...was written and produced by Take2, TSR, and Acclaim. I'd first like to say that I've been waiting for this game for a long time now. Being a fan of fighting and RPG games I thought that this product based on TSR's Ravenloft gaming world was going to be one of my new favorite games. Always being one to judge things for myself, I decided to rent this title after hearing a lot of bad things about it in the newsgroups as well as the two PSX listservs. I'm glad that I did rent this one before purchasing it. This title is a total letdown for me. It had a lot of potential but just didn't deliver. Well, on with the review. 

FMV: I&B has a very nice FMV that sets up the game very well. 

Interface: The menus work pretty well. No real complaints with the menus. The in fight and after fight options suck though. In fight options consist of continue and quit. What a choice, huh? After a fight you can either continue with the same characters or wait for the continue counter to count down (you can hit the attack buttons to speed up the process.) 

Graphics: The graphics in this game are very well done. The characters look good and so does the backgrounds. I don't know what the frame rate is but it seems pretty good. The graphics suit the mood that is trying to be set in this title. 

Sound & Music: The music (mostly heavy metal styled) is very good in this title and so are the sound effects. 

Control: This is where this game fails almost totally! The control for this game is absolutely horrible! You have four attack buttons ([],O,X,Tri), Up, Down, Right, Left, Dodge Towards/Away (R1 and R2,) and Blocking High/Low (L1 and L2.) To jump you must press up twice! This setup takes a long time to get used to and when you are used to it, you find that the controls are also sluggish. What would have made this title so much better would have been to use controls just like what was used for Battle Arena Toshinden. I don't think that ANY fighting game needs to use EIGHT action buttons and a control cross! I did like the fact that they used the same button combo on every character for the ground attack. Essentially, the control in this game is slow, confusing, and cumbersome. 

Game Play: It seems as though they tried to make a 3D fighter with almost completely 2D controls. You pretty much have to play the game to understand what I mean by that last statement. The arena that your characters are fighting in is enclosed by an invisible force wall of some sort. Hitting it hurts you and knocks you down! It's not bad enough that you've been shoved into a corner but now the corner shoves back! 

That's about all I can tell you about this title. It bored me too much to continue playing it. Acclaim completely failed with this title and it was a huge disappointment for me. If you like fighting games and you can find this title for $10-$15 then get it. Otherwise, save yourself some money and get something else.