Big Daddy (Bouncer)

Bouncers are tough. These are the first kinds of Big Daddies that you come across, although you'll only kill one of them before dealing with Rosies for a long period of time.

Laying down proximity mines will let you get a big first blow on the Big Daddies.

Offensively, Bouncers are easy to describe, since they only really have three methods of attack. If they're far away from you, they'll attempt to charge into you, which will knock you back and deal a lot of damage. If they're up close, they'll swing their fist, which will also deal a lot of damage. Lastly, they can strike their fists into the ground; this doesn't deal much damage, but will make it much more difficult to run away. You'll take a lot of damage when fighting a Bouncer, so try not to engage them unless you have a lot of first aid packs on your person.

At first, you won't have many options to deal with Bouncers; all you'll really be able to do is unload on them with electrical buck ammo and try to keep them stunned while you backpedal. Later in the game you'll have a lot more weapons to use on them, but you'll still have to be aware that the fight will proceed on their terms; it'll be difficult to keep them off of you, in other words.

If you have the benefit of being able to plan ahead, try laying down a bunch of proximity mines between you and the Bouncer before attacking it. When you have a bunch of mines laid down, flip over to frag grenades and start chucking those at the Bouncer. That should significantly weaken him, and when he tries to charge you, he'll hit the mines and take even more damage. Although he'll still be alive, most likely, you can start to finish him off with either crossbow ammo, electric buck, or anti-armor machinegun fire from close range. If he's really low on health, you can fight fire with fire and wear him down with the wrench. This is by no means an exhaustive list of ways to take these guys out (in larger levels, we liked to use Hypnotize Big Daddy on them, then lure them back to another Bouncer and have them fight each other), but it should get you started on taking them out.

Keep in mind that dying sends you right back to a Vita-Chamber. If you're having a lot of trouble with a Bouncer, simply lure it back to a Vita-Chamber, attack it until you die, then pop out of the Chamber and repeat the process until the enemy is dead. There's no penalty for using a Vita-Chamber, so this is a valid course of action if you're getting stomped.

Research Bonuses

Video Walk-through

Taking down Big Daddies is easier the farther you get in the game.

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Big Daddies are easy to research: they respawn when killed and there are usually a few of them per level. If they're escorting a Little Sister, run up to them to get them angry, then quickly take a picture; you'll earn an Action Shot bonus for your snapshot. If you have to kill one to reach a Little Sister, wander around for a bit and a different one will eventually spawn, letting you take more snapshots.

First you get the Wrench Jockey 2 tonic, which increases the amount of damage you deal with your wrench. Later on you get a blanket 50% upgrade to all wrench damage; this isn't a tonic or a plasmid, so it doesn't take up a slot, but is instead always active.

Big Daddy (Rosie)

Rosies are similar to Bouncers in terms of their overall health, but feature different attacks. Whereas Bouncers want to get up close and personal, Rosies will be more than happy to stand back and attack from a distance. They'll use their rivet guns to fire nails at you; each one will deal a significant amount of damage to you, so try to find some kind of cover to duck behind instead of facing them out in the open. In addition, Rosies will drop proximity mines near you. If they hit you, they explode, and you can also wind up walking over them in the heat of battle. If you're quick, you can use telekinesis to catch the grenade and chuck it back at the Rosie, but you'll probably be using a weapon as it comes your way, so just focus on dodging.

Without all the knockback effects of the Bouncer, the Rosies usually wind up being easier fights, at least in our opinion. They won't try and charge you, but will instead simply stand and fire at you if you don't move around too much. While their fire hurts and can be difficult to dodge, strafing around them seems to help, and you'll be able to return fire yourself without getting knocked around.

When possible, use Hypnotize Big Daddy to get the Big Daddies to take each other out.

The same weapons that work on the Bouncer work well on the Rosies. Use a full clip of frag grenades to open the fight and deal the meat of the damage, then flip over to anti-armor machinegun ammo or crossbow bolts to seal the deal.

Research Bonuses

Big Daddies are easy to research: they respawn when killed and there are usually a few of them per level. If they're escorting a Little Sister, run up to them to get them angry, then quickly take a picture; you'll earn an Action Shot bonus for your snapshot. If you have to kill one to reach a Little Sister, wander around for a bit and a different one will eventually spawn, letting you take more snapshots.

You'll first net the Photographer's Eye 2 tonic, which will net you 15% more research points for your photos. Pretty handy when you're trying to complete your research. Next up will be a passive bonus: each Rosie you kill will drop theoretically rare invention materials. We mostly found steel screws, which we also found pretty much everywhere else, so this didn't seem too useful to us.

Little Sisters

You can't engage Little Sisters in combat; they're essentially unkillable thanks to the Adam that flows through their bodies. If you want to get to them, you'll have to take out the Big Daddy that guards them, then either harvest or rescue them, depending on whether you care about killing them or not.

The choice between harvesting and rescuing is a personal one, but one that will have implications for the game's ending.

Harvesting a Sister will end her life, and net you 160 Adam. Rescuing a Sister will net you 80 Adam, but after every third or fourth Sister you rescue, Dr. Tanenbaum will send you a reward at the nearest Gatherer's Garden, consisting of 200 Adam and a couple of extra goodies, including some tremendously useful plasmids. The choice of harvesting v. rescuing will also come into play during the last couple levels of the game, and will of course have an impact on the game's ending.

Research Bonuses

Researching Little Sisters won't ever increase the damage that you deal to them, since you can't hurt them; instead, you'll gain a small bonus to your health and Eve reserves each time you hit a new research level. You can research Little Sisters after defeating their Big Daddy guardian if you want to get an unobstructed shot of them, or simply follow them around and snap away with the zoom lens.

Note that if you use the Hypnotize Big Daddy plasmid, the Little Sister that the Big Daddy is guarding will run back to a wall vent. After the Hypnotize effect wears off, the Big Daddy will usually summon another Sister. If you want to quickly get a lot of Sister research done, simply hypnotize a Big Daddy repeatedly and wait for it to summon different Sisters, then snap away at them.