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Bioshock 2 Hints
ADAM and EVE Tips
1 of 13: As in the original Bioshock, the "magic" system consists of spells called plasmids and magic points called EVE. Each time you use a plasmid, it'll consume some of your EVE.
2 of 13: Each plasmid uses a certain amount of EVE, but it doesn't really matter how much EVE you have when you fire a plasmid -- the plasmid will fire normally even if you only have a tiny fraction of what it uses.
3 of 13: As for getting plasmids, you can find a few free ones lying around in various areas, but you'll have to "buy" most plasmids from Gatherer's Garden machines. (The same goes for tonics, which are basically extra abilities you get when they're active -- kind of like constant-effect spells in other games.)
4 of 13: That's where ADAM comes in. It's a special "genetic currency" that you can only spend at Gatherer's Garden machines to buy new plasmids and tonics, new slots for your plasmids and tonics, and increases in max health and max EVE.
5 of 13: The main way to get ADAM is to get ahold of one of the freaky little girls called "little sisters." Most regions of the game have one or more little sisters wandering around in them. Check the area map to see where all the little sisters in your region currently are.
6 of 13: The catch is that every little sister is accompanied by a huge and powerful guardian called a big daddy. You have to kill a big daddy before you can get ADAM from his little sister.
7 of 13: After a big daddy goes down, his little sister will be helpless. Go up to her to get the option to adopt or harvest her. The keys used for those actions will be shown on-screen (though note that on the PC version, the Adopt key may be different than what's shown),
8 of 13: Yes, I said "adopt." You're a big daddy in this game, and are therefore able to adopt little sisters that you "orphan" and get them to gather ADAM for you. When you have a little sister with you, you can use the Seek key (R on the PC) or the area map to locate corpses that she can extract ADAM from.
9 of 13: During an ADAM extraction, lots of splicers will converge on your position. Some will come after you, and some will go after your little sister. Always concentrate on taking down the ones that are attacking you first, since your little sister can't be hurt or killed. A splicer heckling her will just pause the ADAM extraction process until you kill him or distract him by injuring him.
11 of 13: As for the difference between rescuing and harvesting, rescuing a little sister gets you less ADAM (80 instead of 160), but it saves the life of the little girl who was cruelly transformed into an ADAM-gathering machine. Harvesting her gets you a lot more ADAM, but kills the little girl. Since this is a computer game, you may not feel guilty about killing the girls, but note that rescuing them can get you special rewards.
12 of 13: And now for the big sisters. These are very powerful new big-daddy-like freaks that are a *lot* of trouble to kill. However, despite their advantages over big daddies, you can use pretty much the same combat tips against them.
13 of 13: After you kill a big sister, be sure to loot her body, since doing so is one of the very few ways to get ADAM other than from a little sister. (Another way is to look for special ADAM slugs while moving through ocean areas, but you won't get much of that.)