I’m not a very clumsy person, but Evasive Space seems bound and determined to disprove that. In a game that requires you to maneuver through a maze-like area and to avoid obstacles, I consistently hit something every few seconds. And then they started shooting at me.

Developed by High Voltage Software, Inc., and released as WiiWare for the Nintendo Wii, Evasive Space is a sci-fi action game that has a plot, but I didn’t really get the plot or think it that necessary. According to the official site, you play Konki who is a Stellar Guardian that pilots around gathering items and working to stop Dr. Dark Matter and “his roving band of space thieves.”

Apparently there are about 20 various missions on four different worlds. I will have to take the official site’s word, though, because I only made it through the tutorial and the first three levels. This game was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life.

I consider myself fairly intelligent and aware, especially when it comes to video games. Most games are fairly intuitive. You can pick up a controller and figure out what you have to do to accomplish your goal. I realize the Wii-mote is a newish concept, but it also tends to be fairly intuitive. With Evasive Space, it was like a blind 5-year-old hopped in a go-kart and jumped off the track into a stone maze. And I was the 5-year-old.

Not only are the controls unintuitive, but they’re also slow to react. You use the Wii-mote to maneuver, but you’re not controlling your ship — you control the triangle that goes ahead of your ship. So you have to look ahead to the triangle AND try to make sure your ship isn’t about to run into the wall or some mining space obstacle or asteroid. In the mazes, there are walls and obstacles. There also are open levels that have asteroids flying at you. Try as I might, I just couldn’t NOT hit something. And once you hit one thing, it’s inevitable that you’ll keep hitting stuff. Or get hit by stuff.

Hitting stuff sucks. When you hit something, you become immobile. And many of the obstacles don’t look like obstacles. They glow and look like something you might want to hit. So you hit it. And then you can’t move. And the point of the game is to get through the maze within a time limit. The time limits aren’t nearly long enough in my opinion. I also would have liked to have the option to stop the timer or do some sort of test run of the maze.

The graphics remind me of the 1980s but only because they are very neon — at least on the first levels. It didn’t work with the game. The colors were too bright, and there was just too much going on. It made it difficult to watch the triangle and the ship. For the budget and medium, the graphics of the ship and the maze and icons to collect were acceptable. The colors were just horrid. Bright and shiny doesn’t always mean success.

The sound and music weren’t all that memorable. I vaguely remember a semi-psychedelicish score that fit the neon environment and simple sound effects that are reminiscent of Atari and old-school guitar games. Nothing wrong with that, but they did seem rather cliché.

After about five times of failing the third level, I asked dain120475 to try the game to make sure that it wasn’t just me and to test the multiplayer capability. It wasn’t just me. He had a tougher time of it than I did. It took us about 15 minutes to figure out exactly what we had to do. The game has instructions and a tutorial, but the font used is small and not very readable. We both wanted to give up, but we were so frustrated that it was the first level and that it should be so simple. After about a half an hour, we managed to complete the level. There are various levels for multiplayer, and you can play as a hero, collecting spacemen and returning them to their ships, or as a collector, gathering objects. You also can play versus or team.

I really wish this game gave you the option to change control sensitivity or even how you control your ship. The menu only gave you the options of Story mode, Multiplayer, Leaderboard and Credits. I know this is a WiiWare game, but a few more options would have been nice.

Evasive Space seems like a good idea, but the execution just didn’t do it for me. The controls were frustrating to the point that I lost interest in playing. And the colors hurt my eyes. I couldn’t stop hitting things, which caused immobility and annoyed me. I wanted to enjoy this game, but I just couldn’t. If you consider yourself a Wii-mote ninja and can watch two places at once, I recommend you get this game. Or if you just really like a challenge, I recommend you get this game. Otherwise, avoid it.