Review by Colin Phipps

"Enter Night" is a 4 level mini-episode for Doom 2. It's set in the hellish style, with the sky from ultimate doom imported to give the right feel.

I liked the first 2 levels, they have some very good architecture. In particular there is good lighting and nice arches which add a lot of style to the levels. There are a lot of good fights too; in particular there are a lot of traps where the player is trapped, and forced to do a lot of quick thinking and quick dodging to survive.

There were bad points though, like the shoot-through walls which I always find annoying. Also there are some areas there was a lot of use of lights-on and lights-off linedefs, and I found several areas were either too dark or too bright.

The other 2 levels I wasn't so keen on; here are my level-by-level comments:

1. Museum of Death - This is a fairly small level, with pretty good architecture; the atmosphere is good, the level is dark but light enough to see, and there is good use of a range of textures. There are several tricky fights where the player is trapped, e.g. by bars lowering behind you; the monsters aren't that strong, but the design of the level is such that the fights are still hard. However I really didn't like the shoot-through-walk-through walls used on the staircases leading into the central room, these make the sergeants that get released here too deadly, you have to run through them before you can fight them properly, which took me several attempts before I was lucky enough to survive.
2. Claustrophobia - There were 2 contrasting styles at this level. Some areas were quite detailed, with torches lighting effects, arches... but were too dark, so it was hard to see much except the torches. And other areas were brighter, less detailed, but still quite atmospheric. There are a lot of good traps, some perhaps too hard to survive first time, but all doable in the end. I didn't like the distribution of goodies that much, there was plenty of health and ammo but without a backpack I found I was forced to waste ammo sometimes, and other times go looking for it.
3. Beyond the Canyon - This level goes for a more castle style; you start out by fighting your way down a canyon, then the gain entrance to a large heavily defended castle. This level isn't as detailed as earlier levels, but there are good features, like the excellent rope bridge across the canyon. Fighting up the canyon is quite a fight, with chaingunners and imps both around the sides and down below and cacodemons floating around. The castle is tough too, there are quite a few revenants and mancubi around and not too much ammo, but the fights are a little repetetive due to the symmetry of the castle. There is a good fight at the end though as you rush through the keep trying to reach the exit alive.
4. Fragfest - The showdown of this mini episode is a clever layered fight. The level is a series of high walkways, and you have to hit switches to reveal more walkways. The level warms up with some basic enemies, then moves onto the tough guys - tons of cells and BFG is the plan here. Finally there are 2 cyberdemons to beat, which is damn hard when they have you in a crossfire on a narrow walkway. The level is much too hard to complete without taking lots of attempts (at least for me). There isn't much detail or anything else interesting to see either.

This episode is certainly a mixture, and in the end I had to many complaints to give it a high rate; but there are some good fights and nice design in the early levels.