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Bioshock 2 Hints
Hacking Tips
1 of 8: Many machines in the game can be hacked, including security devices, vending machines, and safes. It's a good idea to become proficient at the hacking minigame early on so you can hack everything you come across.
2 of 8: It's best to always quicksave right before doing a hacking minigame, and again right after finishing it successfully. This is especially useful since the minigame will be the same for any particular device no matter how many times you fail and retry, whether you quickrestore after each failure or not.
3 of 8: Bioshock 2's hacking minigame is a lot quicker to do than the original Bioshock's, but can actually be more frustrating and annoying. You have to stop a fast-moving needle in a green or blue zone on each of the minigame's stages, and there can be up to five stages (though there's usually just one to three).
4 of 8: Thankfully, there are some plasmids and tonics that can help with hacking minigames. Hitting a machine with the Winter Blast plasmid before hacking it will slow the needle a bit, as will having the two Careful Hacker tonics spliced in. Other useful tonics include EZ-Hack, Hurried Hacker, and Quik-Hack.
5 of 8: NOTE: With Hurried Hacker and Quik-Hack, hacking minigames will have fewer stages. That's mostly a good thing, but it will often mean you have fewer chances at getting bonus items by stopping the needle in blue zones. (Hitting two more blue zones per hack will get you two or more bonuses.)
6 of 8: There's also a hack tool weapon that you can use to hack devices remotely. Shoot them with remote hack darts and do the usual minigame, or shoot them with auto-hack darts so you can skip the minigame (and any possible blue-zone bonuses).
7 of 8: You should save most of your hack darts for security devices, especially cameras and turrets, since they're the ones that are dangerous to approach. Strafe out of cover long enough to shoot your target device with a dart, then strafe quickly back into cover so you can do the hacking minigame while hidden.
8 of 8: With security devices that aren't too far away, you can save on hack darts by hitting them with Electro Bolt or Winter Blast, then running up to them and hacking them before they can recover. (If doing so doesn't put you in range of another unhacked security device or other enemy. Remember that the game isn't paused while you hack.)
