I bought the Orange box on sale but I only really played Portal. I decided I wanted to finally play Half Life 2 but I`m kind of anal about not wanting to play sequels for games that I didn't play. I look on youtube but there wasn't much about what happened in the original half life. Can someone please help me out and recap the important parts of the first Half Life that I should know before going into half life 2?    

In the future, widespread use of remotely-controlled androids called "surrogates" allow everyone to live in idealized forms from the safety of their homes. A surrogate's operator is protected from harm and feels no pain when their surrogate is damaged. FBI agent Tom Greer has a strained relationship with his wife Maggie, due to their son's death several years before. He never sees her outside of her surrogate and she criticizes his desire to interact via their real bodies.

Greer and his partner, Agent Jennifer Peters, investigate the death of two people who were killed when their surrogates were destroyed. Jarid Canter  son of Dr. Lionel Canter (the inventor of surrogates), is one of the victims. Greer and Peters determine that a human named Miles Strickland used a new type of weapon to overload the surrogates' systems and kill their operators. After locating Strickland, Greer attempts to bring him into custody. Strickland uses the weapon and injures Greer during the chase; Greer inadvertently crash-lands into an anti-surrogate zone known as the Dread Reservation (one of many throughout the United States). A mob of humans eventually destroy Greer's surrogate, forcing him to interact in the world without one. The Dread leader known as the Prophet kills Strickland and confiscates the weapon.

Agent Greer learns that the same company manufacturing the surrogates originally produced the weapon under a government contract. It was designed to load a virus that overloads the surrogate's systems, thus disabling it. Unexpectedly, the weapon also disabled the fail-safe protocols protecting surrogate operators. After the first test, the project was scrapped and all but one prototype were destroyed.

Agent Peters is murdered and an unknown party hijacks her surrogate. Greer is informed that Andrew Stone, his FBI superior, supplied the weapon to Strickland and ordered Dr. Canter's assassination for his criticism of surrogate use. Jarid, using one of his father' many surrogates, was killed instead. The Prophet orders the weapon be delivered to Peters. During a military raid on the reservation the Prophet is shot, revealing his identity as a surrogate.

Greer heads to Dr. Canter's home and discovers that he has been controlling both the Prophet and Peters. Using Agent Peters' surrogate in FBI Headquarters, Dr. Canter uses the weapon to kill Stone and proceeds to upload the virus to all surrogates, which will destroy the surrogates and kill their operators. Believing his plan to be unstoppable, Canter disconnects from Peters's surrogate and swallows a cyanide pill. Agent Greer takes control of the surrogate and with the assistance of the network's system administrator, insulates the virus so the operators will survive. Agent Greer must choose to either destroy all surrogates or cancel the virus upload. Greer eventually decides to let the virus permanently shut down surrogates worldwide. People emerge from their homes without their surrogates, confused and afraid.

Greer returns home and shares an emotional embrace with Maggie in her real form. The film ends with an aerial view of the collapsed surrogates along with overlapping news reports of the downed surrogates and how people are now "on their own" again.     
 
 
 
Here you are.  Minus the bullet points.

1. Scientific experiment gone wrong (a resonance cascade occurs if you wanted to know) causes aliens from another dimension to appear on earth.
2. Gordon goes to alien dimension and destroys the head big bad alien, closing the rift (or something like that).
3. G-Man (not his real name!) offers Gordon a job or death. Gordon chooses the job and gets put into stasis.
 
That's really all you need to know for HL2.

" 1. Scientific experiment gone wrong (a resonance cascade occurs if you wanted to know) causes aliens from another dimension to appear on earth. 2. Gordon goes to alien dimension and destroys the head big bad alien, closing the rift (or something like that). 3. G-Man (not his real name!) offers Gordon a job or death. Gordon chooses the job and gets put into stasis.  That's really all you need to know for HL2. "

You keep clicking the microwave and that guy's dinner blows up.

" You keep clicking the microwave and that guy's dinner blows up. "

• There's aliens.
• You have to shoot them.
  

• Shit happens
• Find Crowbar
• Good Luck

Just play it instead.

" @FiestaUnicorn: Wow. I`m actually impressed you took the time to recap Surrogates for me. What made you decide on Surrogates to troll my topic with? "

" @FiestaUnicorn: Wow. I`m actually impressed you took the time to recap Surrogates for me. What made you decide on Surrogates to troll my topic with? "

The two brightest components, Gl 667 A and Gl 667 B, are separated by an average distance of about 12.6 AU, but have an eccentric orbit, which takes them as close as about 5 AU, or as far as 20 AU. The orbit takes approximately 42.15 years to complete. The orbital distance translates to an average separation of 1.8 ".

Gl 667 C orbits further out, between about 56 and 215 AU, equating to an angular separation of about 30".

• Sweet Tram Ride

" Just play it instead. "

Ooh, ooh I wanna try too! 
 

• Ride a train to work
• Trapped in chamber
• Big explosion
• Aliens everywhere
• Shoot headcrabs
• I can't remember the rest.

"

• Sweet Tram Ride

"

Dude, just read the Wikipedia article.

" 1. Scientific experiment gone wrong (a resonance cascade occurs if you wanted to know) causes aliens from another dimension to appear on earth.   

 2. Gordon goes to alien dimension and destroys the head big bad alien, closing the rift (or something like that).   

 3. G-Man (not his real name!) offers Gordon a job or death. Gordon chooses the job and gets put into stasis.  That's really all you need to know for HL2. "

" @Chabbs0 said:

"

• Sweet Tram Ride

"

I've started this damn game over so many times I know that tram ride like the back of my hand. "

" Dude, just read the Wikipedia article. "

" @nintendoeats: Thank you. I looked at your avatar and decided I can trust you 100% on this matter. "

" @Hunkulese said:

" @FiestaUnicorn: Wow. I`m actually impressed you took the time to recap Surrogates for me. What made you decide on Surrogates to troll my topic with? "

"Random article" perhaps. Here's a description of how a resonance cascade occurs:
 

The two brightest components, Gl 667 A and Gl 667 B, are separated by an average distance of about 12.6 AU, but have an eccentric orbit, which takes them as close as about 5 AU, or as far as 20 AU. The orbit takes approximately 42.15 years to complete. The orbital distance translates to an average separation of 1.8 ".

Gl 667 C orbits further out, between about 56 and 215 AU, equating to an angular separation of about 30".

"

The Noid (voiced by Pons Maar) was an advertising character for Domino's Pizza in the 1980s. He was a villainous red-suited character with red rabbit ears who attempted to ruin Domino's pizza but was constantly thwarted. The Noid was created in 1986 by Group 243, the advertising agency for Domino's Pizza and was animated by Will Vinton Studios. The creative team of Ernie Perich (creative director), Gary Bastien (art director), Dave Larson (producer), Matthew Thornton (producer), and Phil Kneesi (writer) created the character and the television campaigns. Commercials that featured the character used the slogan "Avoid the Noid!"

As part of the advertising campaign, a computer game was released in 1989 called Avoid the Noid. The object of the game is to deliver a pizza within a half-hour time limit, in an apartment building swarming with noids (some of which are armed with heat-seeking or pizza-seeking missiles, or water balloons). The common version is version 1.0 and has CGA graphics and PC speaker sound effects, although version 1.1 also exists which added support for EGA graphics and Adlib music. In 1990, Capcom released a different video game, Yo! Noid, for the NES.

Also, the Noid has made a few appearances in modern-day entertainment, including an altercation in the episode of Family Guy called Deep Throats, in an episode of 30 Rock, in a segment of Michael Jackson: Moonwalker and in two episodes of The Simpsons, once as a Thanksgiving Day parade balloon, and the other in person in the episode " She of Little Faith".

Domino's brought the Noid back for a limited run of t-shirts in December 2009. Proceeds from the sale of these "Avoid The Noid!" t-shirts went to St. Jude's Children's Hospital. A limited run of 1,000 shirts was made. 

Honestly, you don't need to know much of anything about Half-Life to play Half-Life 2.
nintendoeats recapped you your bullet points, but when Gordon awakes and HL2 starts things are WAY different then they were last time. A lot of characters were retconed in, since they were just security guards and scientists in HL1. Heck I'm not even sure what's happened between 1 and 2...
 
So you that portal opened in a secret science facility called Black Mesa. You, Gordon, were a scientist there.
After the portal opened everything went to hell. Aliens invaded. Most of the people in the facility died. The army was called in to contain the aliens and kill everybody that knew about them.
You go to the alien world and kill the one controlling (most of) the other aliens, and then G-Man takes you away.
After that supposedly another alien race called the Combine found you because of all that interdementional chaos that happened but you'll get to know about that while you play HL2.
 
Oh, and before you ask "who's G-Man?". We have no efing clue. He's the guy in a suit with a briefcase. We know he's got superpowers since he can appear in weird places, can stop time, travel to different dimensions and put people in stasis. He's seen talking to some people here and there but we never hear the conversations. If you pay close attention you can find him on the horizon and TVs in various spots in HL2, since he's apparently interested in watching what Gordon's doing. He's also in Episode 2, but not so much in E1 due to something that happens at the beginning.
If you want more (probably after playing HL2), there's a Half-Life wiki that's pretty good about ducomenting this stuff:  http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

• You play as Gordon Freeman, who is a physics scientist dude
• He accidentally opened a portal to an evil dimension full of aliens at the start of Half Life 1
• This guy is called G-Man, and he's mysterious. Is he an alien? Nobody knows. He froze you at the end of HL 1

I can almost see Jeff banging his head against a wall right now.  
 
Earth to OP, you're on website that has a database of almost every game ever made, just search for Half-Life on the website.  
 
Giant Bomb: It's a website about video games. 

K, Heres a small summary. 
 
Meet Gordon Freeman, Physisist and Engineer, has been selected to preform a very critical test. The Test ends up going wrong, ripping a portal and aliens come out of it. So Its up to Gordon to survive, save others, and escape the Black Mesa Facility.  He escapes, Kills head alien, closing the portal and then this man named G-Man ( Who we suspect is either Gordons alter ego, his mind or just some crazy dude who you can find in easter eggs in Half life 2 (I.E in Anticitizen One in the T.V) He offers gordon a job, or death. Gordon accepts the gracious offer of the Job and then Half life 2 begins pretty much. Its Up to gordon to save the world once again! From what? Thats up to YOU to find out!
 
You Really DO NOT Need to play Half life 1 to get the story actually. Exsept nostolgia moments like Who Dr.Breen is, some quotes Eli Vance says, and Ravenholm. And how Vortigaunts are allies. I dident really  bother to finesh Half Life 1.  Guess to long? I dont remember. I beat Half Life 2 and i have to say, VERY VERY VERY Fun. Even though of its HUGE Length. Ive found time now to play it though. LONG STORY SHRORT>In The World Of Valve, Storyline isent a Privalige, Option or even in the game. all it is, is imaginatioooooooon!

Decay

Blue Shift

Black Mesa

• Gordon Freeman arrives late for work at the Black Mesa Research Facility at 8:47 a.m, using its tram system. He acquires his Hazardous Environment suit (or HEV suit) before proceeding to the test chamber of the Anomalous Materials Lab, to assist in an experiment. He is tasked with pushing a non-standard specimen into the scanning beam of the Anti-Mass Spectrometer for analysis. This creates a catastrophe called a "resonance cascade," opening a portal between Earth and a dimension called Xen. Freeman is sporadically teleported there and catches glimpses of various alien life-forms, including a circle of Vortigaunts, shortly before blacking out.
• Freeman awakens in the ruined test chamber and surveys the destroyed lab, strewn with the bodies of scientists and security personnel. Finding survivors, Freeman learns that communication lines to the outside world are completely cut, and is encouraged to head to the surface for help, because of his suit. His journey consists of sidestepping Black Mesa's structural damage and defending himself against hostile aliens suddenly teleporting into the area. Other survivors along the way claim that a rescue team has been dispatched, only to discover that the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit, which has taken control of Black Mesa, is killing both the aliens and the employees there as part of a government cover-up. Freeman fights the Marines before reaching the surface of Black Mesa, where he learns that scientists from the Lambda Complex may have the means to resolve the problems created by the cascade. Gordon travels to the other end of the facility to assist them.
• However, Gordon encounters several hurdles throughout the facility, such as reactivating a rocket engine test facility to destroy a giant tentacle creature, using an aging railway system in order to launch a crucial satellite rocket, and fighting a group of Black Ops soldiers, before he is captured by Marines and dumped in a garbage compactor. Gordon escapes safely and makes his way to an older part of the facility where he discovers an extensive collection of specimens collected from Xen, long before the resonance cascade.
• Reaching the surface once more, Gordon finds that the area has become a warzone. Despite calling for reinforcements, the Marines are being overwhelmed by the alien soldiers. Through scaling the cliffs and navigating destroyed buildings, Gordon reaches safety underground.
• The Marine begin to pull out of Black Mesa and airstrikes begin, while Gordon goes through underground water channels and encounters alien soldiers picking off the remaining Marines.   Freeman arrives at the Lambda Complex, in which scientists developed the teleportation technology that allowed them to travel to Xen in the first place. He also encounters another group of Black Ops.  After meeting the remaining personnel, Gordon is told that the satellite he launched failed to reverse the effects of the resonance cascade because an immensely powerful being on the other side of the rift is keeping it open. Gordon must kill this being to stop the wave of Xen aliens. The scientists activate the teleporter and Gordon is transported to Xen.
• At the border world, Gordon encounters many of the alien species that had been brought into Black Mesa, as well as the remains of HEV-wearing researchers that came before him. He fights against Gonarch, a huge headcrab with a large egg sac, fights his way through an alien camp, and arrives at a massive alien factory, which is creating the Alien Grunt soldiers.   After fighting his way through levitating creatures, he finds a giant portal and enters it.
• In a vast cave, Gordon confronts the Nihilanth, the creature who was maintaining the rift, and destroys it. As the creature dies, it explodes in a giant green blast which knocks Gordon unconscious. Gordon awakens, stripped of his gear, in the presence of the G-Man, who has been watching over Gordon, appearing at least once in each chapter. The G-Man praises Freeman's actions in the border world. He explains that his "employers," believing that Gordon has "limitless potential," have authorized him to offer Freeman a job. He is also given a choice to refuse, but is told that he will be given a battle where he has "no chance of winning." While this is taking place, the scenery they are standing in warps to various Xen locales, ending in one of the tram cars from the beginning of Freeman's day, flying through space. After accepting, the screen goes black and the G-Man is heard to say, "Wisely done, Mr. Freeman. I will see you up ahead." Players who decline G-Man's offer find themselves unarmed and surrounded by hordes of hostile creatures, as G-man says, "No regrets, Mr. Freeman."  

Opposing Force

Go here:  http://members.shaw.ca/halflifestory/
 
End of thread.

The only thing your missing is playing one of the greatest games of all time?