Half-Life: Chronicles once again places you in the boots of scientist Gordon Freeman. Trapped in the Black Mesa Research Facility, and persued by humans and aliens alike, you must use your wits (as well as firepower) to stay alive. However, Chronicles takes place in what could be called an “alternate timeline” wherein certain events in Half-Life unfolded differently.
Before you play Chronicles, it is HIGHLY recommended that you play all the way through Half-Life, so that the alternate time-line can be understood (if you’ve gotten at least 1/4 through the game, you should be okay).
In this alternate universe, new weapons are also present…the Mp5 is now more realistic, and a new, more powerful assault rifle has been added into the mix. Finding the M4 Carbine Assault Rifle should be a priority!
- Title: Chronicles Episode One: Traumatic Experiences
- File Name: hl1-sp-chronicles-episode-one.7z
- Original File Name: chronicles13.zip
- Size : 5.33MB
- Author: Radioactive Software
- Date Released: 01 August 2000
- Copy the chronicles folder into your Half-Life folder.
- Restart or start Steam.
- Half-Life: Chronicles should now be listed in your Library tab.
If you require more help, please visit the Help page.
Click on the thumbnails below to open a 1024 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
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2,975Overall
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132365 days
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 4 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 43 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 20 Mins by Dmitry
Longest: 1 Hours by denizen50
Total Time Played: 2 Hours, 50 Mins
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Chronicles : Traumatic Experiences was originally supposed to be series of mods that took a “What if..?” look at the original Half-Lif. Sadly, this was the only episode made before the group behind it disbanded, but at leeast this excellent work has been released and offers a glimpse at what could have been.
C:TE kicks off shortly after you first meet the army, and diverts the player on a totally different path. What follows is an excellently made series of events that almost make you wish they really were part of the original game. There’s even a new weapon for you to enjoy.
The maps themselves are well done, although not quite up to Valve’s extremely high standard, and the new voices are scarily accurate. The new weapon is a three-shot rifle, and is rather hard to describe, but it’s a nice addition to the arsenal (one note to add is that the M4 no longer has Grenades – the new Carbine Assault Rifle handles that function now). And the enemies? Well, they’re the same as always.
This is a quite excellent mod, and it’s a shame we won’t see any more. But we’ve still got this, and should be thankful for it.
Yes, it’s very good mod. Sadly indeed that it will never be finished.
Just replayed it today. Quite a shame it was never finished.
Maybe a new Half-Life: Resurrection potential project?
I have too many mods but so many of them sound good! Im going to give this one a try!
What do I call the folder I install this to?
This was a good mod but it is very shot. Too short and it was never finished which is very dissapointing because it was actually pretty good. Except there is one part, starting with an elevator with laser mines at the bottom, that you can not save until the next load point. ALthough, it is a good mod overall.
As Christian said, this definetly is Half-Life Resurrection material. Although, when it is made, IT SHOULD NOT HAVE MULTIPLE EPISODES! IT IS TOO MUCH OF A HASSLE TO INSTALL MULTIPLE MODS EPECIALLY FOR SOMETHING SHORT LIKE THIS ONE!
If you like this mod, you would probably be interested in “Xen-Warrior”, a mod of mine in which I used the Chronicles levels to make you play as an alien grunt, similar to “Point of view”.
Awaiting episode 2.also there were 2 extra weapons; the M4 assault rifle and a .50 caliber SMG. The .50 caliber SMG can be reached only by cheating with impulse 101, as it has no entity and looks like a sniper rifle in ye olde inventory
Short, but good build up to a difficult firefight near the end. Lighting is above average and some scenery is nicely done, but overall the environments are nothing new. Got repeatedly ‘stuck” in a stack of tables. No real ending. (‘to be continued’). Continued would be good.
If I remember correctly this is a very old mod, so doubt it will not be continued now and I would not expect to much in the way of new environments with a HL1 mod of this age.
Hope I am wrong about Eps 2.
Thanks, Mel, for your critique of my comment.
Perhaps I should have said the environments are nothing original.
Perhaps I also should have said instead I hope the series will continue, old though this is.
A real enjoyable short release not perfect but well worth for the short playtime I have add a review at sp map corner and have also some screens if needed
Short and enjoyable without bugs. Running through black mesa levels, average.
an amazing work for its time, tho in this day and age, very blocky and poorly textured.
Some nice scripting and direction and a nice “on-a-rail” combat sequence, as well some
neat little gman cutscenes.
I am a great believer in the order of things is sometimes more important than the activity. Since I played all these maps in Xen Warrior I found them a little boring but of course, that’s unfair because this was released before XW!
The author did a good job of making it look close to BM and the beginning “What if” was nice.
I found the last battle horrible because I only fired 3 shots, whereas in XW, I had the hivehand and that was way more fun as you didn’t need to be in the direct line of sight.
I definitely wish I had played this first though.
If you have played XW, they it’s less likely you will enjoy these maps.
I think this is a great example of one of the earlier (this was actually released in late “99) Black Mesa themed packs. It’s fairly short (maybe 15-20 minutes) but pretty high-quality. It isn’t without problems but it’s a fun trip.
I like how the opening branches directly off of the section (I think in “We’ve Got Hostiles”) where you pop up to the surface, only to meet an Osprey and a bunch of grunts, and you’re forced back down into the vents immediately. It’s nice in that it’s a “what if?” type of mod with a direct tie-in to one of the Half-Life maps (a bit similar to Alternate Path which I also liked). Overall this isn’t too challenging, although there are a couple parts that might trip you up, so you might play on a little higher difficulty than your typical one.
The mapping is pretty solid Black Mesa style, and I really like the idea of the finale (train ride battle) although it’s too easy and could really be fleshed out. The other thing that annoyed me is that some of the wooden crates were unbreakable.
It’s definitely worth a play through. It’s short but pretty sweet. Too bad it never was continued.
Another fun coffee break length mod!
Starting off in familiar territory and not too taxing, this was fun while it lasted with yet another train ride. It did indeed feel like BM and flowed nicely, probably there’s not much play value for those who like hard gameplay, but for how I like and its length it was about right for me.
It looked good, not spectacular, however there was nothing detract from just playing and enjoying it. it’s just a pity there was never a follow up.
This is a mod of the rare “What if?” genre. Besides this I only know two mods of this type – “Alternate path” for Half-Life 1 and “Sebastian” for Half-Life 2 Episode 1.
This one says “What if Freeman couldn’t go to the silo?”. It starts with a spectacular scene where the soldiers accidentally crashed their chopper (or maybe it was Black Ops” work?) and blocked the way to the ventilation, but destroyed the fence, so we continue our journey through the storage facility.
The design is done well and really looks like a continuation of storage facility. The first Room with crates is an excellent battleground, it encourages usage of grenades with right timing. One of the soldiers can go through the door and attack us from the rear, and that’s good. The second room with crates makes us use our weapons wisely. The environments are various.
The new voice acting is very similar to the stock Half-Life voices, so at first I thought that the authors are using some unused dialogue from the game.
New scripted events are very cool.
There are areas with new textures, the authors convince us that they are part of Black Mesa by showing original BM first, new style later.
The only flaws are that some wooden crates don’t sound like wood when you hit them and it’s possible to get stuck in the ventilation after the map change.
This was one of the better mods that I have seen. I enjoyed the time I spent playing this mod even if it was short lived.
The premise of the mod being an alternate timeline event of Freeman’s journey was an interesting touch. The thing I enjoyed most was that the mod’s visuals maintained the high quality that was established with the original. I thought that what I saw could easily have been part of original. Needless to say, the detailing of the levels was very high and the level design was also very nice. In fact, I thought that the tram section near the end could be a good substitute for the “On a rail” section in Half-Life.
The combat was probably on the easy side but the way that the enemies and I were able to use the environment for cover and flanking maneuvers made it so fun I didn’t think too much of it. There were a couple of sections where it was almost unavoidable to take damage, that I thought could have been planned a bit better but overall, the combat was pretty well thought out.
I also have to point out the voice acting in this mod was spot on as well. It took me a few seconds to realise that the scientists were giving me new information not just a remix of their lines from Half-Life.
The visuals are of very high quality and there are some very interesting setpieces. I highly recomend this one to all those that want a short and sweet Half-Life nostalgia hit.
This was a great mod.
At the start of this mod (not including the HL section) I kept wondering had I seen it before because it looked familiar, and then I realised that it was from Xen Warrior. Despite this however it is very fun and action packed. There are some really good battles thrown into the mix too and although the majority of the mod is easy there were some tough areas too, such as the fassn section near the end. For some reason the sequences (such as the Gman teleport one) were the exact same in both mods, which made little sense at all unless Gman went back for the Alien Grunt. I know it’s been said many times, but it’s disappointing that there isn’t a sequel.
Certainly worth playing. It’s fun.
SOOO cut off!!, a shame some projects that can have a spark, never get to end up right, this is a play it now, maybe because here we see a Black Mesa environment and atmosphere so well done and accurate to the real BM we get used to in the HL main game, I have like a Deja Vu when I played this one, and I had it because this are the same maps where u play as an alien grunt in a mission into BM so that’s the reason I felt iv’e alredy played this, and I maybe did, but quite a long ago, so in conclussion is a shame we have an uncompleted mod here, but on the other hand this is fair enough to play it now, because altough is incomlpete, we have an acceptable quality here in this mod.
I don’t know what to say other than that it’s a shame that it’s incomplete, because this is quite something. I especially love the end of the game, where you’re on the tram like in the beginning of half life, and it feels like a really fun rail shooter.
No wonder Xen Warrior ripped this off.
This was fun, but short! I want some more 😛
The level design is very nice and there is lot of ammo and health / HEV chargers in here.
Pro’s:
-Level design, Black Mesa feeling
-Scripts like the trainride
-New weapon
-Makes you wanna see more
Con’s
-Very short
-Not every weapon available
-Many doors closed and not all crates can be smashed, those who are breakable need ages with crowbar 😛
The premise of Half-Life: Chronicles is an interesting one: each episode picks up at a point in the official Half-Life story and speculates on what could have happened afterwards.
The action kicks off immediately in this first installment with you coming in just as you enter the military compound that will be instantly familiar from the original game. Some differences are apparent. For a start, the MP5 model has been changed for one that is, apparently, more realistic, though it has to be said that it also looks a bit less impressive. The grunts, however, are just the same, as are all the enemies you’ll encounter on your travels through this episode, and grenades are soon flying in.
These well-worn adversaries are something of an omen for the rest of the unit. Despite the promising storyline, there’s no real interesting twists or developments in proceedings. Much as Opposing Forces failed to live up to the expectations produced by its makers talking about the ways you’d run across Gordon on his adventures in the original Half-Life, Chronicles Episode One lacks any sense that you’re following a different plot. I’m sure that Radioactive Software [who’s site you can find here] have grander plans for future episodes but there were none on show in this one. It was all too familiar for the player to believe that anything much was going to be different.
Of course, a lack of true originality is one thing but how do the levels themselves far? Well, thankfully, they do pretty damn well. The maps in this release are absolutely marvellous and show what a talented team this lot are. There are some great moments here with the stunning monorail sequence – very reminiscent of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom – standing out as a very memorable set-piece. The other new gun model, an M4 carbine, is also very well made and works a lot better than the altered MP5. One guaranteed way of keeping me happy is to introduce as many big, powerful automatic weapons as possible and though there’s only a single addition here – and though it lacks the option to go full auto – it still brought a smile to my face.
Even if the unit does turn out to be your standard Half-Life fare, it is perhaps the best example of that so far. No, it’s not quite as fun as Redemption or They Hunger but that’s mainly because those two went out of their way to produce very different and complete universes of their own. What you get here is the type of Half-Life level that we know and love done about as well as we’ve seen. Hopefully the series will branch off in some different directions in later installments but providing the quality remains this high, they can’t really go wrong.
Notes
This review is republished here by permission and was originally published Thursday, 30th December, 1999 by Morgan.
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.
I don’t see what the fuss is about.
Manually
Hard
1 Hour
Download link is broken 🙁
Fixed.
OK, Chronicles… This is a pretty good mod but it so short. New gun is cool and I would like to see it in original Half-Life. There is a key-cards and some interesting scenes. I recommend you to play this mod, but I see better.
Manually
Medium
30 Minutes
A short campaign that takes you through several maps of Black Mesa-themed storage areas, gunning down every HGrunt along the way. Aliens are also present, but they don’t have a significant presence in this mod.
The ending has an interesting tram ride fight against a couple of HGrunts that are going in parallel. A hilarious and overly-loud “SHIT.wav” plays once you send them into the radioactive drink, which I still remember to this day. It never gets old for some reason.
This mod also contains a custom weapon: the M4 Carbine. It’s essentially a 30-round mag weapon that shoots 3 rounds at a time, and uses contact grenades. I personally found it awkward to use, because the weapon shoots 3 pellets at a time – similar to a shotgun – and not in true burst-fire fashion. But what bugs me the most is that it only shoots as soon as you *let go* of the left mouse button, not once you click it… That makes it a very awkward and unresponsive weapon to use, in my opinion.
I’ve also noticed several bugs near the end, namely the room where you get on the tram: it’s possible to get stuck indefinitely if you press the elevator button but don’t get on it. Normally, there’d be a button to call the elevator, but the author clearly forgot to do so here. The result is that you’ll be stuck on the bottom floor with no way to call the elevator back down until you reload (or noclip).
I tried to remedy this problem by improvising with a scientist’s head… It’s possible to climb up to the upper level where the tram is by using the scientist as a platform and some nearby terrain geometry to give the initial boost. Unfortunately, you still can’t progress because there’s an invisible wall over the railing. Thus you still can’t progress. Though you can jump into the tunnel where the G-Man supposedly left on his tram car and catch an upclose look at him. Cool, I guess?
A great level pack for the year 2000 perhaps, but I don’t think there’s much that this SP mod can teach us today.
Manually
Hard
1 Hour
So we have taken a different road. But where? Where are we going? All is so unclear. I think it’s an alternative Half-Life, I mean the ending boss is not Nihilanth. Maybe we are not going to Xen after all. There’s one downside in the mod, he placed the assassins too early. In the original Half-Life we took a bunch of time before meeting this beasts with a crossbow, but here, not even a crossbow is available. And that M4 fires like a Cow. In GTA Vice City, M4 were an exceptional weapon. One of the best of the best. Only M60 were better. But this piece of Garbage he designed shock me. It’s almost like using a weak shotgun. Really? Is this a joke from a developer? In GTA San Andreas I could destroy a plane with M4 and in Half-Life I can’t even kill a HECU idiot??!!
Manually
Hard
20 Minutes