Dysmey Post > Projects & Stuff > Bioshock 2 > Adam and Plasmids
The stem cell slurry that drives the city of Rapture makes a big-time comeback, as the kidnapping of little girls from the surface is a reason why your avatar is revived.
Those Little Sisters are the main source of Adam. When you find one and wrest her from a Big Daddy, you can either harvest them (creep!) or adopt them. With adoption, you carry around the Little Sister, and protect her as she extracts Adam from splicer corpses. As you protect her, you make more corpses of those splicers foolish enough to try to harass her and to steal her Adam. When she is done, she gives you some of her Adam (forty units). You get more Adam when you save the Little Sister (restore her to human form) and put her back in a vent.
While the Little Sisters are the main source of Adam, they are not the only source. As you walk the ocean floor, you can find the Adamic sea slugs. They are black and magenta in color, and look as ugly as all out. The little critters provide ten units of Adam without you bugging anyone.
Then there are the Big Sisters: If you manage to kill one, that's forty Adam for you.
Your avatar can use plasmids and weapons at the same time. You can use plasmids in ways different from the first game. The heads-up indicator adds current active plasmid to health and Eve.
Old favorites will be back, where on your avatar they will function differently from how they worked with Jack in Bioshock. All plasmids have three levels (except the new Scout, which has only two), which differ not only in strength but also in how they manifest.
This is why there is nothing like the Chemical Thrower in Bioshock 2: It is no longer needed.
Telekinesis also has three levels, the highest of which lets you pick up and toss live splicers (who don't like being tossed).
Decoy and Insect Swarm make comebacks, too. Decoy, in order of level, distracts enemies, injures enemies, and draws enemies' health into you by means of your wraith. In Insect Swarm's highest level, the bees turn a dead enemy into a hive, attacking any live enemy who walks too close.
The Enrage and Hypnotize Big Daddy plasmids are merged into a single Hypnotize plasmid with three levels. The lowest works like Enrage. The middle one makes splicers your pals, fighting alongside you for a short time. The highest one also befriends Big Daddies. (Watch out when the effect wears off.)
Security Bullseye becomes Security Command, where in higher levels a splashed target attracts bots without the need for a camera.
The Cyclone Trap is now Plasmid Trap at its higher level, because it can be combined with other plasmids for more painful effects.
Finally, there is a brand new plasmid, Scout. This allows your avatar to project an invisible phantom self that can wield plasmids and crack machines. Make sure you hide somewhere that enemies cannot find you before using it.
Eve, the serum fuel for your plasmids, returns. It works just like in Bioshock, except you are limited to five vials (six if you find and use the Eve Expert tonic). On the first two levels, you can find Eve dispensers, which dispense Eve without cost, except for the five seconds you have to wait between dispensing.
Gene tonics make a comeback. Old favorites are back, along with brand-new tonics given the different nature of the game.
Hacking and its tonics are described in the Weapons and Security page.
The wrench tonics of Bioshock are replaced by drill tonics that increase the power of your drill. The ultimate tonic is Drill Specialist: It makes plasmids use a lot less Eve, but limit your weapons to the drill, the hack tool and the camera.
The security tonics not only make friendly security devices take and dish out more damage, but even give you the ability to fix bots and turrets when they are damaged.
There are two tonics that let Little Sisters harvest more Adam and do it faster. They are not available if you harvest the poor girls, though.
Tonics not only let you save on Eve and get Eve out of health stations, but you can even (as already noted) add an extra Eve level from five to six.
One of several Easter eggs in Bioshock 2 is the Teleport plasmid. You can find it in the marketing office at Fontaine Futuristics. You cannot miss it: It flashes in many different colors. Touch the bottle, and it teleports to a different spot in and out of the office. Touch it enough times, and it takes you on a trip, jumping you to different places inside the level, including under the sea, and even in a place where you can see it chase a frightened splicer. In the end, it takes you to an underground room where statues adore a bottle of Vending Expert 2.