Introduction
Duke works for the Black Mesa Research Facility as part of a storage and packaging sector. One day during his shift he presses a big red button which unleashes an alien invasion upon his workplace. With his job position at risk, he must fight back and destroy the portal they’ve spilled out from.
Review
Although having the stage take place inside of Black Mesa, NELIEX wasn’t built around recreating well known locations from HALF LIFE, instead serving as just another interpretation of a vague storage facility that could be placed somewhere within the base game. This time we’re much closer the surface rather than being stuck deep underground. Combining a selection of ripped textures from HL worked well alongside DUKE3D’s regular assets without appearing off. Colour conversions were poor however and still needed touching up, yet other considerate tweaks had been made such as filling in a black void for swing doors with glass. Some textures additions were near seamless and others had questionable utility. While not the most exciting example I liked those metal trimmed ducts walls when placed alongside the original variant, adding a finishing touch to these crawl spaces that otherwise tend to appear flat. Funnily enough ventilation shafts were barely present during the map as a navigational feature despite the two games in question. Keycard panels were replaced by way of colour coded retinal scanners, an odd choice not suitable for their purpose, but functional enough to tie closer to the Black Mesa aesthetic. Form over function was a common aspect of design here, often resulting in a lot of variation across the facility imitating ideas from HL and forming some of its own appeal. The initial starting hub shows aspects of the latter, with a two floor hallway made using flat sprites and a nearby stairwell having a sloped underside adding dimension to this scene. Just beyond the middle gate has a smooth arched ceiling, itself becoming a bit of an Aashage specific flavour that is found in their other works.
NELIEX almost seemed like it could have been a condensed section pulled straight out from Black Mesa. Almost being a keyword here due to some oversights behind the design as a whole, boiled down to a rather nonsensical layout where rooms don’t serve much function to pull off this sector’s chosen role nor provide a compelling long term scenario. Despite having some abstraction across HL or DUKE3D, both games still alluded to having some sense behind their designs, a clear bigger picture as to how these locales function and what form they could all fit together. The large storage area certainly belongs but misses some believable fundamentals to make it work in comparison to how Black Mesa is usually depicted. There’s several huge shipping containers dumped inside with no entry point or access lift large enough to suggest how these were ever transported here, let alone one container being half embedded within a thick wall. From a casual glance across the level as a whole, it became clear to me that Aashage was simply having fun just throwing ideas into a pot, together with anything that resembled HALF LIFE or fit the Black Mesa theme to see what stew is cooked up regardless how it pieced together. Yet because of that a large chunk becomes too uncoordinated, creating a sporadic layout where some placements make zero sense such as the freezer storage. This eventually becomes a detriment during gameplay.
A major concern holding this level back was its poor pacing relying on repetitive back and forth plodding, never committing to a single section for long enough nor pushing you along an otherwise linear path once all laid out. Progression is far too dominant around switch hunting, each positioned at the most random placements that never make a lick of sense, acknowledged by the fact all of them required a text label to determine their purpose. These markers weren’t full proof either as I wasn’t certain how “locker” correlated to its door. What further adds to my annoyance is that this particular switch positioned opposite the freezer door unlocked a nearby lab, itself containing yet another switch for opening said freezer. This creates unnecessary backtracking as you’re expected to dart around like a headless chicken, also extending to finding key cards which essentially serve a similar role except more easily identifiable. There lacks any smooth transition moving from one area into the other, where better contextual placements could avoid resorting to crutch solutions. Similar issues bogging down progression can crop up regarding a very specific floor grate necessitating a pipebomb and a six button combination clue being hidden down a dark dead end, which I didn’t find and had to guess the code. Secrets were also in an uneven limbo, some requiring nigh invisible switches in obscure places or one stash could even softlock you should a bottle be broken, whereas shifting the crates here could have prevented this. The best secret however takes notes from HL by using a similar methodology, taking a small peek into a room where a stash awaits and paying attention to your surroundings to receive the goods.
Conclusion
Combining aspects from two games is a good concept to build from, Black Mesa and HL textures serving as a foundation for a fresh aesthetic within DUKE3D. What wasn’t executed too well was its gameplay marred by awkward progression involving too much nonsensical back and forth padding. What I find most disheartening is there were solid ideas being toyed with, just shy of balancing out some of these lulls. Even an explosive ending sequence felt lukewarm by the time I had reached it, including an ineffective ambush due to Battlelord placements harming each other instead of me. The exit for some reason is found by a door signposted as a cafeteria where a simple exit sign could have sufficed to be noted down when starting the run. NELIEX needed a little more time to stew.
Download Mirrors
This is a re-review. The old review has been archived here.