To capture the chaotic feel of desert racing, Baja: Edge of Control delivers a visceral sense of breakneck speed as you launch over dunes and whip around cliffside S-turns. It also harnesses a great physics engine that causes vehicles to wildly fishtail, spring, and spin as they rip across a wide variety of bumpy, winding tracks. Maintaining a healthy ride while keeping the frenetic bouncing under control is crucial to your completion. You’ll lose vital seconds if you wind up needing to park at a repair chopper, so avoiding crashes and landing on all fours after nailing enormous jumps is top priority, lest you flatten your tires, smash the brakes, or bust up your shocks.

This genuine realism is exhilarating, but it starts out irritating. Keeping your off-road ride from careening out of bounds requires professional-grade driving skill that takes serious dedication to achieve, but in time, you’ll learn to use the clutch for spurts of speed and the handbrake for hairpin turns in the incredibly fun and consistently challenging races. Once you’ve got a grip on the physics and ultra-crisp controls — which boast precision steering and braking — you’ll appreciate the steps you took to become a badass behind the wheel. That skill ultimately brings bigger stacks of cash for pimping your whip or buying a new one from eight different classes. Baja offers an impressive amount of customization, so hardcore players will love using sliders to tune mechanical fine points like brake bias and shock dampening, while the more casual racing crowd can easily dig in to upgrading the guts of their car with piles of parts that boost horsepower, improve transmission, and deter degradation of tires.

Though we totally dig the game, it’s worth noting that tearing up the track left barely noticeable tire prints instead of deep deformation; and mud didn’t fly up from the filthy courses and cake the door panels — these things made us jealous of the comparable PS3 racer MotorStorm, which came out over a year ago. And while multiplayer was smooth with five players (we weren’t able to play with 10; check future issues for updates if 10-player craps out), not having a lobby means you’ll have to quit and regroup after each match…lame!

The meticulous craftsmanship of Baja, however, makes up for the lack of visual luster, especially for those who simply enjoy a thrilling ride. The refined physics mesh with the superbly slick controls to create an authentically challenging racing experience, chock full of wicked-fast wheeling. It’s worth taking for a spin.

On Xbox 360

+ Way-fast, way-fun simulation racing...

+ ...with tight controls and rad physics!

- Steep learning curve; lack of visual polish.

? Can we get downloadable ATVs and bikes, please?

8.0