I wish I could say I played a demo but the game seems to have so many things that I want in a racing game. I think they finally nailed all the best traits of what an off road sim racer should contain.
Things that look promising about Baja:
-The way the cars handle. They don't look like they handle cheap and easy like Pure but not too difficult like Gran Tourismo. The cars look like they handle like they should. The sort of balance that PGR has. It stays in the middle ground without falling in any pitfalls of either sim or arcade.
-Long non closed circuit roads. No driving laps in circles.
-Wide variety of race types, shorter races as well as marathon races that can hours.
-Tons of content both in terms of vehicles and unique track.
-Meaningful customization, upgrades.
-Clever sponsorship system where if you loose a piece of your vehicle which contains a corporate logo you lose money.
-Adaptive AI, supports auto pilot which is genius for these long races.
-Multiplayer
-Appears to have full support for racing wheels. Just not sure which ones. Although the 360 wireless racing wheel was seen used in a demonstration for the 360 version.
People aren't impressed with the graphics and they certainly are not in the same league as Motorstorm or PGR3/4 but they are much better in motion than the screenshots let on, first person mode looks sweet. I'm always wiling to overlook small sacrifices in the graphics department when a game offers the specific gameplay qualities that I look for. This one has them. I've never been this interested in a new racing game before now. Actually I just remember that it's not coming out tomorrow, fuck. It's Warhead that comes out tomorrow. Baja is next week :(
My only real grip so far from the looks of it is that the cars seem to loose cohesion with the road when you travel too fast, it's exaggerated. There are several times in the previews where you see the vehicles bounce around like they're too light, then you see them take these huge jumps and crumble in pieces when they land.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/36573.aspx
<message edited by Agent Ghost on Sep 15, 2008 22:53>