The honest truth about Baja.
The second thing you'll notice is that the subtitle "Edge of Control" really is true. The initial difficulty of this game is insane. It's not because of a steep learning curve, or because of impossible AI – it is because the game (realistically?) starts you off with a POS car. And when choosing your pick of the POS cars there are no car stats to guide you, so you probably will pick the cool looking one with the camo paint, unaware that this car sucks even among the suckers. This will make your path to the top of the hill climb that much harder. Whichever you choose, your car is not equipped to handle the terrain, it is heavy, with crappy tires, crappy breaks, crappy suspension, crappy engine and other crappy crap. You are low man on the totem pole of the rally gods and you have to earn the dough to upgrade this crap. Problem is, it is absolute murder to win money, let alone a podium, in your loser ride. And the already difficult AI pulls no punches for the new guy. So be prepared for some frustration – you have to win with a crappy car to get money to upgrade your ride so you start to be a contender.
Which brings us to the third thing you'll notice: the AI is a muthereffer and a cheat. It doesn't really cheat…it's more like Sebastian Loeb is behind the wheel – and, oh yeah, did we tell you he's fricking blindfolded? The AI is fast and tuff, which is good. It's the blindfolded part that sucks. You see, the AI drivers are out there to win, so races are tight in the first place. A single wreck can and will bump you from leader of the pack to the very back. Consequently you will drive like a realistically intelligent driver and do your best to avoid collisions, which most of the time involve painful hang-ups and spinouts. So, you might expect equally professional, or even dynamic, AI. Screw you. The AI knows one thing – it wants to follow a fast line. The AI does not know that if there is something in the way, like say the players car, that it should make a good faith effort to preserve pretend human life, and at least try to go around you. AI drivers will broadside you, even when avoidable, and take you out of the race. They don't care if you are at the end of a long race and have managed to take the lead and have gone only slightly sideways and there is plenty of room to pass – they will drive right through your door, or your tailpipe, or up your you-know-what if you are in their line. This is especially neat in a race with multiple classes of vehicles, and you are driving a slower class, and a million dollar trophy truck that started behind you will plow right through you for no good reason. Maybe I spent too much time on this gripe, but the graphics and high starting difficulty really don't matter in comparison. The collision happy AI is one of two issues that are actual serious problems with Baja. The good thing is that this problem has no effect on multiplayer.
Anyway, because of the fast-yet-blindfolded AI and your crappy first car it will take you awhile to actually make it into the meat of the Baja experience. The good thing is that, by the time you do, you'll have noticed more than just those nasty three things that are the first things you notice. You'll have noticed that Baja is one of the absolute best racers available on the 360. You'll have noticed where the developers invested their love and attention when they weren't working on the car skins (which obviously was most of the time). The true star of the show is not the cars – it is the desert environment and the way the cars interact with that environment. Think of GTA IV – the star of the show is the living city, right? In Baja the stars are the desert terrain and your suspension. You'll see birds, rabbits and tumbleweeds flee from your buggy. You'll see trees, bushes, cactus, and weeds all bow, bend, crush and react to impact realistically. Trees will stop you cold, but they are no longer the immovable pillars of heaven we are used to, no longer like hitting a super powered brick wall. The trees don't do much, just give a little, but the point is that there is loving detail evident in this game. No one would have noticed if the trees were the same old invincible trees, but they improved them anyway. And you get to view it all with an impressive draw distance that allows you to enjoy the beauty of the clear sky desert as far as the eye can see.
And then you get to run over it all. The suspension and traction physics in this game are intense and will have you watching every detail in the lovingly rendered rugged terrain as you fly over it at 150 mph. And the damage model is excellent and realistic, obviously another area that received a lot of polish. The Baja desert and your fleeting contact with it are the life of this game. And the quick and easy option to restart a race (painfully absent in BO Paradise) – well this option is the other star of the game and you are going to need it.
There are a bunch of good options and variety in single player, but Baja really shines in multiplayer too. That is worth mention. First of all, offline you have a four-player split screen option that makes this game one of the few that can accommodate someone having real life friends – huge plus in my book, and even two player split screen would be good enough but is disappointingly missing from most games. Secondly, the online options are good, you can do any event or even free ride. Online is what you wished it would have been in DIRT. And now in a better game than DIRT. With worse graphics. The only real sore point with online is that when you pop into an ongoing race to wait for the next race, there is no real way to tell how long you'll have to wait. The current race could be about to end, or it could be another hour. There is no real indicator either before or after you choose to join the race. Choosing "quick start" might pop you, as a spectator, into an ongoing race that has a half hour to go. And there is no way to tell, so you are left guessing and wasting time popping in and out of races looking for one that is ready to go. So, the multiplayer isn't at the level of something like Test Drive Unlimited, but it is substantial.
So, bottom line, Baja may have a few high profile flaws, but the truth is that it is maybe the second racer for the 360, after TDU, that is truly worth the $60 retail price tag. Not because it is perfect, but because it is just plain more fun than the competition with all its 1080p cars that can get dirty. Not that I don't love 1080p cars that can get dirty, Baja could be better if it had some, but instead it pushed the envelope and expanded and improved the genre. They apparently reached for the sky and didn't have time or budget maybe for Polyphony Digital quality car skins.