If you have been following my reviews I must start sounding like a broken record by now but that is really not my fault. I blame it on the game programmers and the publisher. Anyhow... here it goes... again. Baja - Edge of control has decent sound and good graphics but both are nowhere close to being perfect. Maybe I'm just too picky, but I don't think I would be doing my job if I was not. I'll let you be the judge.

First of all, the game's sound is lacking at best. The cars sound incredible; the engines sound great, the collisions sound like they're really happening and the game even included the sound of mud and dirt splashing and splattering around. But the music really hurt the overall sound of the game. First of all, there is no music while you race therefore all you hear are the sounds that I have mentioned above and despite their good quality, in a game like this some background music really helps. I have never gone on a road trip without some sort of music to help me drive and relax me; it really helps with the driving. In Baja - Edge of Control, the only time that you can hear a song is at the menu screens or in the video files but I don't think that is enough to render this title a score above 7 (and I think that I'm actually being generous).

As for the graphics, generally speaking they are not bad but they are far from perfect either. First of all, I want to mention the positive aspects to the game's graphics; they can be found in the environment. The maps look spectacular. The background, the dirt, the smoke, mud and water look great. But that is where the compliments stop. The cars are not rendered terribly but they are not state of the art either. However, once the cars take damage the quality of the graphics goes downhill very fast. There are no dents in this game. Collisions either don't do any damage at all (if you're not going very fast), or they just make a particular panel fly off. Now, I know why they did that and I will explain it in the Gameplay and Controls section of the review, but from a graphics perspective that looks rather unrealistic and lame. I already complimented the smoke effects earlier in this paragraph but I want to emphasize on what I think is the sharpest aspect to the game's graphics. The dust/smoke effects look spectacular. In many racing games (especially rally games) the smoke is so overwhelming that unless you are in first place you might as well be last because sooner or later the smoke and dust will blind you and a crash is soon to follow. In Baja - Edge of Control the dust definitely hampers your driving but at the same time, with some concentration, some careful driving and a bit of luck you can manage to do just fine.