You are Gordon Freeman, a scientist working at a top secret government laboratory.
Your team is working on discovering the implications of the Chaos Theory, but so far the results have been inconclusive.
However, you have the feeling that today’s experiment may provide answers one way or another…
Basic Details
- Title: Chaos Theory
- File Name: hl1-sp-chaos-theory.7z
- Original File Name: chaos-theory.zip
- Size : 2.09MB
- Author: Stuart Maine
- Date Released: 27 October 1999
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I couldn’t get this to work in Steam. Please let me know if you do.
Screenshots
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WARNING: The screenshots may contain spoilers.
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Reader Recommendations
Total Downloads
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3,017Overall
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0Today
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4Last 7 days
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17Last 30 days
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168365 days
Meta Review Data
Statistics based on 4 comment(s) with meta review data.
Installed:
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 4 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 35 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 30 Mins by shaboo
Longest: 0 Hours, 40 Mins by El_WaKa
Total Time Played: 2 Hours, 18 Mins
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 4 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 35 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 30 Mins by shaboo
Longest: 0 Hours, 40 Mins by El_WaKa
Total Time Played: 2 Hours, 18 Mins
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Fun! Nice looking levels. Definitely worth a play.
wow…
worth a play. 3/5
A series of unique maps held together by a weak storyline (although the story works very nicely). The variety in the maps is enough to keep anyone interested. Definitely worth a play.
Fairly well designed maps, a mix of puzzles and killing stuff. Although there’s not enough challenge in the killing for my taste. Good last map involving find the goodies while ducking and diving from the apache.
Excelent mod !!!
Many puzzles and action.
Work for me.
Early on I get kicked to the desktop with a “model not found” message.
I was sent details of Chaos by Vicpas and I am very glad he sent them. Chaos is a nice constructed map. The “story” is simple but connected with Black Mesa and Half-Life.
Essentially you play in a variety of environments, facing a various enemies. Each “encounter” lasts about ten minutes and then you move onto the next. Some areas require you to kill a certain number of enemies, others require you to reach certain points.
Overall I enjoyed the mod and don’t have any hesitation in recommending you play it. However, “play it” is the key because I couldn’t get it to work in Steam and since most players now only have Steam installation this may have limited appeal.
It’s strange, considering it was made in March 2009, that it doesn’t work in Steam. Maybe some clever PP reader will find a way to make it work. If they do, I’ll post an updated link.
No time to get bored.
It was pretty cool, I liked the part of the zombies, headcrabs and the one with the helicopter, give it a try….
This mod was actually released WAY before 2009! Is that the date given in the text file? I downloaded this recently and wasn’t able to get very far, which is too bad because this was one of my favourites from back in the day…
I am cheating today, because I am not really “updating” this post, but I have almost no time today for a new post, so I decided to use this one, sorry.
Still, it’s a pretty good mod and deserves more attention.
Enjoy!
I played this a long time ago and remembered that I didn’t enjoy it much, oh well some things don’t change!
This is a complete hotchpotch of different scenarios that for me don’t gel very well, some small bits were fun and some bits were repetitive such as the office area with the grunts and the old style computers. The snot coloured cavern followed by the Gonarch arena would have been better if they weren’t one after the other but overall the author seems to have good ideas but not know how to make them fun.
The look of the mod was not bad but the feel of the mod just wasn’t right to me. If this had been any longer I would have probably put it down until I could be bothered to finish it! Overall nothing to get exited about but it did pass some time away.
Forgot to say, it worked OK on Steam so I assume someone fixed the previous problem.
Have not played it yet, but from a first guess, it’s the capital letters in the bsp names that might wreak havoc with Steam.
Edit: well, plus a couple changes to liblist.gam:
gamedir “chaos-theory”
cl_dll 0
I would also remove the servers 1 line completely.
Before you remove any lines, all I did was put the ” chaos-theory” folder in:
Steamapps > username > half-life folder and it worked first time.
It may be it’s been fixed before Phillip uploaded it as 1 of the 100.
Had no trouble with this map! Played well in “Steam” and “WoN” 😉
I remember Chaos Theory well from the Gargantua chase scene in the second map. It’s still fun to play. There’s nothing much to say. It’s a bunch of random maps put together. All you have to do is kill enemies, find and push buttons in a repetitive, bland environment, made out of prefabs. It’s interesting enough to get you going. The player is given too much ammunition at the start. You’re basically immortal. The puzzles are not hard, but without any direction, or a clue, you can get lost in the levels really fast.
pros:
-combat
-wasteland levels (see Aftermath, another level from the same author)
-turret hall in the office
cons:
-no direction
-generic office environment, empty rooms, dark rooms
-env_sound bug
-endless enemies
This mod is solid but unspectacular.
This mod isn’t the most fun you’ll ever play, but it’s worth playing. The stand out thing for this was it’s playability, one of the few mods I’ve played in the 100SDoN without any glitches. The mapping isn’t that exciting, but it gets the job done with no stupid errors such as in Terror Side. The guy that made this was the same guy that did Aftermath from yesterday, this was better however.
The gameplay of this, as stated earlier, wasn’t as fun as Lifes End or Terror Side, but it was still enjoyable to play, if not a little easy. There are a few “secret” areas, such as the snarks in the sewer area which were pretty fun to find.
Certainly something that you should play. Just sit back and leave sv_cheats off.
Yeah, solid but unspectacular, as Whatever You Want put it, is the perfect way to describe Chaos Theory. It’s basically a mishmash of a bunch of different settings and situations, a theme I’ve thought about doing now and then. At the very least it’s a great excuse to try out new styles and settings for your maps.
That’s also one of the weaknesses of Chaos Theory – there’s no story here. You’re essentially just teleported to several different maps and you have to complete the map, at which point you’re simply sent to the next one. Rinse, repeat, and soon you’re back at the beginning where you’re treated to the punchline.
Some of the maps included are weaker than the rest. The Xen section in particular was pretty lame and boring, although with cool Xen doors. The horror/zombie map isn’t as well developed as Aftermath, which was released well after Chaos Theory. And the base/office area with the grunts was passable but not memorable.
But what stands out in Chaos Theory are the opening and ending maps (not counting the intro map or the punchline ending map). You’re thrust into a clever, hectic, and challenging map with a gargantua right away and have to play some cat-and-mouse to survive. And ditto for the concluding map, except against an Apache instead. The Apache encounter is especially challenging, but pretty fun.
Some nice ideas here, but little linking them coherently. If you can get past that it’s a fun time.
This was a lot of fun to play.
I did wind up god-moded, but then I didn’t much care. I’d rather have fun shooting without having to die, lather, rinse repeat. 🙂
This mod reminds me a lot of Gateways and the Great Forever Tomorrow, not in that it was frightfully weird, but that it blasted you to different types of locations and was unapologetic about having very little connectivity between “levels”.
I really loved the lightning and use of spookiness in the “castle” level.
And of course, the final words were quite funny.
Definitely a good couple hours worth of running and gunning. Worth playing.
The laboratories look excellent. The author managed to create different look and feel while using stock Half-Life textures.
The story allowed to put different maps together in one mod. There are no events which develop the story between intro and outro, but here it’s not a flaw, because various environments take the story’s place.
The gameplay is fun, the design is good, but it gets too primitive and monotonous at times, especially at Xen, where many Gonarchs are too repetitive, and presentation is too far from perfect Xen.
Well designed first couple of maps promises great mod, and then there’s that monotonous place with grey walls and brown liquid everywhere, that’s disappointing.
More people should be working in more HL maps and mods nowdays, I mean maybe this is the most “modern” mod i’ve played conssidering is from 09!!, and is good the gameplay offers subtle fun and the maps are perfectly conected with that red ending that open every level, very in the line or style of CSS Hardwire mod, I think the sound in every level sound is the same of that CCS mod, I like the gameplay is very fluid but some levels are just centered in one Hl special ennemy and i’d like to see more variety in them, buut this is fun and entretaining to play, oh BTW I played this on steam, I had no probllems to running it there, in steam.
“So Gordon”
*sunglasses*
“You still believe there is nothing to Chaos Theory?”
YYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Incidents, incidents.. but altho it’s sort of similar to the original BM happenings, this is worth playing. You’re being warped to several areas and need to find a way out, confronted with many interesting combats and some puzzles.
Pro’s:
-Good level design, variations and architecture
-Pretty nice combat, very diversified, strategical
-Lot of weapons, ammo and health, also HEV batteries and stations
-Nice scripts
-Good balanced, maybe a lil too easy (played on difficult)
–
Con’s:
-Unfortunately quite short playtime
-Minor design flaws, not very detailed
-Minor graphic bugs
-Sometimes confusing a bit
A very basic idea that creates endless possibilities; I think, and I hope, Stuart has started a trend that will be cloned.
The author of Chaos Theory has shamelessly taken the nutshell of the original Half-Life story, removed all the ambiguous BS, and reduced it to a fast-paced seven level fragfest that was a lot of fun. The Black Mesa “accident” scene is revisited in Stuart’s Chaos Theory, but this time, for better or for worse, there isn’t quite such a setup. The research center you start off in seems as if the scientists have just moved in as there’s very little details, but on the bright side, the bare walls weren’t just square. As I’ve said before, the accident happens very quickly and there isn’t a tenth of the buildup as in the original game, it felt as if Stuart wanted to rush you along into his seperate worlds of hell.
While it’s true that many of us will be thankful for not having to wait so long before the action starts, one of the big faults of Chaos Theory is that it felt it had a lot more potential if more time was spent on the detailing in both story and visuals. Although the first battle scenario was one of the better visual setups in Half-Life I’ve seen, practically all of the other battle scenarios after that were rushed and definitely felt a bit too square in the design department.
I’m sure the question you’re all asking is: what battle scenarios? And what the hell happens after the accident? It couldn’t be more simple! You just hop around through dimensions, some brightly lit and bursting with the feel for action, others ominously lit and creating a sensation of dread. For author’s that can’t seem to stay on one style for two long, this is the perfect way to unleash creativity. In Chaos Theory, Stuart unleashes his creativity alright, sending us to many different hellish worlds one after another, but that creativity wasn’t given the wings to soar. By that I mean, not enough attention was paid to each individual dimension, and they ended up feeling somewhat undercooked, if you know what I mean.
Quantity over quality is the issue with Chaos Theory, I felt if even a couple of levels were knocked off this download, it would’ve been worth it if it meant that more time would’ve be spent on perfecting the levels that remained. The first map with action – and for a hint, it starts off in a gargantuan fashion – is a great example of attention to details as the wreckage scenes really appeared promising. Although action-wise, Chaos Theory has a lot better to offer afterwards, the visuals do not. One scenario you are teleported into, serving as a good example of my complaints, is a base; this base barely has any interesting architecture at all, and although the design wasn’t ugly, I think a beginner could’ve done the base if they’d only been careful on choosing the right textures. Texturing was definitely the consistent high-point of Chaos Theory’s inconsistent design. This fact, and the display in the first battleground proves that Staurt has the potential to create some very aesthetic settings, but he perhaps underachieves with Chaos Theory.
But of course, design isn’t the main matter at hand when it comes to this map set. If you’ve come to appreciate brutal, challenging, and capricious fighting in your maps, then you’ll love what Stuart has to offer. There’s something to invoke every mood in Chaos Theory, but perhaps the most well-done was the mood of dread. Although many people might dislike the level I’m about to gush over, I must do so anyway. Stuart picked the perfect lighting for a zombie/headcrab playground, and that’s almost no lighting at all. Except, for the brief flashes of lightning of course! Yes, you heard right, Chaos Theory uses lighting for the first time (to my knowledge) in SP Half-Life and it felt pretty believable too! Another scary level that really had me panicking towards the end was the Xen part. Although the design was really wide-open and bland, the fight that takes place will have to be experienced by yourself! Two of the battlegrounds you teleport into that didn’t have a positive effect on me, mostly for the author’s information, was the slave-infested sewers and the grunt-infested base; in both cases, the design and and the actual fighting felt very uninspired.
After you’ve fought from dimension to dimension, with little rest in between, you are presented with a brief ending. Although the whole experience lasted more than forty minutes, I felt unsatisfied. Chaos Theory could’ve been so much more detailed and there was much room for elaboration. Nonetheless, Chaos Theory was a blast, for all meanings of the word, and it is definitely an effort worthy of everyone’s notice. I commend Stuart for conjuring up this very obvious (why didn’t anyone think of this before?) new style that allows the author to have total freedom to throw his imaginativity at the player. Maybe next time, we’ll see something like this that’s a bit more detailed, from another author or from Stuart himself. As it stands, Chaos Theory can even be compared to a smaller but even more spilt-up Redemption, and although it lacks the alluring eye-candy, the variety and action definitely took both a long way.
Notes
This review is republished here by permission and was originally published Saturday, 30th October, 1999 by Jiang.
This review was originally posted on the Ten Four Website, which is now offline. Permission has been granted to republish the full review and more details can be found on the About page.
The Chaos Theory for Half-Life
This is a really great mod and all, but even though I recommended it as a Play It Now, it doesn’t mean that it’s the perfect mod either.
The concept is that after an incident happens (I think), Gordon gets teleported to different worlds (or dimensions, whatever). Right off the bat, I’m reminded of Project Quantum Leap and Issues. I don’t know if the mod tried to be like these mods, and I don’t know if there were multiple mappers, but the thing is the maps don’t feel like a “straight line”. Once, you’re teleported to Xen, then to a place with grunts, it’s all really random.
The final boss with the Apache was interesting, but not anything special. There were also a few texture glitches for me, but I didn’t mind those that much.
Overall, this is a mod worth downloading.
A bunch of maps with mostly fighting. Maps are a bit plain, story and riddles are more or less absent. Strongest parts are the opening scene and the helicopter scene. Personally only a “Maybe?” for me, but for people not caring as much about story and atmosphere as I do, a PIL may be a more appropriate rating.
Manually
Medium
30 Minutes
This one was really fun, basically you get teleported to different maps each one with a different setting, the best one in my opinion were the first, where you have to hide from Gragantua until you find enough weapons to kill it, and the last one where you hide from a Apache and have to hide inside the containers to avoid being shot, overall, it was pretty fun and I would love to see more mods taking a similar approach of taking you to very different maps with each transition
Manually
Medium
40 Minutes
Very basic mapping but nice mix of action and puzzles.
A short and sweet mod.
Manually
Hard
33 Minutes
This mod is excelent. You can challange it on every difficulty you want. It’s quite well balanced, enough health, may use different battle tactics. Very nice made and calculated like a pro. Gargantua will require you to use every explosive you encounter on the second area. Technically I didn’t have to kill Saurus Fish inside the tunnel, I just moved toward it and managed to get to the next area. Giant Spider can be killed with MG, but a rocket launcher would be nice. Against troops we can always use some well placed grenades, satchels on big groups, it’s an advantage. And finally the chopper on Hard fires rockets. Firts you need to pick the card on the opposite side of entry position next to barnery on the ground. The next container opens near the initial position and maybe another one pretty close. From initial position to the left, toward the corner we have the rocket launcher inside next container. You should have two rockets. Use them with high presition otherwise you’d have to start all over again.
Manually
Hard
35 Minutes