Half-Life 2/Weapons

Half-Life 2's weapons are, while not as varied as the original game's, fairly diverse. Just about every weapon has advantages and drawbacks, and knowing what weapon to use in what situation is very important.

Crowbar
The crowbar is the first "weapon" you find. It comes in quite handy for smashing obstacles, breaking glass, opening crates, or killing headcrabs and normal zombies. It's not much useful for anything else, though.

Zero Point Energy Manipulator (gravity gun)
Not technically a weapon, the Gravity Gun essentially allows you to pick stuff up and blast it away at high speed. This is useful for everything from physics puzzles to actual combat. Primary fire fires a beam of energy at objects that knocks them away (This also works on headcrabs and scanners). Alternate fire grasps objects (provided they are light enough), allowing them to be fired with great accuarcy.

9mm Pistol
The first firearm you find. While not very powerful, this weapon can be fired very quickly, allowing rapid discharge of it's 18 round clip. With good aim, this gun can dispatch even the mighty Combine Elite with relative ease.

.357 Magnum
A very powerful weapon, this handgun fires the most powerful conventional round in the game. A shot to the head with this baby will kill any humanoid enemy. Unfortunately, ammo is scarce, fire rate is slow and reloading is slower.

Submachine gun (SMG)
A rapid-fire assault weapon for which ammo is common. It's not at all accurate, and it is even less powerful than the pistol, but it spits rounds out so fast that you'll wonder where that 45 shot clip went. In addition, this gun has a grenade launcher - capable of clearing groups of soldiers in an instant. Because of all these attributes, the Submachine gun remains a useful gun throughout the entire game.

Shotgun
A pump-action shotgun. It looks powerful, sounds powerful and, most importantly, is powerful. This gun is poorer than the pistol at long range, about as good as the SMG at medium range, and is incredibly effective at close range. Aim for the head at close range and for centre mass at medium range. Don't even bother using it at long range. Notably, this gun reloads shell by shell. 6 shells can be loaded into the shotgun at once. Primary fire launches 1 shell, alternate launches 2.

Crossbow
The crossbow is HL2's sniper rifle. It's silent, it has a scope, and it's capable of eliminating almost anything in 1 shot. Despite it's power, this "gun" does have a few drawbacks. First of all, the projectile is not even close to instant, so it is hard to hit moving targets. Next, it can only load 1 bolt at a time, so it takes some time to reload. Lastly, ammo is very scarce.