While I still had the Wii U hooked up, I figured I'd try getting through another game that I'd attempted several times but never finished. ASA is a game that can be played with friends, but any friends I'd played it with had never beaten it with me, so unfinished it remained. This was the first time I'd actually tried playing it by myself, so I finished it wihin a few hours on account of how much easier it is to pilot an affordable spaceship yourself compared to with two other people XD

Affordable Space Adventures sees you as a space tourist with the company Uexplore. Manning your special Small Craft spaceship, you'll take a 3 day tour of Spectaculon, an almost entirely uncharted world that you'll get to claim your own piece of if you get there first! But rest assured, despite the crashed alien vessel and nearly totally unknown nature of Spectaculon, it is COMPLETELY safe as far as Uexplore is concerned. This is all communicated to you with the mock promotional travel video that the game opens with, and as you may've cottoned onto, Spectaculon is actually incredibly unsafe, and the mothership carrying all the Small Craft tourists crashes on Spectaculon, leaving only you alive to try and find an SOS beacon to contact Uexplore HQ with to try and get rescued.

Trekking across Spectaculon, through its dark caves, alien wrecks, and extreme environments, can feel pretty tense and spooky at times, and breathtaking at others. Though this is more of a tense game (highlighted by a very unsubtle pastiche of corporate heartlessness towards its customers), its pretty visuals and subtle music make an atmosphere that is very strong and difficult to ignore as you try and make your way to safety through increasingly dangerous territory.

ASA is a game exclusive to the Wii U's digital store, and definitely one of the best at taking advantage of the opportunities of the game pad. On your game pad (what the game calls you "Heads Down Display" X3), you have a set of controls that allow you to turn on and off different engines as well as all manner of landing gear, secondary systems, and power levels. All of these systems generate their own levels of heat, sound, and electricity, and you can tap on gauges on your screen to see just what is generating what sources. This is a very valuable thing to know too, as using your flashlight/scanner, you can scan the many types of robotic alien life out to kill you and see just what kinds of power they're sensitive to. By operating your ship properly and turning on and off different systems when needed, you make your way through your journey in what is definitely one of the more unique puzzle-platformers I've played.

This was the first time I'd actually played ASA by myself, and the reason I was able to complete it this time is that, much like one of my favorite games Octodad, controlling anything is often much easier by yourself than with others if solo-control is an option. This is very much the same for ASA, although it's certainly far less of a party game than Octodad can be. Your player 2 will get control of the ship's movement, and then a player 3 will get control of aiming the ship's scanner/flashlight, leaving player 1 with only control of your system operations (as well as when you scan things and fire flares). Given how often you need to precisely move the ship in coordination with altering power to systems as well as how tricky many of the shots to hit buttons with your flares can be, this makes the game FAR more challenging, and while a very cool multiplayer experience, I wouldn't recommend it to those who get easily frustrated (even though the game is quite forgiving with its checkpoints more often than not).

Verdict: Highly Recommended. This is definitely something under the ever-shrinking (with all these Switch ports) list of "reasons to own a Wii U". The nature of the control scheme makes me doubt very highly it will ever be ported, and it's a really unique and well crafted puzzle experience, especially if you're aiming to play through it with others. If you've already got a Wii U, I'd say this is definitely a game you shouldn't let yourself miss checking out, and if you've been on the fence about picking up a Wii U (maybe to get some of those games that have gotten ports to Switch and have their base versions way cheaper X3), I hope this might tip you a little over the edge to finally picking up one secondhand.

Affordable Space Adventures is undoubtedly the Wii U’s best exclusive eShop game (though it doesn't have much competition). The premise of the game is that you have bought a package with a company called UExplore which enables you to explore an undiscovered planet’s surface in your own personal vehicle. However, things quickly take a turn for the worse when you crash land on the planet. As a result, the game has you completing puzzles and traversing through various environments to try and work out how to get off the planet. The game does a great job at immersing you via its environmental storytelling and the occasional video from UExplore providing more context about how you ended up in this situation. The gameplay itself is fantastic, utilising the Wii U’s gamepad as the control system for your ship. As you progress through the game you unlock new control system abilities that allow you to tackle increasingly challenging puzzles. The puzzle design is exceptional, really challenging your problem solving skills and forcing you to use all the abilities at your disposal in clever ways to proceed. However, there is a bit too much repetition in certain puzzle types and there is a drop in quality in the final few levels where the gameplay gets a bit gimmicky.

If you are one of the few people on the planet who own a Wii U, you owe it to yourself to play this game before the eShop closes. Exceptional world building, puzzle design and use of the Wii U gamepad make this a joy to play.

2015 Ranked
Indie Recommendations
Ranked 2D Platformer Recommendations

You ever wondered about whether there was a game that used every single feature of the Wii U? No? Well ok then.

This is entirely a puzzle game that will ask you to change your gaze between the Wii U gamepad and the TV constantly, to mostly decent effect. The designers were smart in making this an entirely non-action affair as it would've been very messy, but considering the relaxed pace of the game checking the gamepad to fix some settings and "testing" them on the field actually is very natural.

Another clever thing is how the gamepad is used to simulate being in an actual spaceship, with its own OS and interface. There was clearly tons of attention to detail put into the "immersive" aspect of the game, which also continues in its storytelling. While light, it actually is fairly interesting, and any piece of media that starts with a satirical fake ad is always awesome in my book.

What isn't so awesome is this game after all the luster wears off. After a while there's a sense of repetition that starts setting in, because while the obstacles to overcome technically change fairly frequently, all you're doing still boils down to checking your current stats, tuning them for the current situation, and proceeding if you tuned the ship correctly. This is a game that actually gets easier the more you play it, because there's no real curveball thrown at the player after the first 30 minutes.

When it comes down to it, Affordable Space Adventures is an interesting puzzle game that is solid enough. If you're still interested in the Wii U and its gimmicks this game is very much recommended, as it's one of the only products of its kind to use literally everything from the touchscreen, to the double screen aspect, to even Miiverse. I just wish this game had more meat and less potatoes, to make a cringey food analogy.

i was gonna do the hard extra levels, completed the first two and then watched someone else do the rest and was like...nah, i'm good. they're all unlocked from the start so there wasn't that same satisfying feeling of progression and achievement for me, though i might go back and do them later. the rest of the game, aside from a few obtuse moments, hit a sweet spot for me of challenging my brain without being headbashingly difficult....a very nice change of pace from smb 3 which i played before this. also, even though it's a fairly linear game those gorgeous backdrops and the frequent sense of scale really created a great sense of discovery and exploration

one of my all time faves, the only game that ever took full advantage of the wii u's hard ware. Have great memories playing it with friends, wich is really how it should be played. The environmental storytelling and all the little touches like the slimy advertisement cutscenes used to explain ship functions and the handbook loading screens are very entertaining and help flesh the experience out. That usage of the miiverse at the end of the game was such a creative last hurrah and i'm glad to have still been able to see it. Appearently they later added a whole prologue campain but i have yet to try that. Not like my wii u is in any condition for a space adventure of any price range atm. fuckin busted. But yeah this game is awesome