How to Kill the First Big Daddy in Bioshock

Okay for all those newbs out there struggling with the first encounter with a Big Daddy in the PC game, Bioshock, here are some strategies on how to kill the first Big Daddy on the Medical Pavilion level the easy way. All these methods employ setting up a trap using 3-7 gas cylinders which when agitated will create a huge explosion.

First of all, yes, there are a total of 7 explosive gas cylinders to be found on the Medical Pavilion level. If you don't mind trekking back and forth a little bit (which may be preferable to dying 20 times in a row trying to figure out other ways of killing the Big Daddy) these can be used to construct a trap for the Big Daddy.

All Gas Cylinder Locations on Medical Pavilion

Here are all the gas cylinder locations in the Medical Pavilion:

• 2 gas cylinders in the Painless Dental office (in secret room accessed by crawl space).
• 1 gas cylinder in Dandy Dental office.
• 4 more gas cylinders in Surgery (Dr. Steinman's Aesthetic Ideals).

You can use Telekinesis to pick up and carry all these gas cylinders to a convenient spot in front of the machine gun turret (which you hopefully hacked) near the entrance to the Medical Pavilion.

Strategies

This video demonstrates various techniques of using these gas cylinders in conjunction with the hacked machine gun turret to take down the Big Daddy quick and easy without taking a scratch.

Although the video is self-explanatory, here are some more detailed instructions:

First Method

3 gas cylinders are piled up together along with a whole bunch of corpses. The corpses are used to lure the Little Sister to come over and start draining some Adam. This will place the Big Daddy neatly within range of the gas cylinders and will give you time to position yourself correctly to set off the trap. The shotgun loaded with Electric Buck (more reliable than 00 Buck for getting gas cylinders to explode) is used to shoot the pile of gas cylinders setting off a huge explosion. Then the Big Daddy is shot again with the Electric Buck to stun him and to get the machine gun turret going. The machine gun turret shoots at the Big Daddy and then when the Big Daddy destroys it, it explodes damaging the Big Daddy even more. The Big Daddy is then finished off with two Electric Buck.

Second Method

Here, three gas cylinders are piled up right next the machine gun turret itself. Once again, a pile of corpses is piled up near the trap to lure the Little Sister and the Big Daddy into position. The Big Daddy is zapped with the Electro Bolt which then triggers the machine gun turret to start shooting at him. After zapping the Big Daddy, get immediately out of sight for a few seconds so that when the Big Daddy comes out of being stunned, the only enemy he sees is the machine gun turret. Naturally, he'll advance on it and start attacking it. The trick here is machine gun turrets will always explode when they're destroyed. So after taking some damage from the machine gun turret, the Big Daddy destroys it which then sets off the gas cylinders surrounding it creating a huge explosion which severely damages the Big Daddy. He can then be finished off easily with three Electric Buck.

Third Method

This uses four gas cylinders (you can use the four found in Dr. Steinman's surgery wing), piles them up in a trap in front of the hacked machine gun turret (making sure the turret has a clear line of fire). When the Big Daddy walks by the trap (you could also use corpses —described above— to lure the Little Sister and Big Daddy into position) you fire at the gas cylinders a few times with your pistol to set off a huge explosion. Then you fire directly at the Big Daddy at few times with the pistol to get the machine gun turret shooting at it and then quickly dodge out of the way to avoid the Big Daddy's charging attack. The machine gun turret will then get the Big Daddy's attention and will eventually finish him off.

Fourth Method

This one uses all seven gas cylinders found on the Medical Pavilion level (locations noted here). It will take a while to set this up but it results in an instant kill as soon as you set off the explosion. (NOTE: Seven is actually overkill. It only takes six gas cylinders on the Bioshock medium difficulty setting to create a big enough explosion to result in an instant Big Daddy kill on this level.)

And there you have it. This demo on how to kill the first Big Daddy in Bioshock incorporates methods that you'll be using throughout the game to deal with other Big Daddies, i.e, Electric Buck, hacked turrets and explosive objects.