in the state it's in.

WTF.

 

[mjq jazz bar]

Then again, these guys were responsible for Croc 1 and 2. Ugh.

 

[Mr_Furious]

It's obvious from the final product that Argonaut gave up on the project shortly after getting dropped by MS. Let's see -

- Cool hammer transformations gone (acting as keys for puzzles) - CHECK

- Alternate hammer attacks (lawnmower for example) gone - CHECK

- Cool puzzle play involving large mecha-Malice gone - CHECK

- Serious step backwards graphically with only the levels shown in screenshots early on (Clockworks, Bathroom/Pipes) showing anything competent - CHECK

VU probably picked it up with the notion that these were still planned for the final product and quickly dropped it after finding out the truth. Bethesda basically picked it up for nothing. They only covered COG.

I think Gwen's voice is still present (it sounds like her) but I didn't notice any No Doubt music unless they did the original score (which sounded hideously generic and amateurish)

If a title ever deserved a "budget" release, this one sure does.

 

[Killkernal]

- Cool puzzle play involving large mecha-Malice gone - CHECK

I remember seeing some pretty impressive looking screens (NextGen magazine) with the giant mech in an Xbox preview before it's release. I could not believe how detailed the graphics looked.

Before the current systems were released I was really leaning towards an Xbox for this game alone. While I thought the main character looked a little stupid, I figured the play mechanics would more than make up for it. It's really too bad how awful this turned out.

 

[inpHilltr8r]

It's obvious from the final product that Argonaut gave up on the project shortly after getting dropped by MS. Let's see -

...

- Cool puzzle play involving large mecha-Malice gone - CHECK

Malice was NEVER actually picked by MS. MS wanted a cool xbox demo, and they got one.

The giant synched mecha-alice in that demo, was a visual pun on the giant synched robot in an earlier xbox demo. It was done purely to impress MS into signing them up (unfortunately MS already had Blinx, and didn't really want to sign another platform game), and subsequently added to the game with no thought as to how it was actually going to be used. Malice had a bunch of cool sounding, but completely impractical ideas like that.

Did I mention it was originally a PS1 title?

 

[Mr_Furious]

Malice was NEVER actually picked by MS. MS wanted a cool xbox demo, and they got one.

After doing a little bit of research into this it does appear to have never been "officially" picked up by MS but I read various articles mentioning MS showing it at various keynote addresses as if it were their own. I guess I translated it as "their" title based off various game journalists poor choice of words. While confirming this information, I did stumble upon screenshots of various things now obviously vacant from the final product. So sad how Malice is such a shell of what it could've been.

 

[FnordChan]

FnordChan

 

[mjq jazz bar]

After doing a little bit of research into this it does appear to have never been "officially" picked up by MS but I read various articles mentioning MS showing it at various keynote addresses as if it were their own. I guess I translated it as "their" title based off various game journalists poor choice of words. While confirming this information, I did stumble upon screenshots of various things now obviously vacant from the final product. So sad how Malice is such a shell of what it could've been.

That's still quite the HIDEOS game.