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::PUBLISHER::
THQ
::DEVELOPER::
2XL Games
::GENRE::
Racing
::RELEASE DATE::
2008-09-22
::PLAYERS::
1-12
::LIVE::
Xbox Live play, Leaderboards, Downloadable Content
::COST::
59.99
::FEATURES::
720p/1080i/1080p, In-Game Dolby Digital
0 reviews
0/10 average
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Baja Edge of Control Review
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Edge of Control sounds like the subtitle for a Charlie's Angels sequel but it's apt for this off-road racing game, too. You're on the verge of completely screwing up your race every time you hit a turn.
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I haven't the slightest idea what real off-road racing is like but the game confirms my suspicions that it's pretty damn hard. In Baja Edge of Control, you’ll constantly wrestle with your car to keep it on track and . Hhitting a jump or maneuvering a turn the wrong way will sent your car tumbling into the desert. That makes the game sound like a lot of work but to an extent it's pretty fun n…after the frustration.
There's definitely a learning curve here, and it's pretty steep. The first couple races in Career Mode - the means by which you unlock the majority of the 160+ cars and 100+ tracks - comes with a realization;: the A.I. doesn't make the sort of colossal screw-ups that you do. They'll rarely miss turns or overturn their car. Good luckIt is difficult trying to nudge them off the road, too. Even on Easy difficulty, they're steady and smart if not spectacular. After a few horrific attempts at the third race (which introduces hairpin turns), I took a break from career mode to do some practice laps on the track. It's nice that the game takes some effort and- you'll feel extremely good on the occasions that you nail hard turns. Eventually you learn how to recover from sliding off the track and you will be back in the Career Mode unlocking 160+ cars and 100+ tracks.
The difficulty level does start to level off as you get out of this first league and you move onto driving more powerful vehicles with better handling. There are eight leagues in all, each with different classes of vehicles. With every race, you'll gain XP(experience) and once you gain a certain amount, the next league will be unlocked. Of course, you will need enough credits to purchase a vehicle in that class. You gain credits with each race to purchase new vehicles or upgrades for your existing cars. The XP and credit gains are sort of built-in difficulty modifiers. If you're struggling with a certain race, you can use your credits to upgrade your vehicle and make the next attempt easier. Or you can save up your credits to buy a new vehicle when you earn enough XP to graduate to the next league. You don't need to get in the top three for every race in a league to move on in fact, you don't need to attempt every race. I appreciate that the game never forces you into playing and replaying one race over and over to proceed; maybe because they knew not many would want to proceed.
As mentioned earlier, the game has over a hundred tracks but they all sort of look the same, if only because, well, they're all off-road tracks. One has trees and brown dirt, another has tumbleweeds and sand. It's not like one race is in a futuristic city and the others near a volcano or something. The tracks all do look decent though, with no visible pop-in. The cars don't look too shabby, either. With eight different vehicle classes, there's a lot of variety but you won't really see this variety when you're playing with an individual league. During one 4x4 league race, I noticed that four of the eight cars on the track were yellow Jeep Wranglers. 2XL Games wasn't really interested in presenting the glamor of racing. There's no cheering crowds or bikini girls waving a checkered flag, which makes me happy because I hate spending time discussing how realistically rendered a game's extraneous spectators are. When you win a race, you're treated to a picture of a generic trophy cup rather than, say, a cut scene of a driver celebrating with fans. 2XL emphasized the performance speed and physics over the visuals or presentation and I can't argue with that prioritization. The game runs at a steady clip and as I've said, it's rewarding once you learn how to tame your car and navigate turns. Races load at a reasonable time too.
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