Argonaut Games plc is delighted to have one of its forthcoming games,
Malice: A Dark and Comic Fiery Tale, used as a demonstration of the power of the
Xbox video game console during Bill Gates' keynote speech at the Consumer
Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Jan 6th 2001.
Argonaut's uniquely talented team of developers have been able to
exploit the enormous computational and graphical performance of the Xbox to create a
state-of-the-art proprietary video game engine, named "Shadow-Caster".*
With the Shadow-Caster engine running on the Xbox our designers have been able
to fully realise Malices beautiful surreal world. With substantially
enhanced levels of gameplay, graphics and audio, Malice delivers a new level
of videogaming experience.
"Malice" is a dark and comic modern-day-myth of cataclysmic proportions. With
a character driven, quest based plot, rich in detail, sumptuous in visual humour, it's a
unique, fast paced and challenging 3D action adventure game.
J Allard, general manager Xbox platform and third-party
relations, said "the power and potential of the Xbox is beautifully realised in
Argonaut's hugely impressive game demonstration."
Jez San said "We're proud to have had one of our new titles chosen by Microsoft as
a public demonstration of the astounding capabilities of the Xbox."
About Shadow-Caster
The
Shadow-Caster engine supports fully real-time high resolution textured, shaded, bump and
specularity mapped worlds, with multiple-coloured lighting and shadows that cast over
everything within a scene be it interior or exterior.
About Malice: A Dark and Comic Fiery Tale
In a strange forest,
an even stranger kid,
meddling where she shouldn't,
unleashes a sick and twisted
molten Fire God into the World;
Malice Incarnate!
A giant nuclear fur-ball, all sharp teeth and smouldering eyes...
Leaving a trail of warped and fragile reality in its wake, the new-born Demon-God
threatens to destroy all of Malice's surreal and magical worlds.
Our young heroine must battle through 30 fiendish levels, defeating the Fire God's
nefarious cohorts and gathering the magic skills she'll need to somehow shoehorn all the
Evils back into their box...
In
a journey to defeat the ancient Fire God, the player gets to play multiple evolutions of
their character & finally become a magical Cat-Goddess to defeat a fiery Dog-God gone
mad. Environments are set on fire, flooded, torn apart & turned upside down as our
character learns to manipulate Wood, Water, Metal, Earth & Fire, using bizarre &
wondrous weapons like the Mace of Clubs, the Clockwork Hammer & the Quantum Tuning
Fork through unique environments like the pyromaniacal Glowurm Kingdom, the world drowning
Fountain of Tears, an over-clocked Clockwork Maze, & the Iron fortress-nests of the
Crow Assassin Guild & their Fire God master, hell bent on mutating any and every
creature into an evil counter-version of itself.