macnbc: Short answer: Yes.
Longer answer: Here's basically all you need to know about what happened in the first game:
1. You are Gage Blackwood, Agent 5 of the Temporal Security Agency, whose job is to protect history.
2. You saved the world in the first game.
That's it. Everything else is recapped or reviewed in this game, or is irrelevant to this game's plot.
So feel free to play this game first. I know a lot of people who have, and have gone back to see the first one later!
Oh hey, sorry. I didn't realize someone responded.
Sounds good! Thanks for the synopsis there for the first one.
I've marked you as solution.