The Chen system of equations exhibits Lorenz, Transition, Chen and Transverse 8 type of chaotic attractors depending on the system parameters. Some authors have proposed a generalized competitive mode (GCM) technique to explain the topological difference between the Lorenz attractor and the Chen attractor. In this paper, we show a range of parameter values for which the nature of the topological attractor for the Chen system is not in accordance with that expected from GCM analysis. Instead, we find that return maps can be used to characterize the transition between different types of attractors more reliably.