About
Cthulhu is a single-player modification for Half-Life. It contains 65 maps, 21 new monsters and 14 new weapons.
Story
You are Ranulf Satfford, occult investigator in 1928 Arkham, USA…
Aeons ago, Earth was ruled by The Great Old Ones, beings so alien and terrible that merely seeing them would drive most people mad. Before man’s ancestors climbed down from the trees, these being were defeated in a war with The Elder Gods.
But their alien nature meant that they could not be slain in any way that we would understand, so they were imprisoned.
And so they wait, patient and potent until the stars are right and they shall walk forth once again and wipe mankind from the face of the Earth.
You play Ranulf Stafford, an occult investigator in Arkham in the year 1928. Drawn into a nightmare chain of events, you find yourself the only thing standing between mankind and the return of Cthulhu, one of the most dreadful of The Great Old Ones.
Basic Details
- Title: Call of Cthulhu
- File Name: cthulhusetup.zip
- Size : 43.31Mb
- Author: Phil Guy (PhilG)
- Date Released: 22 January 2004
- Download: PlanetPhillip Filecloud Server
- Download Patch: PlanetPhillip Filecloud Server
- Download Steam Fix: PlanetPhillip Filecloud Server
Screenshots
Click on the thumbnails below to open a medium size image. Sorry some of them are a little dark, but of course that’s the style of the mod!
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PlanetPhillip (2347)
andyb (1022)
Mel (820)
Goddess Alyria (424)
Stef (404)
Jasper (364)
AI (314)
piledriver (311)
Grey Acumen (299)
Kasperg (283)
09 September 2006 at 4:04 pm
Has anyone downloaded this yet….What sequence should one use-Game—>Planetphillip patch—>Steam patch and I would assume to download it into steam/username/half life folder????
11 September 2006 at 10:25 pm
i did it in this order
put mod in
C:\Program Files\Valve\Steam\SteamApps\username\half-life
put patch files into
C:\Program Files\Valve\Steam\SteamApps\username\half-life\cthulhu
run the steam patch installer
restart steam
15 September 2006 at 11:36 pm
its been a while since i played this mod but it was pretty good actually and quite scary in a few bits.I suggest you try it its a little buggy but its good and so is the story
ive never actually read any HP Lovecraft but you should probably try that new game thats out about cthulu
26 September 2006 at 11:55 am
I liked this mod. It was fun to play, and I was really into it from the start. Here’s the deal: This guy basically says that there are alien creatures, so alien and so terrible that the very sight of them would drive a person mad. One of his more famous stories is “The Call of Cthulhu”, which revolves around the rise of Cthulhu, a ‘Great Old One,’ who lies dead, yet dreaming, in his prison/temple at the bottom of the ocean in the sunken city of R’lyeh.
When the stars are aligned correctly, the city shall rise, Cthulhu shall wake and walk free and mankind shall be swept aside guess what you get to do? I think you know. So you run around in the woods, and to a house, and in a city, just about everywhere. So, in summary, this mod was pretty fun, but you can find better.
Good: New models; New music; Sanity meter
Bad: Some new people models are re-hashed originals; Got stuck a few times; New textures not exactly ‘hi-res’
Rating: 4/5
25 December 2006 at 7:10 am
I have just one complaint so far.
He made new character models and new monsters, but he couldn’t change the way the zombies look?
I think it looks pretty weird to see zombies wearing lab coats digging out of graves in the 1920s.
Plus the whole head crab thing…
04 January 2007 at 9:08 pm
I’m stuck where you turn the wheel and you can not jump into the liquid below it will kill looks like a small lift comes down on the left can’t see where to go know? chpt10b
05 January 2007 at 1:31 am
I haven’t installed this yet, do you need both of the patches that are listed??
05 January 2007 at 2:30 am
Forgot that there was a patch still stuck there is also a room with a large with a pentagram that won’t open?
05 January 2007 at 3:57 am
All set didn’t know it comes with a walkthrough
05 January 2007 at 4:40 am
I believe all 3 (if you use steam)files are needed.One is an upgrade and the other is just a fix for steam.
09 January 2007 at 12:48 am
Great mod, it’s been a bit of a sleeper for some time. Better the They Hunger 2 but not quite on par with They Hunger 3. Rated about 8.5/10. Go play it’s great fun.
09 January 2007 at 1:15 am
I remember I was somewhat disappointed with this one. The read-up sounded great as any Goddess has an interest in the occult. I thought it ended up being a bit “cheesy” & I hated those darn little guys that liked to swipe at your knees. With as many comments, nobody has rated it yet, so I will start the ball & give it a 3/5.
01 March 2007 at 2:15 am
How do I run this mod using HL. And it’s console. I installed it. But when I go to custom game. And run it it always says that there is an error with the HL console.
Even the patch did not fix the problem.
P.S.
Yes, the Xbox/PC game, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners Of The Earth. It’s great, I recommend it too all Lovecraft/horror fans.
“In his house at R’yleh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming…”-The Call Of Cthulhu, H.P. Lovecraft-
01 March 2007 at 5:24 am
put it in the half life folder.
02 March 2007 at 1:19 am
It already is. I installed it there. It just will not run for some reason.
02 March 2007 at 9:40 am
MasterMegid, just out of curiosity, since the author has the download link listed on his website as downloads, do you have the latest version of your Half Life updated to at least 1.1.1.0?
03 March 2007 at 7:14 pm
Thanks for all the help. I finally got it up and running.
Peace out!
25 March 2007 at 4:11 pm
There are some places where you get stuck and this is mostly because of bad leveldesign. Some times, sequences don’t start – try to open the console and type “restart”…
13 June 2007 at 11:05 pm
I really wanted to like this mod… but it’s just soo cheesy. Still, it’s worth playing for the very neat “City of the Yith” (or “Lost City” or something like that) and “The Shadow Out of Time” chapters (which admittedly come very late in the game). The new models and textures feel slapped together, and overall the quality isn’t that great.
14 June 2007 at 11:08 pm
Ive played this mod several times.I really enjoy it even thou it is dark.I like it because it doen’t follow the typical HL mod stories.It actually has a decent story if you follow it.I recomend it if you like things that are not the norm.
27 January 2008 at 10:43 pm
SPOILERS
Yes, I have played through this whole thing. And it can be a bit of a chore sometimes. But in my opinion, this is more than outweighed by the good parts. And with a chore I mean: boring parts, getting lost in a maze, fighting on low health and dying all the time, timed sequences that are hard to do, etc. Or waiting for the flashlight to reload… As almost all horrormods for half-life this one has many dark parts, the flashlight works badly, and runs empty all the time… Yes, I know, it’s to create an atmosphere, but still, it gets old after a while.
Anyway, let me begin at the beginning: The story. If you know anything about horror and s-f, you’ll know H. P. Lovecraft and his mythology. If not, look it up. Even though I haven’t read much of his stuff, I can tell you that the mod’s story is pretty much in the spirit of H. P. Lovecraft. And the characters are from his books. So that is an original idea for a mod to start with. Also the story is not just background, it plays an important role in the mod. Read the books in the game, that is important to follow this story.
This mod is a somewhat less than total conversion. All weapons are changed, and most of the characters. However, you’ll also find some original half-life characters. And I have to agree with what the others said about this, it looks out of place, and also detracts somewhat from the story. The elevators for example don’t make much sense in 1828. The only place it belongs, the half-life stuff, is later on, when you’re in the city of Yith. It’s an advanced civilization, a couple of million year’s ago. Also, while original and in style with the year 1828, the weapons can be a bit annoying too. They take forever to reload, while some of the enemies tend to be pretty fast. On the whole however, the conversion looks good, and is consistent, and in line with the story. Doesn’t matter if a lot of it is borrowed.
Now for the gameplay: It’s not very linear, I already mentioned the mazes. Boy, does this guy like mazes! He’s got about five of ‘m in there, I think. And they get progressively harder too. The first one is simple, then he starts to add levers and doors and bridges… Lucky for you, a walkthrough is already included with the mod. Sometimes they are disguised as caves or sewers, but they’re mazes. In between that it’s pretty linear. Find your way, shoot the enemy. Find the items, find the clues to the next part, and sometimes a level boss. All level bosses, including the end boss, are well-known characters from the novels and stories of H. P. Lovecraft, by the way. And there are cutscenes ofcourse. These are done well, and in the right place, adding to the story, or explaining what to do next. Lots of puzzles too, mostly not too hard. You can’t get stuck. Thanks to the walkthrough. Having said that, I must also agree with earlier comments that some of the mapping is a bit flaky. Flaky in the sense that it either doesn’t work very well, or gets you confused. Take the level boss Dagon for example. Here you have to know or find out two things: First, the shed you’re locked in, will start to burn, once you’ve wounded him enough. Second, when you reach the top of the crates in the back, a beam will fall down, allowing you to escape. If you miss the second, you will be wondering for a long time what to do… Maybe these two things should’ve been triggered together. There are some nice gameplay-innovations too, like the spells. The fighting is often a bit off, though. It’s either too hard, for example the little dinosaurs with the zapguns, that kill you immediately when they see you. Or it’s too easy, cultists standing still, just waiting for you to shoot them. The mobsters are a little better, but not much. Sometimes they even line up for it in a row…! Only a part of the fighting is of the right kind. So, if you’re a fighting man (or woman), this is not for you. But a lot of things are very good too. To mention a few things: There’s a part where you work yourself through a ruined building, to a time machine wich brings you back a few millions of years, when the building was still intact. Then you backtrack through the same building, before it became a ruin. And of course my personal favorite: a real life dinosaur. I liked that part very much too, where you switch off the laser barrier, to let him in, and slaughter some of his more evolved cousins for you… Saves a lot of hard fighting… Now a game like this has to have an end boss of course. Which is none other then Cthulhu himself. Here, again an example of not quite complete design. There’s a whole song and dance routine about how to kill him, in the walkthrough. According to the developer, you have to use the tunnels to shoot him, and lure him to the boat, where you can have a go at him with the ship’s gun. Until he runs away, and you have to do it again. However, he forgot about the zap gun. Six zaps suffices to kill him, and i had thirty rounds. So that that takes care of him, and saves me about half a day…
Enough about the gameplay, now the technical stuff. I’m a player, not a developer, so I don’t know anything about textures, alignment, triggers, entities, and all that. But I can say something about the stability, that is bugs and crashes. If you’ve done the patches, there shouldn’t be any bugs anymore. I think it crashed on me once, during the whole mod, and I couldn’t repeat that. So it’s very stable, and bug-free. You will get stuck on elevators or in corners, and you’ll sometimes see enemies getting stuck, or behaving oddly, but that’s just half-life.
It’s a long mod, about 60 playable maps, albeit short ones often, and it took this guy 2 year’s to make it. It’s original and very narrative, and most of it is good, despite some obvious downsides. So I think it’s deserving a little more attention than it’s gotten sofar on this site. Hence this somewhat lenghthy comment…
04 February 2008 at 12:43 pm
This mod’s clumsy design is quickly evident. During training, your deep-voiced mentor switches over to the standard scientists’ “don’t bother me, Gordon,” which is not your characters name. After training at your mentor’s mansion, you begin the mod only to have to go right back to your mentor’s mansion merely to read an ordinary note. At your next destination, a house in the country, the design is …rudimentary. There are a lot of empty rooms ro search. When you exit one, its open door keeps you from going to the next room until several seconds later when the door closes. A big deal? Not really, though when there are a dozen rooms to explore it does cause the mod to drag. Worse, there’s no reason for it. Then there’s a zombie in the house’s dark attic, but apparently nothing else is there.
I just didn’t find anything that I enjoyed here, and with no logical path to follow decided to get on with it and download the next one on my list.
04 February 2008 at 1:34 pm
Check the walkthrough or read this
SPOILER!!!
There’s a weapon (a swordcane) in a room on the ground floor. It’s on a little table somewhere.
END OF SPOILER
Basically it is true what you say. However it does pick up later. I guess he was still learning when he made the first maps, a lot of mods have this. You can see the maps getting better as you go along.
05 February 2008 at 1:37 pm
Thanks, Ripper. Maybe I’ll take another crack at it.
06 March 2008 at 7:42 am
…It ceases to astound me how low people’s standards are nowadays. This mod is AWFUL! Ugly models, little direction (just how am I supposed to go to this guy’s house at the beginning when the only clue I have as to which house I’m supposed to go to is finding the locked door with no apparent means of unlocking?), an almost non-existent story that’s strung together by small maps speckled with arbitrarily-placed enemies like Half-Life zombies, invisible walls, black blobs for crosshairs, plenty of audio oddities (Did that cultist scream “medic”? And why, if I’m bashing a crate with a sword cane, am I hearing bullet ricocheting sounds?), and…why did I just pick up that diamond thing that floats over people’s heads in The Sims? And what do I do now?! Ya pick it up, and you’re just trapped in that room! C’mon! And why do I have a flashlight?! Did they have flashlights in 1928?!
There just isn’t anything good I can say about this, except someone had the idea to make a Cthulhu mod.
There’s one last thing I’d like to point out: It’s called “Cthulhu”. Not “Call of Cthulhu”, just plain old “Cthulhu”. Hmm.
-Tabris
03 June 2008 at 4:40 pm
A good mod, burgeoning on the excellent. Let’s get the downsides out of the way first. It’s similar to they hunger in that you only have health not armour however unlike they hunger instead of facing a lot of zombies in this the early enemies have guns which makes this a lot harder, in addition the enemies always seemed to spot me early and came enmass, combined with the slow reload time of the weapons meant i died alot.
Things get easier later on perhaps a little too easy. The other problem is the puzzles, maybe i spoilt the game a bit by consulting the walkthrough a little too frequently but when you get stuck it tends to be while in a maze which magnifies the problem.
Anyway still a good to great game, main appeal is the LOTS of different enemies, locations and weapons all of which are very well done, gameplay isn’t the best but certainly not the worse. If like me you’ve never read lovecraft then do what i did and read some between game sessions it certainly adds to the experience to see where all the game elements come from.
In conclusion, some balance issues but a good long mod with a lot of nifty new elements and captures the mood of the lovecraft stories very well. I never found the lovecraft stories scary but they were creepy ans thats just like this mod.
10 July 2008 at 6:12 am
I tried to download the steam patch but theres a goddamn trojan in the file.
10 July 2008 at 11:05 pm
Mixed opinions on this mod, some of was kind of fun and interesting but mostly boring and the cultists and mobsters sound kind of dorkey and stupid.
10 July 2008 at 11:08 pm
I guess I didn’t need the steam fix after all, just transfered it another comp and worked fine. Did anyone have any problems with the trojan in the steam fix file.
04 November 2008 at 10:08 pm
One this is true about this mod, there isn’t anything like it. The sheer variety of levels is enough to keep me playing. From the darkened streets of the 1920’s, to ancient Egypt… to space ships. The overall dark undertone of the game creates a very unique atmosphere that can’t be accomplished with just a bunch of spooky-looking monsters. This combined with a very lengthy game time (which I like) creates a very unique gaming experience. You can only play as Freeman so many times…
Cons: I’m not going to lie to you. This game is piss-poor ugly. From the monsters to the guns, its all bad. But this really shouldn’t stop you from enjoying this great mod. Unless you’re one of those kids that graphics is everything, in that case go away. I mean, this is an old mod for a game that is now 11 years old. Graphics shouldn’t be a priority anyway. (Not to say HL1 can’t produce pretty things, HoE Napalm Edition is a fantastic example of it.)
Overall: If you’re an old-school gamer who can look past the graphics, you should get this mod asap.
Interesting notes:
The “zap” gun, an alien gun in the shape of a tinfoil cone, may look ugly. But I’m incredibly sure that’s the “gun” from the 1970’s movie based on the book, The Martian Chronicles. A nice little reference to a great series.
Also, HP Lovecraft, the author of the original Call of Cthulhu book, is from Rhode Island. That makes my state important for once! ^^
17 February 2009 at 2:41 am
Hey guys. I’m stuck in the warehouse with the big green monster. I haven’t any dynamite more and I have 0 % “H.E.V-Suit energy”, so I can’t use the books and cheats don’t work.
Can you help me?
29 October 2009 at 12:29 am
the link to the steamfix is dead
28 January 2010 at 2:48 pm
nice mod
but the a athime looks bad