Malice



So, a goddess gets her head bitten off by the evil Dog God and is subsequently kicked out of the afterlife by Death, since a god can't die and she therefore has no business being there. So it's back to the land of the living for our heroine, who must enlist the aid of a giant sentient clock to settle the score with the Dog God. This, of course, involves collecting eight "logic keys" that are scattered around the game world.

Despite originally being intended as a PlayStation title, it was retooled to be an Xbox launch game, and after a lengthly stay in Development Hell, it was finally released in 2004 on Xbox and PlayStation 2.

Not to be confused with the book of the same name. Also has nothing to do with Malice Mizer.

Malice contains examples of the following:

 * Bare Your Midriff
 * Big Creepy-Crawlies: Oversized Cockroaches are a common type of enemy.
 * Covers Always Lie: Some releases portrayed the title character looking a little different from her in-game model...
 * Drop the Hammer: The player character's preferred method of solving her problems.
 * Improbable Weapon User: Malice's most powerful weapon is a giant tuning fork.
 * Incredibly Lame Pun: One of Malice's weapons is a giant club known as "The Mace of Clubs."
 * Like a Badass Out of Hell: How the game begins.
 * Our Gods Are Greater
 * So Okay It's Average: The general critical consensus for the game.
 * Steampunk: Some elements of the game have a notable clockwork and brass motif to them.
 * Tech Demo Game: Innitially, the Xbox version of the game was used by Microsoft to showcase the bump mapping capabilities of the as-yet-unreleased console. By the time the game was actually released, bump mapping was rather commonplace in Xbox titles, leading to an overall "meh" reaction from critics and gamers alike.
 * They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Death is probably the most entertaining character in the game. Unfortunately, he is also a One-Scene Wonder.
 * They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Despite the interesting premise, what little plot there is to this game is bare-bones, disjointed and not very interesting.
 * Vaporware: The game was widely regarded as this before it finally made its way onto store shelves.
 * What Could Have Been: Gwen Stefani was at one point going to voice the title character, with No Doubt providing the soundtrack for the game.