USP Match


 * "Hey, you found a gun!" - Alyx Vance

The Pistol is a semi-automatic handgun and the first firearm the player acquires in Half-Life 2. The player acquires their first Pistol in the chapter "Route Kanal", when they kill a Civil Protection officer who they encounter in a maintenance tunnel near the trainyards, beating a civilian.

The pistol appears to be the Combine's standard sidearm, and is often carried by Civil Protection officers.

Overview
The pistol is based on the Heckler & Koch USP Match, and mirrors it very closely in appearance and capabilities, being a standard semi-automatic pistol design with a black polymer frame and stainless steel slide. The pistol is a reliable and accurate weapon, with a high capacity double-stack magazine. One of the weapon's most prominent features is a stylish compensator which acts to reduce recoil.

Although the pistol lacks considerable stopping power, it has a high rate of fire (as fast as the trigger can be pulled) and a sizeable 18-round magazine. It is a useful all-rounder and is particularly effective against weak and/or slow enemies, such as metro cops, headcrabs, barnacles, zombies and scanners. It is also the only firearm that can fire underwater.

Its accuracy is exceptional within its effective range, but precision wanes somewhat at long ranges as the weapon fires a fairly light cartridge. For long range shooting, the .357 Revolver is a much better bet.

Tactics
The pistol is not particularly effective against multiple targets, it is better when facing off against one or two targets at a time. When engaged in a firefight using the Pistol, aim for the target's head. Aiming for the body is not very effective, especially not if the target is wearing body armour, and it can take up to seven shots at medium range to score a kill. On the other hand, it normally takes only two shots to the head to kill.

The pistol is significantly more accurate than the SMG and does a little more damage, so it makes for a good backup weapon if your other weapons are running low on ammo.

Ammunition is plentiful in the early chapters while battling Civil Protection officers in the Canals, but it becomes slightly harder to come by in later chapters, where it is usually only found in some supply crates and abandoned outposts.

Both Civil Protection officers and Overwatch Soldiers can be killed by a single shot to back of the head if they are unaware of the player's presence, even on hard difficulty.

Holding down both the alternate fire button and the primary fire button allows you to "charge up" the gun and fire a more powerful shot at the expense of several bullets. However, this has been removed in Episode 1 and 2, since it was unintentional.

Additional Information

 * The Pistol strongly resembles a USP Match, however, it has several cosmetic differences and the match attachment is altered from the version in real life.


 * When the Pistol is reloaded, the slide does not appear to need any manual operation.


 * When the Pistol is fired, no spent cartridge casings are ejected. This is likely to be a bug, unless the Combine have developed caseless pistol ammunition.


 * In the 2003 beta leak, the Pistol had a larger texture and did eject spent cartridge casings.