It's hammer time! No, put those baggy trousers away. Seriously now...

Malice is like the child of a junkie: lavished with tiny portions of love and attention, but largely neglected as its sunken-eyed mama spends her time in pursuit of her next fix of horse.

Hunting down the evil and possibly dyslexic Dog God, the titular Malice must collect keys from different levels. Note the lack of the word 'varied'? She's armed with a whopping hammer and quasi-magical abilities, but the first few levels are merely dressed-up versions of those Twat-A-Mole games you find in the corner of a pier-end arcade. Oh no! Crows are attacking! Swish, bonk, caw. Oh no! Beetles are everywhere! Swish, splat, squeak. And so on.

The small ray of sunshine in these ropey early stages is the script. Glengarry Glen Ross it is not, but Malice has some good lines and whoever voiced the character has done a spot-on job of capturing the intended what-everrrr vibe.

Beyond the first few levels, Malice does become a more diverse and interesting experience. Special abilities play a growing part, though, as hinted at in our preview (OPS2 #46), the gal's inability to move and scrap at the same time is a constant bane.

A counter-intuitive camera and graphically mixed bag help tip the scales against this effort. If you crave cute platform action and have already checked out the Jaks, Ratchets, Sonic Heroes, Crashes and Klonoas, Malice begs your attention. Draw your own conclusion from that. Or, you know, look at the score.

Graphics 60%
Impressive touches are the exception.

Sound 50%
It that an orgasm when she finds a heart?

Gameplay 50%
Humdrum jumping and bashing fare.

Lifespan 50%
Starts tedious and improves, but not much.

Overall 50%
Malice isn't a terrible game, not even badly flawed. It's just uninspired, uninspiring and really, really average.