[Guitar Woman]

No Half Life game ever explains the story and I don't understand why everyone thinks it's well written.

Valve just expects you to INFER what's going on without telling you anything, which is retarded. Anyway, my synopsis is this:

The Combine are a race of humanoid aliens who defeated and enslaved humanity in a war that lasted only 7 hours, aptly named the 7 Hours War, and Dr. Breen who was the administrator back at Black Mesa (but was never mentioned in any of the previous games!) is the head of City 17 for some reason, and somehow the Vortigaunt aren't the badguys now and have come over to our world from Xen even though you cut the route between the two off in the first game.

Also, the pistol isn't weak. If anything, it's ridiculously overpowered and one of the more useful weapons in the game.

If you aren't having fun now I hear it gets better once you start open rebellion against the Combine with your homeboys, so mabye hold out for that?