BioShock

You DO NOT need to play on hard to get this achievement.

Watch the youtube video for more info on getting this achievement in one playthrough, on easy difficulty!


This is a glitch you can preform to get this achievement in less then 5 minute. You have to play to the end on easy difficulty of course.


HOW TO

1. Load the save "fountaine"

2.use the flamethrower with electric gel. It will be easy and much faster to kill him!

3. Once you go to drain the last container of adam, hit to drain.
AS SOON AS YOU PRESS , PRESS THE BUTTON!


4. Change the difficulty to Hard

5. YOU MUST PRESS THE START BUTTON FOR IT TO SAVE THE CHANGE

6. The achievement will pop when one of the "little sisters" give you the key to the city.

CONGRATS! you now have 1100!

Brass Balls is actually a pretty easy achievement to get. To make things really easy, just be sure to save when you can. Actually, make that "save every 15 minutes." The game isn't super impossible on Hard, but the last thing I'm sure anyone would want to do is re-do 3 hours of gameplay. Also, save at certain points you know that might be tough. You can also use Vita-Chambers as a visual reminder to save. See a Vita-Chamber? Save.
So, saving is essential. Next is trying to set up Jack to be a powerhouse. First and foremost, your primary weapon is going to be the Wrench. The wrench is a great weapon because 1) It requires no ammo and 2) Plenty of good tonics linked to it. The other weapons will still be used, but only against Big Daddies and bosses.
You're going to want a minimum of 4 Combat Tonic Slots, 4 Physical Combat slots, and 3 Plasmid Slots. For the Combat Slots, I recommend having Armored Shell 1 & 2 (higher defense) and Wrench Jockey 1 & 2 (higher wrench damage). Note: The tonics stack, so make sure to have both equipped.
Physical Tonics will be Bloodlust (heals for every wrench hit), Natural Camoflauge (stop moving, turn invisible), and Sportsboost 1 & 2 (move faster, fast wrench swings). Now, with these tonics you can be a wrench swinging, killing machine. The camoflauge is for when you get spotted by cameras. Stay still, and the bots will just fly around you but they will never attack if you don't move.
Engineering Tonics are unnecessary. You will need 3 Plasmid slots for Electrobolt, Incinerate, and Telekinesis (all of those are free). Upgrade the plasmids when you can, but you don't need any of the other ones. These three will get you through the game just fine.
For the Little Sisters, you can choose to save them (so you can get Armored Shell 2) or you can harvest them all (more ADAM right away). The game can be completed either way, but I chose to harvest them. You'll end up with extra ADAM either way, which you can use for other Tonic slots (if you feel they are necessary). Although I shouldn't have to say it: be sure to upgrade your health and EVE.
Upgrade all of your weapons and be sure to make ammo. The shotgun will be your friend early on, since the Electric Buck ammo is murder for Big Baddies (be sure to aim at the head, and time your shots. As soon as they aren't stunned, blast them again). The trip wires will also help against the Bouncers (lead them through a small corridor and watch them kill themselves). Electric Gel for the Chemical Thrower is highly recommended and should be used often towards the end of the game (against the Big Daddies, of course).
Atlas shouldn't give you too much trouble. Use the chemical thrower and the rocket launcher (Incinerate + Heat Seekers) and he should go down without much trouble (if he does, make sure you save beforehand).
Just stay focused and stick to the core build I mentioned and everything should be fine.

For anyone who is glitched on this achievement, i did some research and found it is due to updating/downloading across multiple consoles. Since I go through 360s like i go through beer - i was unable to get this achievement until doing the following. Originally, this was from a 2k forum, posted by a 2k employee. I would follow what HybridPK wrote, but if you do not get the achievement at the end (or during play notice there is no option for disable vitachambers) - do the below and you should be fine.

- Delete the DLC
- Cleare the harddisks cache (go to memory/hard drive/hit Y for options, the X, X, LB, RB, X, X)
- Rebooted the 360
- Use/Create an Xbox Live account that has not downloaded the DLC or the updates yet.
- Download the DLC
- Started game and downloaded title update
- Started new game (hard)
- Welcome screen for new tonics will pop, checked to ensure "Disable Vita Chambers" option was in effect (last on options menu)
- quit to the title screen, signed out and logged in with my normal Xbox live account
- Loaded save game (hard)
-Checked for "Disable Vita Chambers" option
- Got Brass Balls (had a save file right before the final fight that met no death criteria)

READ ALL OF THIS TO SAVE YOU TIME AND HELP YOU COMPLETE THE STORY QUICKLY WITHOUT DYING

You must download the extra BioShock content and when you start a new game on hard difficulty press START and go to settings and turn "disable vita-chambers" ON. There, if you die you go to the main menu and load up save progress.
Make sure you save all the time after every battle and when you have lots of ammo and health. Even if you have half health at ends of battles, just press B to replenish your health, so in case you go into a battle without full health you will be most likely to lose and die.
Try to avoid as much enemies as possible and try to save ammo on the rocket launcher, shotgun, bow and flamethrower. These weapons are most effective against the last boss. Also, using the Plasmid which involves the dummy is probably the most useful to use because if you want to avoid battles, you can place a dummy somewhere and run past whilst splicers are attacking the dummy. Don't attempt to kill every big daddy, only three or four in the game is sufficent enough as killing many big daddies will waste too much ammo and health. Make sure when you attempt to kill a big daddy that they have a little sister with them, so when you do kill a big daddy you can get the ADAM off the little sister. I would recommend harvesting the little sisters as you will only be killing a few and harvesting gives you more ADAM.
Try not to take out big daddies until you have the grenade launcher/ promitixy mines/ heat-seeking RPG and/or the flamethrower/ liquid nitrogen/ electric gel. These are the most effective against Big daddies and the final boss.
Once you have enough ADAM to buy upgrades, I would recommend a health upgrade and the dummy updgrades and the main priorities to buy. Don't bother buying an upgrade for the EVE as there are plently of EVE hypo's lying around in the game.
For the last boss I recommend having the plasmids of telekenesis and the dummy. There are a few tanks lying around during the boss fight, hurling these at Fontaine firstly with telekensis is effective. Then, at the latter part of the fight Splicers will appear and try to attack you, so use the dummy plasmid to distract the splicers. Dont bother killing them, just concentrate Fontaine by using the grenades, flamethrower, etc.
--- If for some reason the achievement doesn't unlock at the end like it has on many occasions, delete the download and delete all updates from your cache. Then download the update on another Xbox Live profile (silver will do) and then play the game on your normal profile and load the game back up and defeat the last boss again. If none of this makes sense, send me a message and I will be happy to help with this achievement. My gamertag is tremberz. ---

Also one last point - THIS IS IMPORTANT - WHORE THE SAVE BUTTON, USE IT WHEN YOU HAVE A LOT OF AMMO AND HEALTH, BEFORE EACH BATTLE AND AFTER EACH BATTLE. ON HARD, THE ENEMIES TAKE ALOT OF DAMAGE AND DO ALOT OF DAMAGE, AND THE SINGLE SPLICER CAN MAKE YOU USE UP 5 HEALTH PACKS, SO SAVE BEFORE HAND AND IF YOU THINK YOU COULD'VE SAVED A FEW HEALTH PACKS, LOAD UP YOUR PROGRESS AND REDO IT.

Please comment, hopefully this guide helps.

This solution is for people who have completed the game without using a vita-chamber, but didn't get the achievement. I'm just looking to provide information that is annoying to find if you're in a particular situation. It is intended to be additional information from the other more complete "for everyone" guides.

1> You MUST download the free update for Bioshock called "Ryan Industries Plasmids and Gene Tonics". This is not a patch so does not auto-download just from loading the game, but it is free from the XBL Marketplace. Not having this will prevent this achievement from unlocking. Here is a handy link for you: http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Ryan-Industries-Pl...

2> You do NOT need to select the option to Disable Vita-Chambers. But, clearly if you die, you must reload your previous save and not continue after spawning in the vita-chamber. So, save often.

3> If you didn't download the above mentioned free DLC but ran through the game on hard reloading saves to avoid vita-chambers and didn't get the achievement, YOU STILL CAN. Just download the update and then load your save just before the boss fight. Kill him and during the cut scene... bleep bloop!

Bass Balls achivement is not hard, I managed to end the game with 600+ adam (before fighting Fountaine) with vitachambers off.

This achievement is easier saving the little sisters. Toughest part is hunting Big D.s till u get Hipnotize Big Daddy.
Hipnotize Big Daddy makes getting adam a breeze. No, hipnotizing a Big daddy doesnt let you get directly to the little sister (She runs away to the hole in the wall and u cant touch her in the process). But what you do is hipnotize BigD.A and then go and shoot BigD.B (a standard pistol bullet should do) then sit back and watch as the 2 giants tear each other to pieces. If yours looses the brawl, the other big daddy will be weak enough to kill without effort. Doing as stated above u should be able to get all little sisters and also helps when getting the Emp bomb parts. (thus making ur game a lot more easier). they also are great bodyguards against everything else, so take that plasmid with you.

Save your Grenade Launcher and Chemical Thrower ammo for Fountaine, Use your Shotgun on Mr.Bubbles (Only in case if the one u were betting on looses, see above; or u dont have hipnotize big D yet) otherwise, Fontaine. Use your pistol on cameras and your wrench on everything else.

As for your character. u must specialize him on the use of the wrench. ur gonna need:

3 plasmid slots:
*electro bolt
*telekinesis/hipnotize big daddy
*target dummy (gets things off your back and gives you time to run/hack/prepare another strategy.)

Note: Dont take the level 2 plasmids (electro bolt 2, incinerate 2...etc) by the time level 1 plasmid stop being usefull u would be able to get level 3 plasmids, only level 2 u should get is Hipnotize Big daddy 2 (and ur given that for free)

Note 2: if u have extra adam, u can get a 4th slot for winter blast 3 or incinerate 3 (for the electrically charged splicers and fountaine)

All physical tonics slots:
*Sport Boost 1 & 2 (Wrench speed)
*Natural Camo (Best plasmid)
*Eve Link 2 (saves you some eve hipos)
Bloodlust (Get healthier by killing stuff, best trade ever)

Note: Against fontaine u might want to replace sport boost for medical expert 3 and eve link 1 and bloodlust for eve saver and natural camo for whatever you want.

ignore the engineering tonics:(ur gonna hack most early in the game, afterwards ur just gonna use autohack tools and autohack researches) though u might wanna put the prolific inventor and clever inventor tonics in.

All combat tunic slots:
*Armored Shell 1 & 2 (essential, AS2 is another reason to save little sisters)
*Wrench Jockey 1 & 2 (Wrench damage, essential)
*Wrench Lurker 2/Damage research 2 ( Use WL2 if u like 2 sneak around otherwise just take DR2)

Note: For fountaine Take Damage Research 2 and swap Wrench Jokey for Damage research 1 and Static Discharge 2 (SD2 will help against some of the spicers that appear during the fight).

Get ALL health and Eve Upgrades, dont ask why...

Use the UInvent machines mainly for autohack tools, and only hack things when the difficulty bar is less than half (anything higher than half has a chance to be unhackable) and only then use an autohack tool. Hack All Health Stations, They heal you cheaper than a firstaid kit, and they finish off any beaten up splicer.

Research everything, specially the little sisters( they give health and eve upgrades) as the tonics and damage bonus are gonna be needed.

U dont need to get all weapons upgrades but its best to get at least 4 upgrades (fully upgrade Grenade Launcher and Chemical Thrower),if ur getting them all, then go for Shotgun next, then crossbow, just leave pistol and machine gun upgrades for last. Ur barely ever gonna need the machine gun.

Use your money to buy firstaid kits, eve hypos and Auto Hack tools (Always carry autohack tools with you),

If you trigger an alarm, cast a dummy, and stay still until natural camo sets in (the dummy should last long enough for the camo to trigger) once in camo, bots cant find you.U might also want to camo in a place where splicers cant bump into you.

When fighting fountaine remember, that hes has no special inmunity except for the element hes on at the moment, which means that u can freeze him when hes not ice, and incinerate when hes not fire... the dummy works too so you can set traps for him, like putting dummies over proximity bombs... be creative, but do it fast. Also hacking the security bots is a great idea. help you keep the splicers off your back.Just dont try to wrench him to death.

Follow this and you might be able to make it without much fuss, Just remember to use ur head before doing something...And Save often.

Brass Balls - 100
Complete the game on Hard difficulty without using a Vita-Chamber

*Spoilers*

This achievement is really easy. You can play on the difficulty Easy until the final area where you fight Atlas. This method can be found on easily on the internet. I decided to make a thorough guide in my own words because some on here seem brief. You can also get "Seriously Good at This". Make sure you read the IMPORTANT section and do the following:

1. Start a game on Easy, and play through (you can go for any achievements you want while you do) until you get to the very end of Proving Grounds (The second last area). You will be a Big Daddy and you will be with a Little Sister. When she climbs in the hole and give you her weapon to steal ADAM, you are at the end of the game.

2. Press Start and go to Options. At the very bottom disable Vita-Chambers (it would be wise to disable them in the very beginning of the game; read the IMPORTANT section for more information).

3. Go into the Elevator and you will Ascend. You will then be in a new area "Fontaine". This is where the Boss is. Fight him normally, draining his ADAM. You have to drain his ADAM four times.

3. When you go to click "A" to drain his last bar of ADAM (the 4th time) after you click "A", wait half a second and then click Start. Go to Options and turn the difficulty to Hard.

4. Now this is VERY important. When you turn it to hard, click START! Do not click B to return. Make sure you click Start.

5. After a few seconds you will go into a cut scene. At one point in the Cut-scene you should get the achievement and you even unlock the achievement for beating it on the hardest difficulty if you haven't yet.

6. Wait for the whole cut scene to finish. If you don't have the achievement, load your game up from the last auto save and repeat steps 1-5. You will be coming out of the Elevator.


IMPORTANT: Make sure you do the following because if you don't you MAY not get the achievement.

1. Don't Die in the game. This should be easy on Easy. Unless you disabled Vita-Chambers from the very beginning, you should be able to die and still get the achievement. But to be safe, try not to die.

2. Make sure you have the DLC and you are connected to xbox live (you need the update).

3. Make sure you Disable Vita-Chambers before going up the elevator. (Even the smartest people make mistakes)

4. Make sure you change the difficulty to "Hard" when you are Draining his last ADAM bar.

5. Make sure you press the START button after changing the difficulty. Do NOT press "B".


Credit goes to many people throughout the internet who have confirmed this, friends, and myself as well!

Enjoy the easy achievements!

Further to the other tips, during the final battle if you have a full 200 of electric gel that will take 2 of his lives regardles of his element then 6 heat seekers is enough to send him home in a box, just done that killed him in a couple of mins no bother, didn't take on that many Big Daddys throughout the game as it was a speed run, went into final battle with a couple of upgrades for each tonic, health and eve and 1 plasmid, pretty much all the big daddy fights were done by using hypnotise and setting one on another, ignored first few in game until had better weapons, save often and heal all the time, this really is pretty easy to beat on hard took maybe 6 hours take it steady and ignore anything off main goals

As tipped in other solutions, you can also boost this achievement with playing game in Easy and changing at very end to Hard. However, I got this doing ending slightly differently than in those solutions:
Actually I had to press Start BEFORE draining Fontaine/Atlas last fourth time. Tried six times hitting Start after A, but apparently didn't find the correct delay. As doing it before, unlocked this achievement on first try (along with "Seriously Good At This").

As to Vita-chambers, you don't have to turn them off. Just don't use them. If you happen to die, do not select "Continue" from menu. Reload your previous save. Still, turning Vita-chambers off ensures that no unintended accidents happen.

This one looks harder than it actually is: you can actually turn the "disable vita chambers" option on at ANY point of the game. I activated it somewhere in olympus heights and still got the achievement. Also i played the whole game on easy and still got it by changing the difficulty to hard when i was using the last injection on Atlas. For making this all possible just press start immediately after pressing the A button for draining the ADAM, go to, options, change settings to hard and save the changes by pressing START. Last thing which will void the achievement: you are not allowed to die for the whole playthrough (but its easy difficulty so that wont be too hard). Hope that is helpful.

All the solutions for this achievement are great and awesome, but this is a guide that's specific for people who can't get the achievement due to glitches or just not setting it up right.

1. Download the "Ryan Industries Plasmids and Gene Tonics" DLC for Bioshock.

2. Play Bioshock and load a saved game called "Fontaine" if you have one.

3. Press start and go to options. Check for DISABLE VITA-CHAMBERS and turn that on.

4. Watch lX CaptHowdy Xl's video and follow the instructions.

5. If that doesn't work, read LordKarloff's guide and follow the instructions.

6. If that doesn't work, I recommend you start a new playthrough on easy.

7. When you reach the Atlas fight, do steps 4 or 5.

8. Achievement pops after the little sister hands the key to you.

If your having issues still then MAKE SURE TO CHECK FOR THE DISABLE VITA-CHAMBERS OPTION AND HAVE IT BE ON. If it's not there, then delete the DLC on the hard-drive, download the DLC again with another gamertag, and start a new playthrough on hard for that gamertag. You'll get a introduction screen for the new tonics. After that, sign out and sign in with the original gamertag. That should work. Also, if you downloaded the DLC during a playthrough that you were working on, then the achievement will be glitched. I had this problem, so I just started a new playthrough on easy and I got the achievement!!!

FACTS:
1.This achievement requires the free DLC -"RYAN....PLASMIDS...... which is not available in all regions.(I'm in INDIA") You need another account of another region if it's not available in your region.

2.With the DLC you have the DISABLE VITA CHAMBERS option in the OPTIONS menu, you have to turn this on.

3.I completed the game on HARD without using VITA CHAMBERS without the DLC, but I didn't get the achievement. So I downloaded the FREE DLC, turned the DISABLE VITA CHAMBERS option ON and loaded the FONTAINE savefile and the achievement popped when the little sister hands over the key(RAPTURE KEY).

TO ALL PEOPLE WITH THE GLITCH WHERE THE VITA CHAMBERS OPTION WON'T SHOW:
I deleted my chache but i still did not had the option appeared until i also deleted the ryan plasmids dlc AND the patch
Only that gave me the option.
I still don't got the achievements since i did not try but i will right now.

*EDIT*
I have done a little more research and found out that the reason this glitch occures is because you probably have old pre-patch savegames, these are compatible with the patch BUT sometimes there are some mistakes, like the dialogue is not right or you don't see the vita chambers option.
So delete everything even your saves to fix it.

I went to Bioshock.com and found this and it worked for me !! Xbox 360

If the option to disable the "Vita-Chambers" is missing and you are trying to get the "Brass Balls" achievement, create a Silver account, delete the required DLC off of your 360, redownload the DLC, and then play with the user account you wish with the option now being available.
this is copied direct from Bioshock.com !!! I will leave a link as well !!! http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread.php?110002-Known-Biosho....

Yeh yeh yeh......follow the above......BUT........

I did this twice following the above and NO achievement.
Then I did it agin on my second xbox, log in second account and download DLC. Play through for a bit. Then main account logged in and started on EASY...almost finished then switched to HARD....ONLY CHANGED DIFFICULTY ONCE....did not start on HARD...Started on EASY, played through amd changed as stated above, after last drain.

I think it was cause I statred both prevoius play throughts on HARD and the changed to EASY early on and then changed back to HARD at the end.

Only one change and achievement unlocked ! !

If your having no luck...take this into consideration . .. . . . .

( not sure...but how it happened for me ! ! )

Look for this in your friend feed:

YOUR GAMER TAG started the Title Update DLC in BioShock

I saw this when I finally got mine running correctly. In order: Download Ryan Industries Plasmids and Gene Tonics DLC, clear your cache, start Bioshock with the obligatory update, restart your X360 console, start Bioshock again, and start a new game. I hope this helps.

As of August 2013 CaptinHowdys Method still works. I got it 1st try. I had no problems with the glitch at all.

I had no previous save files and i had to re download the dlc and except the update so i think that is why i did not get the glitch. Just remember that once you are in the water after the plane crash at the start,Hit start and put the disable vita chambers option to ON and hit start again so it saves. Its the very last option in the options menu

This achievement is really not hard to get at all. If you enjoy the game as much as I did, you will get a lot of satisfaction from doing it legitimately.

Some tips:

- SAVE OFTEN. Before big fights and after traversing large distances. A good reminder is to, at minimum, save whenever you see a Vita Chamber.

- Skip the Big Daddies until you have the Grenade Launcher and/or Crossbow. You can always back track to get that sweet Adam.

- Search everything. This will get you a good amount of Cash, Health Kits and EVE Hypo to get through the game. Visit the Circus of Value to stock up whenever you are flush with cash. Get the Scrounger tonic to make searches even better.

- Use the Enrage Plasmid a lot. Splicers are often in pairs and will kill each other while you sit back and relax. One will come out of the fight with little health and you can just pop him/her quickly.

- Use Security Bullseye on Big Daddies. Insanely effective. Just make sure they are walking in the path of a Security Camera or an active Security Bot and basically all of the work of killing a Big Daddy is done for you!

- Hone your skills with the Crossbow. It does a lot of damage in the neck/head area and will kill most splicers with one bow.

- Upgrade your preferred weapons at Power to The People machines. Guides are everywhere online for their locations.

- Beating "Final Boss" (spoiler safe) is super easy as well if you are stocked up with the right stuff. Look up a guide on YT when you get there.