It pretty much took me all afternoon to play through Night and Day. I actually played the first level twice, because I realized I had been playing on skill 3 instead of skill 4. Bah...you gotta play on skill 4 man. Anyway, after playing this latest creation of Leon's I felt really good about the whole experience. I was reminded of the old days of Doom. These levels were fun to play and challenging as well.

Leon points out in his text file that Night and Day will run with the regular doom2.exe, however he also mentioned some problems with memory errors and his compy rebooting on him. After reading this I chose to play these levels using the MBF source port, by Lee Killough. I had absolutely no problems at all running these maps with MBF, and I'm pretty sure that most other source ports will run Night and Day just fine as well.

It would really be to your advantage to read through the text file before playing this set of levels by Leon. There's a storyline that helps explain the reason and progression of the maps...well, as best as one can with Doom anyway. One of the most important things contained within the text file though, is the explanation of how tags, and switches are used. Plus there's and explanation on how secrets can be found. This one was real important to me.

I had a real problem getting 100% kills, items, and secrets. In fact, I did pretty poor in all of those areas upon completion of each level. This just makes me want to go back and play the levels again. I actually felt that I found a lot of the secret areas, especially some of the more difficult ones. However, finishing a map with only 30% secrets is God awful if you ask me, so there's a real challenge to be met for those of you that like figuring out secret area puzzle type situations. My advice is to use your auto-map as much as possible. Oh, and in case you're wondering...yes, I got TIME SUCKS at the end of each map as well.

All three maps are on the huge end of the scale, with the last map being the smallest. Not only are the levels big, but they are also complex is design and anything but linear, which is a plus. Leon insures us that there are no places in Night and Day where you can get stuck. Here's a hint...if you think you're stuck, you're not...look for a hidden door or something. Trust me on this. Oh, and there are no shootable switches in these maps either, so don't go wasting ammo on switches and what not. Which brings up another point...if you don't use your noodle in killing baddies, then you may find yourself coming up short on rounds. I found this especially true on level 2.

There's plenty of health to get through these maps on skill 4 unless you're a novice at playing Doom. Like I said, conserve ammo when possible. You'll get things like the super shotgun and even the BFG early off, but save them for when the shit gets thick. I really like Leon's style. He captures the styles of many other level designers in his work , but also brings a lot of himself into his creations. Leon also has the gift of recreating that feeling you used to get when you first played Doom, or when you played your first add-ons. His maps are a joy to look at and play at the same time. He puts a ton of effort into texturing. I found no bugs at all...and I really appreciate a level designer that chooses to use DCK over any other editor. To me, this shows professionalism...and we all know that real men edit in DOS.

I really enjoyed playing Night and Day. I don't think I've had this much fun since the release of Eternal Doom. These are great single player maps, so get them and play them. Make more Leon...we'll play!

-Ricrob