Enemies

There aren't a huge variety of enemies in BioShock, but those that do appear are pretty darn creepy. Rapture's insane inhabitants have mostly become splicers, genetic monstrosities that only exist to kill. In addition, you'll have to deal with Rapture's security systems, and also the huge, lumbering Big Daddies, who guard the Little Sisters that carry Adam, Rapture's primary source of genetic currency.

Thuggish Splicer

Thuggish Splicers are prevalent in the early parts of the game, then disappear for a bit before appearing throughout the rest of the game. They wield pipes, wrenches, flashlights, and other melee weapons. Typically they'll first appear by pacing around, muttering to themselves, but when they spot you, they'll make a beeline for you and attempt to leap at you with their weapons. It's pretty simple behavior, as they won't attempt much in the way of dodging or hiding, but they will run for a health station if they get low on health.

Looks like it's time to fight wrenches with wrenches.

Early on, it's easies to hit a thug with Electro Bolt, then whack them with your wrench; this is usually an instant kill. As the game progresses, you'll need higher ranks of Electro Bolt to keep your enemies frozen long enough for you to strike them, but it's still a handy technique when you want to finish off an enemy. (Most other types of splicers are more resistant to melee damage and won't die outright to this attack.) After you gain a bunch of wrench-related tonics, you should be able to dispatch even the toughest thugs with only two blows from your wrench, so you won't even need to shock them first.

Apart from that, anti-personnel ammo will also dispatch thugs right quick.

Research Bonuses

In addition to the normal damage increases from research, you also obtain a pair of tonics from researching Thuggish Splicers. The SportBoost tonics (there are two ranks of them) will let you move more quickly, which alone is a benefit well worth equipping them for. In addition, though, you also swing your wrench more quickly, making this a very handy tonic to get.

Leadhead Splicer

Leadheads are the weapon-using splicers: they'll come armed with pistols, at first, and then will gradually shift over to machineguns later in the game. They'll prefer to fire at you from range, if possible, and will attempt to dodge the fire that you send back at them by strafing a lot. If you get close, they'll try to pistolwhip you or use the butt of their gun to give you a melee strike.

Get used to having some blurred views when Leadheads fire at you.

The Leadheads are a lot more resistant to melee damage than the Thuggish enemies are, so you'll probably want to fight fire with fire and use pistols or other ranged weapons on them. Besides that, they're pretty much your typical FPS enemies: try kill them without letting them deal a huge amount of damage to you. Anti-personnel damage will finish them off quickly.

Research Bonuses

You get a pair of tonics for researching Leadheads. The first is the Scrounger addon, which lets you search most searchable objects twice in the hopes of finding something the second time around. This can sometimes reveal some hidden cash or invent items in a seemingly empty crate, but most of the time empty stuff is just empty. Not really worth using in our opinion.

Secondly, Static Discharge 2 will shock any enemy that strikes you in combat, stunning them temporarily. That's really handy if you like using the wrench a lot, but be careful not to get hit by an enemy when you're standing near a Big Daddy, as they'll interpret that as a hostile act and attack!

Nitro Splicers

Nitro Splicers use molotov cocktails and grenades to deal their damage; they'll continually pluck ammo out of a large box that they carry around and chuck it at you. These guys have significantly more health than most other kinds of splicers, and can deal more damage to boot. However, if you use Telekinesis to catch their grenades and chuck them back at them, they'll usually go down quickly. Nitros also usually have more cash on them than other splicers. When they do die, they'll often drop a good-bye grenade, so be careful when attempting to loot them.

Napalm or fire attacks seem to work well against Nitros, as does anti-personnel ammo.

Research Bonuses

After a bit of researching, you'll get a permanent 15% chance that enemy grenades will be duds. These grenades will still look dangerous, but will fizzle out without exploding. After more research, this chance will increase to 35%.

Spider Splicer

Spider slicers are the assassins of the bunch. They're the most agile splicers that you'll come across, with the ability to sink their meathooks into the ceiling and crawl along it; you'll hear them jabbering as they do so, as well as hear their distinctive clanking sound, and you'll also see material falling from the ceiling, so this isn't exactly a stealth move, but it can be a surprise. They'll usually prefer to drop to the ground and slice at you before flipping away, but they can also throw their blades at you from a distance, whether they're on the ground or on the ceiling.

In general, spiders are pretty tough to kill, mostly due to the unpredictable way they move. After you research them a bit, though, they get a little easier. Napalm puts them down pretty quickly, and wrench attacks work reasonably well if you use the correct tonics.

Research Bonuses

The first bonus you get from Spider Splicers is the ability to harvest their organs and use them as first aid kits. Nice, but nothing spectacular. We didn't happen to note what the second upgrade was, so we'll update this space with that info when we get it (or remember it…).

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