[kupoartist]

Lets see... At the end of Half-Life, the G-Man offers you a job (I don't consider this a spoiler - most newbies probably wouldn't know who the G-Man is until they met him, and it was a bit of an oddball, though still great ending). You step off a train zooming through space / another dimension and into a portal.

For whatever reason, Half-Life 2 takes place many years after the events of Black Mesa. Gordon finds himself transported not only in terms of location (From a Secret US research facility to a nameless City in Eastern Europe) but forward in time (An entire decade, some say). Given that the last thing he remembered was killing the Nihlianth (Giant Baby-Faced Floating beasty thingy) and assuming that doing so saved the day for all, finding that earth has been defeated by a hostile alien race and enslaved by them is expected to come as a bit of a shock. With no weapons and pratically no clue as to what the hell is going on, Gordon disembarks from a train in City 17. The Combine police that now patrol the streets then lead Gordon down into an interogation room.... What happens next is unknown.

HL2 contains a bunch of new and old factions. The Combine are the victorious alien race - they look human, but just what is under their heavy breathing aparatus is unknown. Some speculate that they may be partly human (Hence "Combine"). They have drained the oceans, polluted the air, built enourmous sky scraping Citadels in every city and are basically causing a mess. They are either striping the Earth of all precious resources, or else they are preparing it for new inhabitants. The Citadels appear to be the source of this, visibly "eating up" the City in some videos, and it likely that the final objective will be the destruction of this monstrosity.

The Resistance are your pals. Amoung them, Dr Eli Vance and his scientific associates. Eli creates weapons which he supplies to the Resistance - including highly experimental weapons like the Manipulator gun (Which allows Gordon to pick up crates, boxes, radiators and the like and fire them at people: all of which, looks EXTREMELY fun!). The Citizens of City 17 start the game as supressed peoples, just trying to etch out a pitiful existance in light of Combine rule. As the game progresses though, many join your cause in fighting the combine. Important side-kicks come in the guise of Eli's daughter, Alyx (and expert with machines, who has a mechanical buddy named "Dog", seen throwing a car at the enemy in one screenshot) and Barney Calhoun, the security guard from Half-Life: Blue Shift.

There are also those that would co-operate with the combine: a political party, lead by a suspicous character named Dr Breen broadcast their message of co-operation on monitors and television around the city. Word is that Breen was the one who convinced earth to surrender in their futile war with the Combine (a war alledgedly called "the seven hour war". Nice to know we gave it all we had!), so Breen is considered somewhat of a saviour to some, and a mediator between the Combine and the Humans.

Also returning are enemies from the original game. The "Xen Wildlife" (Headcrabs, Zombies, Barnacles and other non-sentient beings from Black Mesa) are back to be a relative nuisance (Headcrabs now have a nasty tendancy to detach from doomed hosts). The Alien "Slaves" (the brown "lightning" aliens with the Green Collars) also return, however they appear to be on your side this time: they are seen assisting Eli Vance in his secret Lab. Beyond them, there are a few more "dumb" animal races (for instance, a race called the Ant-Lions, which can be fooled into fighting for you with the right weapon). The exact plot isn't known, but there is plenty of speculation. Two good articles are: https://www.hlfallout.net/articles.php/article_9/ and https://www.hlfallout.net/articles.php/article_23/ . Yes, I could have just given you those links at the beginning... but I just wanted to write about the game