Half-Life 2 Prologue

[dan_brew]

I know that most people don't know the full story about the beginning of Half-Life 2, but that's not what I'm after today. What I'd like is a quick prologue to Half-Life 2.

What were the main story turning points in HL, Opposing Force and Blue Shift? I've searched online for the full story but they're all too brief and unexplanitory.

I know HL had the G-Man who's probably behind all the stuff like the smoking man in X-Files.

I know there's the scientists at Black Mesa who stuffed up an experiement and let aliens from the planet Xen teleport onto Earth. Then there's the marines whose mission is to rescue the scienists at first, but then to kill them (for what reason??).

Then there's that "black squad" or something who attack the soldiers and the scientists.

Is Gordon Freeman just some scientist, or is he special?

Please no spoilers to Half-Life 2!!!

 

[CTTcrew_MrBlue]

I know that most people don't know the full story about the beginning of Half-Life 2, but that's not what I'm after today. What I'd like is a quick prologue to Half-Life 2.

What were the main story turning points in HL, Opposing Force and Blue Shift? I've searched online for the full story but they're all too brief and unexplanitory.

I know HL had the G-Man who's probably behind all the stuff like the smoking man in X-Files.

I know there's the scientists at Black Mesa who stuffed up an experiement and let aliens from the planet Xen teleport onto Earth. Then there's the marines whose mission is to rescue the scienists at first, but then to kill them (for what reason??).

Then there's that "black squad" or something who attack the soldiers and the scientists.

Is Gordon Freeman just some scientist, or is he special?

Please no spoilers to Half-Life 2!!!

Gordon is just some good ol scientist who happens to be good at hitting stuff with a crowbar

 

[frances_farmer]

The marines mission was not to save the scientists, thats just what the scientists thought. The marines mission was to coverup the experiment and kill anyone involved so that the public would not find out.

Personally I think the Gman or administrator had an agreement with the Xen aliens and purposefully made the experiment go wrong and let the aliens in for some kinda benefits from the aliens, perhaps money or power.

 

[Mr-Fusion]

The marines were sent in to kill everything, silence everyone. It wasn't a rescue mission.

Gordon says "**** that" and fights back.

I'm guessing the black ops were sent in after they realised the marines probably weren't best equipped to handle the situation.

I have no idea who's sending who into black mesa. But basically, Half-Life 1, the shit hit the fan.

Half-LIfe 2 you're walking in the post-shit-fan-hitting-world. Shit is everywhere and it's a messy situation.

Hope that helps :|

 

[dan_brew]

Throughout the HL series, who do you see the G-Man talking to? I saw him walk through a portal in Opposing Force.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

Half Life:
You are Dr Gordon Freeman working in Black Mesa.
Dr Freeman is a victim of circumstances.
G-Man keeps an eye on him and hires him after killing the big alien brain.

Opposing Force:
Clean up the mess at Black Mesa by killing everyone associated with the project.
Eventually you are given orders to find Freeman and capture him anyway you can.

G-Man captures you and sends you off to another planet where you can't hurt anyone and nobody can hurt you.

G-Man and his employers don't trust military guys.

Blue Shift:
Barney Calhoun is also a victim of circumstances.
He is stuck in the middle of the entire incident at BM and escapes without being caught by the G-Man.

 

[Solver]

Read the following thread:

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=50126

 

[Griz]

.........basically, Half-Life 1, the shit hit the fan.

Half-LIfe 2 you're walking in the post-shit-fan-hitting-world. Shit is everywhere and it's a messy situation.

Hope that helps :|

LOL, if Valve had used that version, "Raising the Bar" could've been written on the back of a postage stamp.

 

[KagePrototype]

The 3 day events of Half-Life, Opposing Force, Blue Shift and Decay, Taken from: http://website.lineone.net/~wingerden/

(With most if not all the BS speculation removed)

Lambda Incident, Day One

In the early hours of the morning a system-wide computer failure occurred throughout the Black Mesa Research Facility. The facility’s computer scientists swiftly re-established the computer network but the crash had resulted in numerous problems with the security system and electronic doors, and also with some other computer-dependent devices.

Dr. Rosenberg, the designer of the anti-mass spectrometer, met Dr. Keller in the Anomalous Materials Laboratory with concerns he had about the experiment. He had never intended the machine to be put under the strain it would experience when running at 110%, the scanners normally being run at a power level of 80% of their designed capacity. He warned Dr. Keller that the spectrometer would overload, which could result in significant damage and might be dangerous. Also a few other scientists had expressed concerns that such a pure specimen, with little internal interference to its displacement fields and a vast amount of potential displacement energy, would also be the most unstable sample ever analysed, the unusual spectral fluctuations supporting this. The worry was that scans of such untried intensities could release an unprecedented burst of displacement energy, potentially sufficient to cause the resonance cascade scenario that had been once been hypothesised – where an extremely powerful Earth-based displacement field would attract the natural fields in the Xen borderworld, the resulting influx of displacement energy tearing a dimensional breach between Xen spacetime and our own.

Many scientists doubted that a resonance cascade was actually physically possible, and in any case the facility’s containment system, which created powerful dampening fields to neutralise stray displacement energy, would collect any dangerous excesses that were released during the scan. Personnel had been trained in emergency procedures for if an anti-mass spectrometer overload did occur, and the senior staff felt that the theoretical and practical gains that could be had from further understanding the Xen crystals’ spacetime effects outweighed the cost of replacing a destroyed anti-mass spectrometer.

Dr. Freeman did not give himself enough time to travel from the Dormitories to the Anomalous Materials Laboratory. His late arrival was especially frowned upon due to the importance of the day’s experiment. Dr. Gina Cross inserted the sample into the test chamber’s sample delivery elevator; while Dr. Colette Green allowed the spectrometer to be run at 110% by disabled the appropriate safety system. Dr. Gordon Freeman activated the rotors of the anti-mass spectrometer while Dr. Colette Green monitored the system. All three of these scientists wore MK. IV HEV Hazardous Environment protective suits.

Gordon Freeman inserted the sample into the anti-mass spectrometer. A displacement field of incredible strength immediately formed within the crystal and then expanded rapidly. A powerful electromagnetic field was also produced which interfered with the electronic equipment, preventing the scientists in the control room from shutting down the spectrometer. The displacement field was of such strength that not only did it experience interference from the fields within the borderworld’s crystals, but also the one being created in our world interfered with the displacement fields on Xen. Displacement energy from the Xen crystals poured through “inter-space” and amplified the field on Earth, until it became self-sustaining – a resonance cascade. Dr. Gordon Freeman, located only metres away from the test sample, was caught within the resonating spacetime and momentarily propelled into the borderworld, before falling back into our own universe.

In the period shortly after the resonance cascade, the fluctuating displacement field of the dimensional breach caused vast numbers of various Xen life forms to randomly materialise throughout the Black Mesa Research Facility. Most of the Black Mesa personnel made their way from the base’s sub-levels to the surface of the facility in the hope of rescue. Gordon Freeman left the Anomalous Materials. Dr. Keller wanted to take immediate action to prevent the further expansion of the dimensional breach, but Dr. Rosenberg felt that their main priority should be the lives of the people in Black Mesa, and therefore they should send a signal so that military forces could be sent in to rescue them.

Rosenberg, Gina Cross and Colette Green used the Anomalous Materials Laboratory’s still functioning elevator. The elevator that would allow them to reach the surface was located in Sector A, but it was not properly functioning and Gina and Colette passed through the training facility’s Hazard Course to operate the manual controls. When they reached the communications facility, they re-aligned the dish and Dr. Rosenberg was able to establish a satellite uplink and made contact with the outside world.

It would take some time for the military to reach the facility and rescue everyone and in the meantime the dimensional rift was widening. Dr Keller was concerned that the rift could expand to such a degree that it would become impossible to seal, and therefore action had to be taken immediately. Although the dampening fields had failed to prevent the resonance cascade it was hoped that if the fields were re-initialised they could absorb the rift’s displacement energy and cause a resonance reversal, sealing the dimensional breach. While U.S. Marines arrived by helicopter Cross and Green reset the secondary and then the primary dampening locks, but Keller discovered that displacement energy was being beamed through the rift from the borderworld and this prevented the containment system from stopping the rift’s expansion. The resonance cascade had ended so the only explanation was that the sentient Xen beings were purposely holding the rift open – the only possible explanation was that not all of the aliens were here by accident, and this was an actual invasion.

The US Marines arrived and quickly put the facility under lock-down conditions and took control of Black Mesa’s central control centre. When the scale of the disaster became clear, marines arrived from various military bases by aircraft, by road and by the New Mexico Railway. The Black Mesa civilians that reached the surface were not evacuated – instead of the standard containment procedure, from the top came the command for a full-scale clean-up operation. Containment was the operation’s main priority; but in this case it was the containment of information as well as the alien threat. The soldiers could be ordered to “forget” all that they saw, but the scientists and security guards of Black Mesa could not be expected to keep quiet. The marines were ordered to silence them, and very few questioned their orders. Most of the Black Mesa personnel were immediately killed on sight, while others were detained for interrogation in various secured locations such as cargo containers within the facility’s freight yard.

Several scientists were freed from captivity by security guard Barney Calhoun. One of these was Dr. Rosenberg, and Calhoun helped him reach one of the old teleportation laboratories located beneath the freight yards, where two other scientists were waiting. They had formulated a plan to use the outdated machinery to teleport to outside of the military perimeter around the facility, but the old technology was not calibrated to account for the spatial interference from Xen’s anomalous crystalline structures. The displacement device could not accurately target an Earth target without a signal from an untested relay device that had been left in the Xen borderworld. Barney Calhoun was teleported to the borderworld to activate the device.

Although the dampening fields from the facility’s containment system had failed to cause a resonance reversal, Dr. Keller believed that the prototype displacement beacon at the Gamma Complex could be used instead to seal the dimensional rift and end the invasion. The beacon used some reasonably pure Xen crystals to generate a powerful displacement field, which previously had been used to create miniature dimensional breaches which would pull alien specimens to Earth and directly into a holding area for capture. For the beacon to cause a resonance reversal, its displacement field would have to be correctly calibrated to neutralise the one within the dimensional rift, but unfortunately the advanced sensor equipment in the Lambda Complex could not scan the rift because it was too close to the anomaly. The necessary analysis could be made if the Omega Satellite was launched into geo-stationary orbit, since it was equipped with sensors designed to detect displacement events and monitor the teleportation networks in the Black Mesa facility. Unfortunately no rockets could be launched while “lock-down” was in effect, and an “all-clear” signal would have to be transmitted.

Doctors Cross and Green headed through the Level 3 Dormitories and found a security guard with the necessary codes. While Dr. Freeman was using an experimental rocket engine to destroy a tentacle infestation in the Sector D silo, Cross and Green regained control of Black Mesa Air-Traffic Control and uploaded the codes to the delivery rocket in Silo E. Before the scientists in the High Altitude Launch Facility could launch the satellite they were killed by the military, which had reached them using the facility’s maze-like materials transport network. The marines did not know the nature of the scientists’ plan and therefore made no attempt to launch the delivery rocket themselves. A security guard told Gordon Freeman of what had occurred and Freeman fought his way through the rail network to Silo E.

Gina Cross and Colette Green used Black Mesa’s canal system to access a system of service tunnels and maintenance areas, which connected to the silo for the Gamma labs’ prototype displacement beacon. When the platform controls failed they manually raised the beacon to the surface. Gordon Freeman eliminated the soldiers in the High Altitude Launch Facility and resumed the rocket launch sequence. The Omega satellite entered geo-stationary orbit, and the scientists in the Lambda and Gamma labs used the sensor telemetry to correctly calibrate the displacement beacon to initiate a resonance reversal. Before the reversal could be attempted Gina and Colette had to pass through the Gamma Complex’s quarantine labs in order to activate the beam matrix, which provides the displacement energy to power the beacon.

 

[KagePrototype]

The 3 day events of Half-Life, Opposing Force, Blue Shift and Decay, Taken from: http://website.lineone.net/~wingerden/

(With most if not all the BS speculation removed)

Day Two

Gina Cross and Colette Green returned to the surface and activated the displacement beacon. The Xen beings detected the concentration of displacement energy and they attacked in force to try and destroy the beacon. This attack included an assault by the Xen equivalent of a fighter aircraft, an airborne “manta ray” creature armed with a disintegrating beam of energised plasma, as well as alien soldiers. The two scientists killed the large flying creature with rocket-propelled grenades and successfully activated the beacon. The beacon fired displacement energy into several samples of Xen crystal, which created a displacement field specially calibrated to be in anti-phase with the field of the dimensional breach, neutralising the displacement energy and causing the rift to go into recession. The displacement energy that the Xen aliens were transmitting through the rift continued to hold the rift open, however, so direct action would have to be taken against the Xen aliens to collapse the dimensional breach and stop the invasion.

Barney Calhoun returned from Xen after successfully completing his mission, but the teleporter’s power cell had been exhausted and there was not enough power remaining for Barney Calhoun, Dr. Rosenberg, Walter and Simmons to escape. Barney ventured into the auxiliary generator facility beneath the old test labs to activate the old plasma generators and charge a new power cell for the teleportation machinery.

After launching the satellite delivery rocket, Dr. Freeman had passed through flooded maintenance and storage areas. When Gordon reached a cryogenic storage area, he was told be another scientist that both the military and the Black Mesa personnel were following his progress using the facility’s security systems – the HEV suits were full of tracking devices. So far he had survived both alien and human attack due to the reactive armour of his hazard suit and removing this protection was not an option.

A small group of female assassins had been given the specific task of killing Dr. Freeman. The research associate had succeeded in killing large numbers of marines and was severely interfering with the military operation. The military surveillance allowed them to ambush him but the assassination attempt failed. Shortly afterwards, however, Freeman was captured by two standard marines, which had cleverly hidden themselves and then knocked him out from behind.

After activating the plasma generators Barney Calhoun was able to charge a power cell and send it to the old displacement field lab. A displacement field had to be opened four times; portals were created for Walter and Simmons first, then Dr. Rosenberg, who set the device on automatic to create a portal for Calhoun. During the portal-formation process the military managed to break into the old lab. Their commander had been informed by the facility’s Administrator as to the nature of the prototype test labs and that they presented a means of escaping the facility. Some soldiers had crawled through vents and cut through a door, others had used explosives to blast through the lab’s main entrance while some came up the elevator from the auxiliary power facility. Pinned down by gunfire, Barney Calhoun narrowly escaped with his life, reaching the portal just before the displacement field collapsed.

The location that Calhoun and the scientists had been able to reach was a vehicle checkpoint several miles from the perimeter of the facility. After emerging from the portal Barney Calhoun was caught in a harmonic flux and was momentarily teleported to Xen, and then to a storage room in the facility. Before becoming dimensionally stable and returning to the security checkpoint, Calhoun witnessed Gordon Freeman being dragged by the two soldiers. They had been given orders to take him topside for questioning, but the military vendetta that had developed against Freeman led them to try and kill him, in an unconventional manner. Barney Calhoun re-appeared at the checkpoint and found that Walter had opened the gate and Simmons had hotwired one of the facility’s SUV Explorer vehicles – and Rosenberg told him the wonderful the truth: they had escaped.

The soldier’s that had captured Dr. Freeman dumped him in a waste compactor and attempted to crush him. Gordon regained consciousness, however, and managed to clamber on top of the debris to avoid being crushed.

Spacetime was no longer as chaotic as it was immediately following the resonance cascade, and Xen animals were rarely falling out of their own dimension into ours. Against the expectations of Black Mesa’s scientists, the Xen military force had started to appear in formation in strategic locations – the dimensional breach allowed them to use their organic teleportation techniques to reach Earth and the sentient Xen creatures were taking the opportunity to make a coordinated attack. The containment operation became a full-scale war between human and alien soldiers.

On day two of the incident several new alien races appeared in the facility. They were not from Xen, but in fact from an entirely separate dimensional borderworld that Earth had only just begun to have contact with. In the past a combination of malfunctions and miscalculations during experiments with the Gamma labs’ displacement beacon had somehow extracted a few small creatures from their world instead of the Xen dimension - they were the young of the dominant species. Also extracted was a plant that formed large spheres of corrosive spores which were found to be appropriate to the creatures’ diet. The scientists believed they had captured a new Xen species and were unaware of the creatures’ true origins, and had sent to the labs at the Biodome facility for study.

This “Race-X” somehow detected the dimensional rift on Earth and decided to invade using their own organic teleportation technology. At first very a few “Shock Troopers” were sent to scout in our world and they seized humans that they encountered and teleported them back to their own dimension for study. They also released an inferior species, “Pit-Drones” to fight both humans and Xen beings in Black Mesa.

It was the siege’s second afternoon when the Marines were ordered to pull out of the Black Mesa facility. The stream of creatures from the Xen borderworld showed no signs of stopping, and if a larger military force were sent in the chances of information regarding the nature of the facility and the incident being leaked would be significantly increased. There was no way that the government was going to allow the truth to come out. The dimensional breach did not seem to be widening and the beings were materialising only in the facility area, so the Special Projects Executive decided to completely destroy Black Mesa, without the knowledge of the U.S. military, which still wished to recapture the installation.

A large contingent of black ops forces were sent into Black Mesa, and the marines that had not yet been evacuated assumed that they were simply taking their place or had been ordered to capture a particular objective. Their mission was in fact to detonate a thermonuclear warhead. When the standard military pulled out many marines remained trapped within Black Mesa, and the black ops opened fire on any they encountered because they could not allow any interference in completing their objective.

The activation of the displacement beacon caused a resonance reversal that should have caused the dimensional rift to collapse and then be sealed, but something was creating an enormous displacement field from Xen to our world that was holding the breach open. When Gordon Freeman reached Level A of the Lambda Complex, the scientists there gave him a mission – to eliminate whatever entity was creating this powerful portal and controlling the alien invasion. Freeman was sent to the Xen borderworld using the Lambda Complex’s Large Displacement Field Generator. The unstable spacetime conditions caused new displacement fields to branch off from the main one, forming several stable portals between random locations on Earth and Xen. The dimensional rift also caused prototype Displacer personal teleportation devices to open portals to random locations on Earth or Xen instead of their pre-designated teleportation zones, as several unfortunate scientists and a fortunate Corporal Adrian Shepard were to discover.

 

[KagePrototype]

The 3 day events of Half-Life, Opposing Force, Blue Shift and Decay, Taken from: http://website.lineone.net/~wingerden/

(With most if not all the BS speculation removed)

Day Three

Gordon Freeman succeeded in reaching “Nihilanth”, the being that was controlling the attack – an enormous creature that drew displacement energy from the borderworld’s crystalline structures and was capable of manipulating spacetime at will. The incursions mankind had made on Xen during the teleportation experiments had shown the creature that humanity was a threat, and the dimensional breach had allowed it to teleport an army of creatures to Black Mesa in a massive counterattack. Gordon Freeman and the alien being fought each other in a pitched battle between Earth weaponry and alien spatial manipulation and eventually Freeman succeeded in killed the entity. The displacement field it was generating disappeared and the dimensional breach was no-longer held open. Human technology could create portals to Xen but the aliens’ biological technology could not, so the invasion from Xen was over. On learning that the dimensional rift had been sealed the G-Man offered Dr. Gordon Freeman employment, and earth's forces seemingly invaded and took over Xen.

In a secure underground storage facility, Race-X had managed to create an organic displacement gateway of a type completely unlike that used by humans or the Xen creatures. Although the dimensional rift had collapsed with the death of Nihilanth Race-X’s portal maintained a link between our world and theirs. A group of soldiers and scientists working together had prepared two experimental weapons that used small pieces of Xen crystal to fire beams of displacement energy, disrupting spacetime and disintegrating matter. The humans had used these weapons to destroy a veritable army that came through the portal but they were overwhelmed, and the shocktroopers seized them and teleported them to their home dimension for study. With the opposition disposed of, through the portal came a “Gene-Worm”.

Fortunately, Corporal Adrian Shepard took control of the experimental energy weapons and fired them into the Gene-Worm’s vulnerable body areas, its eyes and then the interior of its body, which opened whenever the creature tried to create portals to bring in reinforcements. The dying being retreated into the portal but lost control of its enormous dimensional energies and exploded.

Corporal Shepard had killed the black operators who had been arming a thermonuclear warhead, but shortly before Shepard reached the Gene-Worm the G-Man re-armed the device. Soon after the destruction of the Gene-Worm and the chamber that contained Race-X’s dimensional portal, the surface of the Black Mesa Research Facility was vaporised in a thermonuclear explosion, and the underground complexes were smashed and forever buried beneath the radioactive crater. The G-Man teleported him out of there before he went with the explosion, then sent Corporal Shepard to be detained.

 

[dan_brew]

thanks for the help. I'm playing Opposing Force at the moment, it's great. Just wanted to know the story before HL2, because I'll probably start that before finishing OF.

Do you think that Half Life 2 will be very good? I mean, it's got massive hype, but so did Black and White and DX: Invisible War, which were both poor games.

Let me know in a couple of days

 

[Bing_Oh]

Ok, hold on. It's gonna be a quick ride through HL and its expansions.

In HL, you played Gordon Freeman, a scientist in the Anomolious Materials Lab. During a not-so-routine analysis of a yellow Xen crystal (which Gordon was a part of), a Resonance Cascade happens, causing random teleportation from Xen into the Black Mesa research Facility (BMRF). Gordon, who survived the incident because of his hazard suit, is tasked with reaching help outside the base for his fellow scientists. On his adventure, Gordon runs into Marines sent to cover up the incident and kill the remaining science team, Black Ops sent to REALLY cover up the incident (see OpFor), and finds that BMRF is really experimenting in teleportation and has known about Xen for a long time (but Xen's discovery was an accident). Gordon ends up being teleported by the scientists in the Lambda Labs to kill an unknown creature in Xen (Nilithath) who is, apparently, keeping the portal between Xen and earth open. He does, and is recruited by the mysterious G-Man (who has been seen in all around BMRF during your adventure...either helping our manipulating you for the most part) for "employment."

In OpFor (Opposing Forces), you play Adrian Shephard, one of the Marines on the "rescue party." You're shot down enroute to BMRF and find yourself inside the facility. You and your fellow Marines discover that the Black Ops aren't exactly on your side and run across a plot by the Black Ops (at the G-Man's direction) to blow up BMRF with a nuke. You end up trapped in BMRF when the Marines pull out intentionally by the G-Man. You also come across the so-called "Race X" aliens, which didn't appear in HL and seem to be more soldier-like. In the end, after killing a big green alien-thing, the G-Man puts you someplace "where you can do no harm...and no harm can some to you." Oh, and you see BMRF blown up by the nuke that was activated by the G-Man.

In Blue Shift, you're Barney Calhoun, a security guard at BMRF. You end up trying to help a group of scientists who are attempting to escape BMRF and the Xen aliens and Marines who are trying to kill them. You discover that Xen is a vital component in teleportation, as it is a "middle ground" that must be gone through to teleport from one place on earth to another. You and a small group of scientists manage to escape using old teleporter tech.

Confused yet? Just play them on Steam...they're worth it.

EDIT...Somebody's always faster posting then I am... :frown:

 

[Robert]

Gordon is just some good ol scientist who happens to be good at hitting stuff with a crowbar

No, Gordon is not "some good ol scientist", Gordon is YOU. That's what makes the game so.. personal.

 

[Griz]

thanks for the help. I'm playing Opposing Force at the moment, it's great. Just wanted to know the story before HL2, because I'll probably start that before finishing OF.

Do you think that Half Life 2 will be very good? I mean, it's got massive hype, but so did Black and White and DX: Invisible War, which were both poor games.

Let me know in a couple of days

The difference is that HL2 has the reviews to back it up, with average scores well over 90%.

 

[Llama]

The 3 day events of Half-Life, Opposing Force, Blue Shift and Decay, Taken from: http://website.lineone.net/~wingerden/

(With most if not all the BS speculation removed)

most of that text is utter rubbish. It wasnt produced by the publishers, and the writer uses his in-game experience for the background. Besides, Decay and Blueshift dont matter as they make no diffewrnce to Half Life 2. Op Force may make a differnce as it is an official expansion pack, but not the others.

 

[KagePrototype]

most of that text is utter rubbish. It wasnt produced by the publishers, and the writer uses his in-game experience for the background. Besides, Decay and Blueshift dont matter as they make no diffewrnce to Half Life 2. Op Force may make a differnce as it is an official expansion pack, but not the others.

If you bothered to read it, I said I removed almost all the BS speculation I could find (beleive me, he added a lot of his own stuff in that I had to remove just now by reading the whole bloody thing). Everything else comes from what happens and what is found out in the games, and to me makes sense based on what I remember from playing the games. I included Decay to fill in the gaps in the Half-Life story, and Blue Shift does count because it tells you how Barney got out of Black Mesa. He wanted to know what happened, and I told him. It makes no difference if it had any effect on HL2.

 

[Didymium]

As far as I know, Marc Laidlaw wrote the stories or at least had big influence in the stories for all the expansions, so while he may not follow up everything in the sequel he most definately had them at the back of his head while writing it.

 

[MindCrafter]

Ok, hold on. It's gonna be a quick ride through HL and its expansions.

In HL, you played Gordon Freeman, a scientist in the Anomolious Materials Lab. During a not-so-routine analysis of a yellow Xen crystal (which Gordon was a part of), a Resonance Cascade happens, causing random teleportation from Xen into the Black Mesa research Facility (BMRF). Gordon, who survived the incident because of his hazard suit, is tasked with reaching help outside the base for his fellow scientists. On his adventure, Gordon runs into Marines sent to cover up the incident and kill the remaining science team, Black Ops sent to REALLY cover up the incident (see OpFor), and finds that BMRF is really experimenting in teleportation and has known about Xen for a long time (but Xen's discovery was an accident). Gordon ends up being teleported by the scientists in the Lambda Labs to kill an unknown creature in Xen (Nilithath) who is, apparently, keeping the portal between Xen and earth open. He does, and is recruited by the mysterious G-Man (who has been seen in all around BMRF during your adventure...either helping our manipulating you for the most part) for "employment."

In OpFor (Opposing Forces), you play Adrian Shephard, one of the Marines on the "rescue party." You're shot down enroute to BMRF and find yourself inside the facility. You and your fellow Marines discover that the Black Ops aren't exactly on your side and run across a plot by the Black Ops (at the G-Man's direction) to blow up BMRF with a nuke. You end up trapped in BMRF when the Marines pull out intentionally by the G-Man. You also come across the so-called "Race X" aliens, which didn't appear in HL and seem to be more soldier-like. In the end, after killing a big green alien-thing, the G-Man puts you someplace "where you can do no harm...and no harm can some to you." Oh, and you see BMRF blown up by the nuke that was activated by the G-Man.

In Blue Shift, you're Barney Calhoun, a security guard at BMRF. You end up trying to help a group of scientists who are attempting to escape BMRF and the Xen aliens and Marines who are trying to kill them. You discover that Xen is a vital component in teleportation, as it is a "middle ground" that must be gone through to teleport from one place on earth to another. You and a small group of scientists manage to escape using old teleporter tech.

Confused yet? Just play them on Steam...they're worth it.

EDIT...Somebody's always faster posting then I am... :frown:

LOL, our avatars is the exact opposite of eachothers

 

[Bing_Oh]

LOL, our avatars is the exact opposite of eachothers

For just a second there, I thought I was posting in a blackout again...your avatar really threw me! That's far too cool.

 

[wayne white]

gordon is you?...yea right,if you are an mit graduate that is.

 

[Crowbar 15]

Gordon is just some good ol scientist who happens to be good at hitting stuff with a crowbar

LOL!!!



Very True!!