Spoiler-Free Explanation??

[Obamna]

I downloaded HL2 off of my friend's account yesterday and I don't understand what's going on. I already know that I am Gordon Freeman, an ex-Black Mesa (wtf is that) employee. The "Combine" rules the world and there are wierd things hanging from the ceiling that eat explosive barrels which get shot and then they die. The police are strange and they're bullies. I started out on drugs with a guy with a terrible speech problem and a suit, then I was on a train and nobody saw me there. There is a massive tower-like structure in the city. There is a man with a teleporter and a wierd messed up crab pet named Lamarr. Can someone please explain the story behind this and the plot of Half-Life 1 without spoiling HL2? Thanks.

[Sonsycoast]

Well...Instead of me explaining LET'S get the interwebz to explain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBUOFgc-sC0

Or for a non Laughly thing....

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0239023/plotsummary Hope you like reading.

This should explain the plot well enough I reccomend actually getting the game or getting The Black Mesa Mod so you can understand atleast some ♥♥♥♥.

[A-06]

Black Mesa was a company developing teleportation technology. One of its experiments failed and caused a rip in space that allowed alien species to invade the facility. Your mission was to survive enough time to close this rip in space, but the method you used only caused it to expand to the whole world.

This last event was known as the Portal Storms; after a while, an alien empire detected the portals and used them to take over the planet.

The man in the suit (G-Man) was the one who saved you from death at the end of the first game. Now you're his puppet employee; you can't refuse that because, as you may have noticed, he's far from being a normal human being.

Almost 20 years later, you recieve a new mission, but you're not told everything, because that is part of his plans. He will make sure that you succeed this mission, just as he will make sure that you die if you deviate from it.

That's more or less all need to know if you never played the first game.

[Swegkart64]

Originally posted by Shiddlepong:

I downloaded HL2 off of my friend's account yesterday and I don't understand what's going on. I already know that I am Gordon Freeman, an ex-Black Mesa (wtf is that) employee. The "Combine" rules the world and there are wierd things hanging from the ceiling that eat explosive barrels which get shot and then they die. The police are strange and they're bullies. I started out on drugs with a guy with a terrible speech problem and a suit, then I was on a train and nobody saw me there. There is a massive tower-like structure in the city. There is a man with a teleporter and a wierd messed up crab pet named Lamarr. Can someone please explain the story behind this and the plot of Half-Life 1 without spoiling HL2? Thanks.

Gordon Freeman used to work at a facility known as Black Mesa,which specializes in lots of sciency stuff.
One day (the events of HL1) the Administrator (who later became that old guy in those giant video thingys in HL2) has a crystal specimen and says that Gordon has to insert it into a laser thingy,which,in turn causes the facility to go haywire,open up some dimensonal rift known as a Resonance Cascade,and screws the facility over.
As Gordon,in HL1,you spend most of the game trying to get to the Lambda complex,another area of Black Mesa.
When you have to jump into some portal,you get teleported to Xen,some iterdimensional alien world.
Then you have to kill a giant Alien fetus,accept GMan's offfer,watch 20 years of Gordon's life go by without him aging,and you're in HL2.

[Dune Jumper]

You should play Half-Life 1 first.

[Star Angel]

Originally posted by Shiddlepong:

I downloaded HL2 off of my friend's account yesterday and I don't understand what's going on. I already know that I am Gordon Freeman, an ex-Black Mesa (wtf is that) employee. The "Combine" rules the world and there are wierd things hanging from the ceiling that eat explosive barrels which get shot and then they die. The police are strange and they're bullies. I started out on drugs with a guy with a terrible speech problem and a suit, then I was on a train and nobody saw me there. There is a massive tower-like structure in the city. There is a man with a teleporter and a wierd messed up crab pet named Lamarr. Can someone please explain the story behind this and the plot of Half-Life 1 without spoiling HL2? Thanks.

This basicall is the plot. And with every progress you make you will add another chapter to it. Don't expect a cutscene where everything is explained to you. Its more a like an Odyssey which consists of different subplots you are going through one by one. Of course there is some kind of bigger backstory attached to it but you are supposed to be as clueless as the main protagonist, who is the protégé of a mysterious (human) being called the G-Man.

[Obamna]

Thanks everyone, I now know that Black Mesa made a portal while playing with an anlien artifact and then aliens invaded and the Combine took over and ♥♥♥♥

[Goosey]

Originally posted by A-06:

Black Mesa was a company developing teleportation technology. One of its experiments failed and caused a rip in space that allowed alien species to invade the facility. Your mission was to survive enough time to close this rip in space, but the method you used only caused it to expand to the whole world.

This last event was known as the Portal Storms; after a while, an alien empire detected the portals and used them to take over the planet.

The man in the suit (G-Man) was the one who saved you from death at the end of the first game. Now you're his puppet employee; you can't refuse that because, as you may have noticed, he's far from being a normal human being.

Almost 20 years later, you recieve a new mission, but you're not told everything, because that is part of his plans. He will make sure that you succeed this mission, just as he will make sure that you die if you deviate from it.

That's more or less all need to know if you never played the first game.

Im glad you told him the story, most people get it wrong, your right!!!

[Tåget]

DO NOT WATCH PAST 0:26 IF YOU DONT WANT SPOILERS ABOUT HL2!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slRsexrhbG8

[Frontier Psychiatrist]

I think you guys are forgetting about;

The US sending in soldiers to kill both aliens and Scientists to cover up the whole incident, which in the end causes the US to bomb the facillity.

The Niliath and it's army fleeing to Xen to flee from the combine, and it being the last of it's species.
The Administrator being the CEO of Black mesa acutally going to 'some lengths' go aquire the crystal from Xen which cause the portal storm, which was the G-Man's plan.

and Freeman, and Adrian Shephard (The protagonist in Opposing Forces) being put in stasis to work for him, or an alternative which is death.

Fast forward 20 years to when the Combine has invaded and successfully taken over earth, installed the overwatch to enslave the remaining humans and put them into large cities known as "City 17, or 14 etc". The Combine also draining the earth of it's natural resources...

ALSO

That Half Life and Portal are in the Same universe.

[A-06]

Originally posted by Chef:

I think you guys are forgetting about;

*SNIP*

If you're going to tell him everything you might as well tell him who is the Nihilanth, what is Xen, and how are they relevant to they Combine.

Also, the OP said:

Originally posted by Shiddlepong:

Spoiler-Free Explanation??

The part about the Combine harvesting earth resources is something he could have seen while playing the game. And you just spoiled him part of Episode Two and G-Man's plans.

[Obamna]

Originally posted by A-06:

Originally posted by Chef:

I think you guys are forgetting about;

*SNIP*

If you're going to tell him everything you might as well tell him who is the Nihilanth, what is Xen, and how are they relevant to they Combine.

Also, the OP said:

Originally posted by Shiddlepong:

Spoiler-Free Explanation??

The part about the Combine harvesting earth resources is something he could have seen while playing the game. And you just spoiled him part of Episode Two and G-Man's plans.

Good thing I didn't read that comment! Now to figure out if i can delete it...