The pistol is one of the most effective weapons in the game when used right. Its excellent accuracy allows you to consistently deal powerful headshots to foes and engage enemies at any range, its common ammo makes finding ammo very easy, and it has the power necessary to defeat most enemies in the game with little trouble. In fact, you can beat most of the game with just the pistol! This guide will show you how to use the pistol to take down almost every enemy in the game.

Let's get started by talking about the basics of the pistol.

The pistol's primary fire does 8 damage per hit. The gun is extremely accurate, meaning you can hit a creature at any range in the game with almost 100% accuracy. Headshots at long range can be difficult, but otherwise you can hit almost anything with ease. It also has a good fire rate, letting you quickly hit enemies with very accurate shots.

If you're using it at very long ranges, such as shooting at an Hgrunt in Surface Tension's Apache area from the other side of a canyon, the gun's spread will make shots miss if you hold down the fire key. When dealing with critters at such ranges, hit the fire key/button once, then wait a second and fire again.

You'll be using the pistol's primary fire for the majority of the game. It's accuracy makes it extremely useful for dealing with enemies at any range.

The pistol's secondary fire does 8 damage per hit. Holding down the fire key will make the gun fire rapidly. However, this comes at a cost; the gun becomes very inaccurate when doing so.

The secondary fire's poor accuracy makes it far less useful than. Not only does it make it difficulty to hit anything past close quarters, it also makes it impossible to land headshots. It's best to be used only in an emergency when an enemy gets right next to you.

The pistol's accuracy makes it a great weapon on it's own, but what really makes it stand out is headshots.

In Half-Life, a headshot will do three times the damage. 24 damage may not seem impressive on it's own, but when you consider how accurate the pistol is, it's high firing rate, and its large magazine, you can quickly do a lot of damage to foes with just pistol headshots.

Pistol ammo is easy to find because it shares ammo with the submachine gun, a weapon most Human Grunts use. The beginning of the game and any chapters filled with Human Grunts, such as On A Rail and Surface Tension, are swimming with pistol ammo, so you shouldn't run out.

Pistol ammo will become a lot more rare when you reach Lambda Bunker, and stays rare throughout the rest of the game, so you'll want to start considering using other weapons when you reach that area.

Before tackling specific enemies, here are some general tips for dealing with enemies.

Half-Life has good AI, but it has one major flaw; the player can position himself so that parts of an enemy can be attacked, but the enemy itself will do nothing because it can't detect the player for some reason.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about. The Alien Grunt's right arm, circled in green, is visible to the player, but the Agrunt is doing nothing while being shot at by the player.


This tends to happen if the player goes through the maps slowly and sneaks up on enemies hiding behind something instead of rushing them. It can still happen if you're playing normally as well, but it's more rare.

Half-Life's enemies have a surprisingly low maximum detection range. If you're far enough away from enemies, they won't attack and will rarely move.

As a pistol-wielding gunslinger, you can exploit this by getting past an enemy's maximum detection range, then opening fire on the now-harmless enemy. Examples of this include the two Human Grunts in the room that has crates flying around overhead and a blockade in On A Rail and some of the Human Grunts in Surface Tension's canyon section.

The picture below is an example. The Human Grunt, circled in green, is too far away from the player to attack.

In several parts of the game, human and alien enemies will fight each other, such as in the below example found in Surface Tension.


When you see this, let the enemies kill each other before attacking. This greatly reduces the amount of enemies you have to deal with and the surviving enemies will be weakened from the battle, letting you easily take them down.

Now that you know about the basics of the pistol and general tactics, you need to learn how to defeat specific foes with it.

Headcrabs don't seem to have a proper “head”, so just fire anywhere to defeat it.

Houndeyes don't appear to have heads, so just shoot them anywhere to defeat them.

The Headcrab on the zombie counts as the head, so shoot it to quickly defeat a zombie. With a tiny bit of practice, you can consistently land headshots on Zombies, making them extremely easy to deal with.

The Alien Slave's large head makes it very easy to land headshots. Firing a shot near the Alien Slave's upper chest means you'll likely hit the head.

The Bullsquid doesn't appear to have a head, so just fire at any part of it.

Do I really need to explain this?

Believe it or not, you can easily defeat an Ichthyosaur with just the pistol. In fact, I've killed every one in HL1 with just the pistol in Medium difficulty. It requires a lot of hit and running, but it is possible. If you want to see the power of the pistol against Ickys, look at the below image:

Before engaging the Icky, find something that will let you quickly escape from water. Almost all of the areas you face Ickys in have ladders that let you quickly escape from the water; use them. Here's a ladder you can use to deal with the Icky at Surface Tension's dam:


Once you've found a way to quickly escape, find the Icky and begin shooting it. Once it begins pursing you, swim back to your escape ladder and go up it. Wait a few seconds so that the Icky goes away from the ladder, then head back in and wait near the ladder. The Icky will charge at you, so shoot it. When it's close, head back up the ladder. Repeat this until it is dead.

With the first Icky you encounter in the game, use the ramp that connects the water to the ramps above the water to do hit and run attacks. The shark cage also works, but keep in mind you'll start drowning before killing the Icky. This forces you to get out of the cage and get air, which makes you vulnerable to the Icky.

Ceiling mounted turrets takes less damage if you hit their bottom. To do the normal amount of damage, hit the turret's gun. With the pistol's accuracy, this should be easy.

However, hitting the turret's gun can be a little hard because it will be constantly firing. You'll have to do a little bit of exploiting in order to safely defeat a ceiling mounted turret.

To do so, have a turret spot you so that it comes out of the ceiling. Once it has, take cover. Now, crouch, and very slowly start coming out of cover while looking where the turret is. Do this until you see a little bit of the turret while it can't see you. Once you've done this, start firing at the gun until the ceiling mounted turret is destroyed.

Despite what its death animation indicates, the Sentry Gun can be defeated with any weapon in the game.

First off, never walk over a red tripwire that's near Sentry Guns. This will activate all of the nearby ones, making it much harder to defeat them because they'll all be firing at you at once.

Defeating an inactive Sentry Gun is very easy. Stay as far away as you can from it, then begin firing at it. It's activation animation is long enough that you can defeat it before it begins firing, and being far away from it means that you'll take little damage if it begins to fire.

Dealing with active Sentry Guns is the same as dealing with Ceiling Mounted Turrets; head into cover, then slowly come out until you can see a little bit of bit poking out without it being able to fire back. Look at the picture below to see what I'm talking about; the active Sentry Gun is circled in green.

Now this is where things start getting tricky.

First off, the gas mask soldiers wear a helmet that reduces damage taken instead. The gas mask itself still counts as a head, but the target is very small and missing means you'll hit the helmet instead. Just fire at their bodies and save yourself the trouble.

Every other type of Human Grunt does not wear a helmet, meaning that headshots will do full damage.

Dealing with Human Grunts in general requires three things; range, isolation, and cover.

Both the MP5 and shotgun the Hgrunt uses becomes less accurate the farther you move. Therefore, the best tip for dealing with an Hgrunt is to make sure you're as far away from the Hgrunt as possible before you start firing. Most of their shots will miss, but yours won't because of the pistol's very high accuracy.

The next tip is to isolate individual Hgrunts. In a group, they can do a lot of damage, but alone, they're easy to deal with. What you need to do is to find ways to fight each Hgrunt one at a time instead of in a group. Some ways to do this are:

*Positioning yourself so that only one Hgrunt can see you. Beware, this might make others to toss grenades, so be ready to run in case the grenades start flying.
* In a group that hasn't seen you yet, attacking one to lure him out, then finish him off when he chases you.
*Toss grenades to flush single Hgrunts out or make them play their “take cover” animation, which makes them unable to attack for a little bit.

There's one dirty trick that can make dealing with Human Grunts easier; breaking line of sight. If a Hgrunt has a line of sight, it will fire at you. However, if you break the line of sight, such as by hiding behind cover or retreating to a nearby hallway, the Hgrunt will begin to run so he can get closer to you. Doing this can also make them toss a grenade in order to flush you out.

What you need to do is break the Hgrunt's line of sight for just a second by quickly popping into cover or retreating, then popping out very soon after you do so. By breaking the Hgrunts line of sight, you will force the Hgrunt to start moving. After you pop out a second later, the Hgrunt will stop and be forced to get into position before firing again. The end of the Hgrunt's run animation and his “get into position” animation will give you just enough time to put a few rounds in him without him being able to fire back. Do this until the Hgrunt has been defeated.

This trick's speed not only means you'll be able to make the Hgrunt unable to fire back, it's also fast enough to avoid making the Hgrunt toss a grenade.

Get ready for pain.

Before taking on the Black Ops with just a pistol, make sure you have a lot of health and armor. Otherwise, be ready to save a lot or use another weapon.

The key to defeating Black Ops with a pistol is to lure them into a hall where they can't get you from behind nor flank you. Some examples of this include the hallway where the security guard is killed when you first encounter them, and the back of the second area you face them in.

You see, Black Ops are fast, but they tend to go to the exact same spot when before they fire at you. This can be exploited to your advantage by staying in one spot, watching where the Black Ops goes to before firing at you. Once you've figured out where they are, just keep your pistol pointed in the general area, then start firing when they appear. However, this takes a lot of health and armor because you'll get hit while figuring out where they're going to stand before they fire.

Headshots are very useful against Black Ops, but their speed can make it difficult to land headshots, so feel free to go for body shots.

It may seem crazy, but dealing with Alien Grunts is very possible with just the pistol, though it'll take some time to defeat one.

When shooting an Alien Grunt, never shoot the creature's blue parts. Hitting these means the Agrunt will take less damage from a shot. Therefore, always aim for the creature's flesh so your shots will do full damage.

Alien Grunts can do a lot of damage with their Hivehands, making them difficult to deal with at first glance. However, with some movement, you can minimize the amount of damage their shots can do to you.

If you have enough room, strafe left and right. The Agrunt's bees will be unable to hit you as long as you're moving either left or right. However, if you're changing direction while the Alien Grunt is still firing, some of the bees will hit you. With this in mind, try to time it so you change direction while the Agrunt is not firing so you don't get hit by some bees while changing direction.

The picture below shows the Agrunt's bees missing while strafing.


If you don’t have enough room to strafe (such as in Lambda Complex), you'll need to use other measures. If I can't strafe, I use the hit and run method; keep your distance from the Agrunt, then begin firing. As soon as he starts shooting, retreat and run a little distance until you no longer hear the Agrunt's bees flying around nor do you near the Agrunt firing anymore. When the bees are gone and the Agrunt has stopped firing, repeat the process again until the Agrunt is dead. It'll take a while, but it works.

Alien Controllers are very easy to deal with when using the pistol. Their big head makes it simple to hit them with the pistol, and the pistol's very high accuracy means you won't miss.

Use your regular strategies (constantly strafing to avoid the creature's electric balls, etc.) to defeat one with the pistol.

Tanks and APCs can be defeated with just the pistol. To do so, you'll have to shoot at the tank's turret. Cover is essential because of how powerful a tank's cannon shell is, so you best strategy is to briefly pop out of cover, land a few shots, then retreat before it can fire.

The rocket-firing APC past the first tank in Surface Tension can easily be defeated with just the pistol by strafing as soon as it fires a rocket. The rocket will take some time to start moving and is somewhat slow, giving you plenty of time to move.

In general, destroying tanks and APCs with the pistol is a huge pain and one mistake can take away a lot of health, so it's best to use an RPG.

In theory, you are able to defeat an Apache with a pistol, as it only takes reduced damage from non-explosives and non-energy weapons, not zero damage. However, this will take a long, long time and requires a lot of health and ammo. Blow it up with the RPG to save yourself the trouble.

In Half-Life Source, the Apache takes full damage from bullets, so taking one on with the pistol is a bit easier.

That's it! Enjoy.