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Baja: Edge of Control Review for Xbox 360 (X360)

Baja: Edge of Control Review for Xbox 360 (X360)

Edge of Uncontrollable

Baja is a name that most off-road racing enthusiasts will immediately recognize. The Baja 1000 is a yearly event that pits a variety of off-road vehicles against some of the toughest conditions on the planet. Admittedly, this sounds like the perfect setting for THQ’s Baja: Edge of Control, a racing title that attempts to let players experience Baja racing virtually. Unfortunately, Edge of Control is not only the game’s name, it also an accurate representation of what you can expect from its gameplay.

Baja: Edge of Control screenshot

Edge of Control starts you off in the Baja Buggy class, consisting of the game’s cheapest and slowest vehicles. As players place in various races and events, they will earn experience points that open the doors to more events and classes of vehicles as well as cash that can be used to purchase new vehicles and upgrade existing ones. There are plenty of upgradeable parts on every vehicle ranging from better exhausts that ramp up horsepower to improved suspensions that help keep your ride from bottoming out when landing from large jumps. These upgrades are rather simplistic, most boiling down to having three options with the cheapest being the worst and the most expensive giving the biggest boost in performance. The game makes up for this slightly by allowing players to tweak just about every aspect of their vehicle. While this is great for people who know what they are doing and are willing to spend hours moving countless sliders, the majority of players will likely never give it a second glance.

The game’s initial races are incredibly brutal, due mostly to the game’s steep learning curve, poor collision detection, and awkward physics. Getting the hang of when to accelerate, brake, and use the clutch while bouncing around the game’s tracks can be a painstaking endeavor. However, even after you’ve mastered the basics of racing, Edge of Control doesn’t get much easier. Most tracks are covered with tire ruts, which serve to throw your vehicle in random directions. Combine that with narrow tracks, large cliffs, and the other random bumps on the road and you almost feel as though you are trying to skip your vehicle like a stone through most races rather than actually driving it.

Baja: Edge of Control screenshot

While your vehicle randomly flails around the game’s many tracks, you will also need to avoid opponents at all costs. Running into foes will not only damage your vehicle but, nine times out of ten, you will also magically get stuck together. Every time your vehicle becomes entangled with an opponent’s you get the short end of the stick. Your rival seems to always perfectly compensate for these hang ups, speeding off like nothing has happened after successfully slowing your vehicle to a crawl and changing your direction entirely. In a game with claustrophobic tracks, tons of bumps and jumps, and a focus on off-road racing it is confusing that colliding with other vehicles is so painful and penalizing.

Making matters worse, damage plays a very large role in Edge of Control’s races. Smashing into other cars, rocks, and trees will not only demolish your vehicle of choice but will also greatly reduce its performance over the course of a race. If you land a jump or two poorly, expect to see smoke spewing from your engine and a significantly decreased top speed. Your vehicle’s tires will also occasionally blow out; making controlled steering all the more impossible. To combat these issues, most vehicles come with a spare tire, and players will find pit stops and repair helicopters on almost every track. The only problem with this is that if you need to repair, you are forced to come to a complete stop, which can often be the difference between placing in the top three or finishing last. To make matters worse, it seemed as though the placement of the pit stops were poorly chosen. On most of the game’s tracks, the pit stop is located near the end of the race, making it virtually worthless during the last lap.

Baja: Edge of Control screenshot

Graphically, Edge of Control is a bit of a mixed bag. The game’s many vehicles look very basic, lack detail, and damage is represented poorly. Instead of having realistically dented panels due to crashes, they will just fly off of your vehicle leaving a naked frame behind. The tracks that make up the game’s thousand miles of racing all look incredibly similar. Since they are based on the Baja 1000’s location, they are accurate representations of the actual terrain. However, expect to see a plethora of sand, dirt, cacti, tumbleweeds, rocks, and not much else. The lighting effects are pretty good, with warm sunsets reflecting on whatever panels you happen to have left on your vehicle and casting accurate shadows from the limited objects found on the tracks.

Baja: Edge of Control screenshot

The real travesty of this game is that it suffers from an identity crisis. Edge of Control can’t seem to figure out whether it wants to be a simulation or arcade racing game, leaving both potential types of players with an inadequate experience. There just isn’t enough realism involved to be a simulation game, but there is far too much realism to accommodate fans looking for an arcade experience. Due to its often frustrating gameplay, many won’t stick around to enjoy modes like Free Ride, which allows players to just drive around the game’s massive environments with no goals other than exploring, or its technically sound online offerings.

In the end, it seems like Baja: Edge of Control was trying to please everybody and, in doing so, managed to create an experience that isn’t ideal for anyone. Narrow tracks, lifeless environments, lackluster graphics, a huge learning curve, awkward physics, questionable steering issues, and an overall frustrating experience is all that players are left with. Baja: Edge of Control was a sound idea, but the execution just isn’t there. There are just too many other good off-road racers on the market to make playing through this game worth your time.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 3.0 Graphics
While the lighting effects are rather good, the game’s vehicles and environments are bland and lack detail. 2.0 Control
There is an extremely high learning curve involved in playing this game. However, even after you’ve caught onto the game’s mechanics, the physics make sure you are almost always out of control. 3.4 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
The game’s sound effects are nothing special, but the soundtrack is full of some pretty good tunes. 2.5 Play Value
There are a ton of races and events in this game, the only problem being that they all control poorly and aren’t fun to experience. 2.6 Overall Rating – Average
Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.

Game Features:

  • Serious off-road racing: Conquer towering mountains and race along steep cliffs in the most unpredictable terrain ever created. Race over 1,000 miles of massive unforgiving environments in nine epic open-world landscapes with over 100 tracks.
  • Off-road vehicles: Harness the horsepower of over 160 sponsored vehicles, including trophy trucks, 4x4s, and buggies across eight varied vehicle classes.
  • Tune your vehicle: Fine-tune the roar of your off-road machine with over 200 authentic vehicle parts. Use the support management system to monitor and repair vehicle damage via truck and helicopter teams.
  • Career mode: Earn contingency money based on how many advertiser logos are on the vehicle at the end of the race and build your off-road career.
  • Multiplayer: Race in four-player split-screen, or with up to ten players online.

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