Beyond Good & Evil is another in a long line of video games that would much rather be movies. It obsesses with its characters and its storytelling. It is determined to be touching. It tries sincerely to offer us something beautiful and profound and true.

These are all worthy goals. One day somebody will make a video game that achieves them. In the meantime Beyond Good & Evil is a fine way to spend a little playtime, even if its eyes are occasionally bigger than its stomach.

The game is set in the 25th century on a planet called "Hillys." It is a mining outpost and slightly backward, which may explain why many of its inhabitants are still wearing the fashions and footwear of the early 2000s. Our heroine is a young woman called "Jade." She helpfully wears green lipstick so we will not forget her name. Along with an anthropomorphic pig named "Pey'j" (pronounced "Paige") she runs a lighthouse, which is a sort of defence mechanism. When evil space monsters attack, Jade and Pey'j turn on the lighthouse, which then covers the countryside with an electric force-shield.

Evil space monsters attack Hillys all the time. One such attack comes just moments into our first session, and unfortunately coincides with a power shutdown at the lighthouse. (Pey'j and Jade have not been paying the hydro bill, see.) So it falls to Jade to beat off all the invaders with a stick, which she does so handily we find ourselves wondering why anybody would ever bother with anything so expensive as an electric force-shield.

Even so, the larger task of keeping the lights on and the lighthouse running remains, which means Jade must find a way to earn some cash. She moonlights as a freelance photographer, and begins by snapping pictures of local wildlife for the local science centre. As we soon learn, however, the big money lies in assignments for shadowy underworld figures. Before you can say "story arc," Jade finds herself drawn into a tangled mess of deceit and conspiracy and counter-conspiracy. Are the soldiers who claim to protect us really in league with the invaders? Who is really in charge? Are the reports on the evening news full of propaganda and half-truths and outright lies?

All questions worth asking, true. Especially in 2004. The problem here has mostly to do with scale and context. Take Pey'j, for instance. He is a talking pig who wears overalls, likes to tinker with machines, and cracks the occasional fart joke. Why is he a pig and not, say, a person? Is it meant to echo and channel the darkly political edge of Orwell's Animal Farm? Is it meant to serve as a sharply realistic future-tech sci-fi future-of-genetic-engineering device? Is it because Beyond Good & Evil is a children's game and children's games must have talking animals in them?

As Jade learns more of the shocking truth and moves nearer to the core of the conspiracy, taking more photos and uncovering more sordid details, the experience practically throbs with eager self-importance. Hey, the game all but shouts, listen to me! I am telling you Important Things About Our Society! Here is a quick précis for you. The Man is not trustworthy. The media are not trustworthy. The military is not trustworthy. Even people you think are good guys wear the black hat from time to time. Everything is more complicated and less pure than you think it is. Etc.

It all means well. Really it does. But we are dangerously close to earnest-teen-essay territory here, and having the whole joint staffed with talking pigs and rhinos and walruses doesn't help. The problem is not with suspension of disbelief. Neither is it with grand themes in and of themselves. It's more a matter of a game that can't decide if it would rather be heartbreaking allegory or an episode of Scooby-Doo.

Oh, the play experience. Really terrific. You sneak around the big evil guards. You beat up monsters with a stick. You find tools and open locked doors and solve head-scratching puzzles. You team up with Pey'j and others to fight the good fight, even if you're not sure what that is. You play. Maybe that is enough and the lessons can wait until another time.