As futuristic secret agents go, they don't get much more enigmatic than Aeon Flux. Maybe it's her unbelievable acrobatics and deadly abilities. Or maybe it's her indecipherable relationship with Chairman Goodchild, the leader of the pseudo-fascist society that she resides in. Or maybe it's that she is seemingly killed over and over again but somehow shows up to fight in yet another disjointed adventure. Whatever the case, Aeon Flux is a tough girl to get to know, and that's what's both so intriguing and so troubling about Aeon Flux the game. Released just ahead of the film of the same name, this game has more to do with the irregularly structured, disjointed animated shorts that appeared on MTV's Liquid Television over a decade ago and that eventually spun out into a full-fledged TV series. At least we assume that must be the case, because if the film bears a similar narrative to those shorts, it's tough to envision anyone making it through something that disjointed for two full hours, let alone a 10-hour action game. Thankfully, there's enough stylish combat and enjoyable platforming and puzzling to make up for many of the game's shortcomings.

She may be pleasing to the eye, but Aeon Flux has more than good looks going for her.

In the future world of Aeon Flux, a devastating disease has wiped out the vast majority of the world's population. A lone city-state, Bregna, still stands. Ruled by a congress of scientists and the previously mentioned Trevor Goodchild, this society has all the trappings of a military state, with plenty of propaganda, clandestineness, and greed to go around. Aeon Flux is a trained assassin within this world, though you never get a particularly good sense of which side she's on. Often you find her working for the Monican rebellion, an underground organization looking to bring down Goodchild. In other situations, she seems to be working for the government, going after the Monican rebels and even acting as the love interest of Goodchild. From an artistic perspective, it's interesting simply because it forces you to rethink how you feel about every character, as they all pop up throughout the game's various chapters, usually in fairly different contexts. But because the chapters begin and end almost completely independently of one another, and with such wildly varying situations, you never get a great sense of who Aeon Flux is and what she's supposed to be about. All this game does is build you up for a full chapter, only to tear it all down and start anew. It's disconcerting, to say the least.

If you're not overly concerned with having a sympathetic protagonist, then Aeon Flux can be enjoyable, simply because of how it plays. If you ever played BloodRayne or BloodRayne 2, then you'll be immediately familiar with the ins and outs of Aeon Flux. Developer Terminal Reality is responsible for both games, and Aeon Flux uses the same engine as the BloodRayne titles. Therefore, it's functionally the same--a third-person action game in which a slick-looking female character gets to do all manner of cool-looking acrobatic maneuvers and kill bad guys with quite a bit of style.

Aeon's got all the moves she needs to take down Trevor Goodchild and the Breen military.

Almost everything in this game is done contextually. Certain actions, like rapelling down from a high perch or hacking a computer, simply require you to walk up to an icon in the correct spot and press a single button. The game's platforming bits are laid out in ways to make Aeon seem like the most nimble little minx you've ever seen, with plenty of poles, ledges, and walls to leap around and on. Again, these are all set up through very specific contextual actions and don't require a ton of skill to execute, but they're still fun to watch.

The combat focuses more on the hand-to-hand side of things, though you will have multiple guns you can use when the situation requires it. The hand-to-hand moves revolve around stringing together basic combos with weak and strong attacks, with a few variants here and there. You can sometimes hold down an attack button at the end of a combo to do a more-powerful attack, and there are even fatality moves you can pull off. They're pretty much bloodless kills--lots of neck snapping and the like. However, the best combat moves in the game come in the form of the attacks that combine with the acrobatics, such as creeping up on an enemy near a ledge and yanking him off to his doom, or rapelling down from a ceiling, letting bullets fly in every direction while you descend.