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The intro immediately launches the player into the heart of the situation. The stage is set for the conflict between the Alphas, Dom'z and Hillyans. The camera frames a majestic outer space view, as Dom'z meteorites filled with their xenomorphic militants rain down on the peaceful mining planet, Hillys. Then, the camera sweeps down past lushly rendered trees and sky to the protagonist, Jade, and one of her young orphan wards performing their morning meditations.

The Dom'z are hurtling down through the atmosphere. Quickly, Jade sends the children into the shelter of the lighthouse as she flips and dodges falling pods. Too late, as the cruel and merciless Dom'z soldiers have captured the children. Seconds later, Jade is engaged in the first of many battles to liberate her world from oppression. Before her journey is through, she will face an awakening, and everything she knew to be true will be revealed as a lie.

I intentionally left out details from the dramatic introduction. It truly is an excellent bit of gaming cinematic. It is thankfully short, but is entertaining and dynamic in a way most cinematics can only hope to achieve. And that first fight against the Dom'z is fought by the player. Subtle help text is included, but it is largely unnecessary. The controls for fighting are simple and fluid, as are the controls for every aspect of this game.

Combat in this game is very easy when the player must go through the fight, and very difficult when they should avoid the fight. For example, the soldiers are very tough, know how to work in teams, and have tons of weaponry and support robots. The best tactic with them is strict avoidance or stealth attacks. One aggravating exception to this balance is the final boss, which is more like an obnoxious, frustrating memory game than a true boss battle.

To avoid combat, you will often need to use stealth. Holding L allows Jade to move about in silence with a low profile. The enemy soldiers are quite moronic, so you can get away with a great deal of stumbling, but the stealth sections have to be the second-most frustrating part of the whole game. They are quite enjoyable in moderation, and they really are appropriate. Jade is a reporter, not an intergalactic mercenary or whatnot. But still, frustrating.

As a reporter, Jade's number one weapon is her camera. I'm not sure if it is an original concept, but the incorporation of a camera as such an important aspect of the game is quite refreshing. Here, it is more important that she capture animals in their natural habitats than hitting them with a stick to get money. It is better to expose the enemy with images that can be shown to the Hillyan populace than it is for her to blast them. The camera also has a limited capacity to save personal shots of things that just look cool to the player. Each shot is saved, so after capturing all of the animals on film, the player can review their photography. This feature resides in the no-man's-land between gameplay, art and birdwatching.

BG&E is an adventure game at its heart, but the gameplay is only distantly related to point-and-clicking or interactive fiction. Instead, the puzzles are mostly visceral and brief. Instead of spending an hour trying to solve one puzzle, you'll spend the same hour solving 10 easier puzzles interspersed with some light combat and collecting. Most of the puzzles take less than a minute to solve, particularly ones along the main path. Others which are not necessary to normal game completion are more difficult. There are certain creatures which must be lured out into the open in order to capture on film, for example. More than its puzzle pedigree makes it a true adventure game, in my mind. The game simply made me feel as if were on a grand adventure in a mission to save the world. A palpable sense of fear engulfed me while skulking about in the enemy's lair. Jade had to remain unseen or she would be struck dead in an instant by the laser turrets. Then, as soon as she had snuck her past the final guard and retrieved her objective, an alarm went off, and she was then in a mad dash across the rooftops, with cinematic camera angles showing off a horde of enemies close on her heels. At that moment, I was in her shoes, saving the world from the forces of evil. If adventure games are going to survive as a genre, they would do well to take more than a few cues from this game.

The dialogue did not make me want to kill anyone. Nor did the supporting characters. The supporting characters were all either useful, amusing, both or avoidable. Okay, occasionally, I did want to punch Jade's AI assistant, Secundo, but all of his dialogue was skippable. Much of the in-game dialogue is recorded voices, with the option for subtitles. In the version I reviewed, I was given the choice of English or Spanish before starting a new game.

Graphics and camera are rarely an issue for me. I usually stick to 2D or retro games. In this game, however, the graphics were just lovely. I think I used the word "lush" in the introduction. That's a very good word. Also, "creamy", "elegant", and "organic". I simply did not realize the Game Cube was capable of such pixel-sculpting, and was left in awe of what it could do. You will find no harsh, jagged angles. There will be no aliasing. Artifacts be damned. While the graphics are by no means perfect... Wow! The camera is likewise easily tamed with the right analog stick and rarely interferes with gameplay, which is the second-best thing a camera can do.

I cannot go without mentioning the music. It is awesome. The whole game world is a deliberately polyethnic, culturally diverse place. The music matches that and takes it to level of listening pleasure rarely matched in a video game. From tranquil ambient background tracks to the absolutely insane Latino-Punk soundtracks played during the hovercraft races, this game is an audio feast.

Beyond Good & Evil is quite easy. I was able to beat it in 10 hours. However, this simplicity hides a performance game within. Not only can you beat your personal best by discovering hidden pearls and animals, but you receive an Internet Code every time you save your game. You can enter this code in the "Darkroom" portion of the Beyond Good & Evil website (www.beyondgoodevil.com) to compete against players all over the world. You can also use this to unlock a mini-game inside BG&E for extra meta-wackiness. While running through the game is a breeze for the casual adventurer, plenty of secrets are hidden within for the hardcore perfectionist.

It should be obvious by now that I love this game. I reserve a few caveats: the final boss battle is garbage, and the stealth segments are sometimes unnecessarily frustrating. Okay, other than that, I love this game. Period.