NEWS - Friday, January 9, 2004

Malice: Still Alive!
Remember Malice, Argonauts action-adventure starring small lass with extremely large hammer thats been floating around for an age but is currently sans publisher? Well, weve received unconfirmed word that the title has been picked up by US publisher Bethesda Softworks, of Morrowind fame. Argonauts Malice was originally unveiled to the public in conjunction with the showing of Xbox at E3 2001, the title at the time offered up as a flagship for the graphical grunt of Microsofts console. Since then the game has had its own fair share of trouble and strife. The last time we saw the graphically ambitious Malice it was in the hands of VU Games, and, well, framerate problems were rife. VU finally dropped the title last year, this action then quickly followed by rumour that the decision had been made to take the script back to the drawing board. Despite the number of setbacks, Argonaut CEO Jez San, during a conversion with us in June 2003, still seemed extremely positive about Malice. Similarly COO Joss Ellis, speaking in September of last year, confirmed that the title was still being worked on. Malice remaining publisher-less for nigh on six months does not paint a very promising picture, but weve now received word from a US industry source that a new deal is in place with Bethesda, which is encouraging news. However, such signing reports are, as of yet, unconfirmed. Querying Argonauts Joss Ellis on the matter, we were told: "We can neither confirm nor deny that this is true," before going on to add that wed have to "wait for future announcements" confirming Malices fate. Bethesda Softworks had not replied to our inquiries at the time of writing.Source: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/