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I've always had trouble pulling off jump attacks (forward+R2, not the jumping from a ledge attack) and it seems even fussier in DS2 than it was in DS1.

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Yeah that's what I'm getting from a quick search online. The timing window seems crazy small. Daresay there's a knack to it. (I for one am currently sticking to kiting things to safe locations instead. None of that fancy-dan prancery. If I had Indiana Jones's gun I'd totally use it )

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Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here

Just had a bit of a play with Watch Dogs. It runs as lumpily as GTAIV did - My auto settings defaulted to High and I'm getting mid 40s fps which is playable enough and I suspect there'll be driver updates and game patches to come. If I drop things to Low I get 60 unless there's a lot going on in the world.

On Ultra I get 20 and it doesn't look that much different to Low.

I doubt if a GPU upgrade will do much either. These big open world games tend to be brutal on systems.

Yes! Another victim...I mean Dark Souls player...

My characters always end up with at least a little magic or faith, even the pure melee guys. The starting classes are good templates to get going with, but there are no restrictions on either gear or spell usage in this game beyond stat requirements, so the game let's you figure out how you like fighting, and then develop your character to do whatever you have the most fun doing. I started as a stright up warrior, but have now worked my character into a sort of paladin style of play, with lots of miracles (faith-based magic) as well as a giant sword and shield. Don't settle on weapon just yet. Wait until you get through a few zones, pick up some different weapons and test out the timing and move sets to see what you like. You may find a weapon you like for a while, but all of a sudden, you may find a cool new sword with a move set that just feels and works better - just store your current weapon and start working on the new one!

I started with a warrior that had a broken straight sword. I killed the silent Heide Knight just sort of sitting near the second bonfire in Forest of Giants, and he dropped a Heide Knight sword. I leveled it a bit with ores, but as i played, I began to think the reach left something to be desired. It just so happened that I found a Bastard Sword a level or two later. I ditched the Heide Knight sword and leveled the Bastard to about +5, and it was pretty sweet. Around that time I leveled my Faith a bit to get some lesser miracles going, mostly for heal to start, but I had also found Holy Lightning, so I checked the Faith needed for that, and started leveling faith a bit more to get that going. While I played, I started thinking that the Bastard Sword, while really strong in some ways, had a bit of an odd vertical strike for its strong attack, and no thrust attacks. I ran into a vendor that had a Claymore on him, and being one of my favorite greatswords from DS1, I bought it and went back to majula to level it a bit and test the moves out. Aha! Although slightly heavier than the Bastard Sword, the strong attack was a thrust, and had excellent reach. Combine this with a great weak attack that can chain stun locks on invaders, and I think I have found my weapon!

My point is to always keep in mind that you aren't locked into whatever style you think you are picking at the start of the game, and your knight start class can end up wearing robes and spamming spells if you choose to do so. Also, magic of some sort will come in useful, even if just to heal or homeward back to a fire.

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Got Watch Dogs running a lot better after fiddling with a few settings so I can now actually play it undistracted.

Dunno quite what to make of it after an hour. Yep, it's GTA with hacking but I don't know what else they could do with a game of this structure apart from a few fresh tweaks here and there. You run or drive around the map picking up missions or else just exploring, collecting stuff and ... visiting clothes shops which have a bewildering array of long coats, hoodies, caps and facemasks.

Saints Row this is not. *cough* Thankfully.

If you think these might help, please, by all means, share! Either here or PM depending on whether or not you think it might be useful to others, I 'spose.

I got it downloading before I left for work, so I'll probably give it a go this afternoon.

All I did was lower the Texture size (in the Display menu, not the Graphics Options one) from Ultra to Large and things ran more smoothly. It says don't use Ultra unless you've got a 3GB graphics card (I do) or Large unless it's 2GB. I couldn't tell any difference between Large and Ultra so might lower it to Normal next time to see what happens. The latest Nvidia drivers were written with Watch Dogs in mind too, so you might want to install them if you've not already. No ATI driver updates yet for me though.

Lowering detail level (for me from High to Medium) helped too but I didn't need to do it after choosing the Large texture pack above.

Had a quick look at TotalBiscuit's video (poor fella has colon cancer ) and he's not hitting 60 on Ultra with two Nvidia Titans. As per usual with Ubisoft, the game's not optimised at all.

Thing is, even on Ultra the game doesn't look that great which points even more to poor optimisation.

I love you, video games, but sometimes you don't make any sense.

Haha, I'm itching to get back in there! (And resisting asking too many questions in the meantime, as it's clearly a game which rewards exploration, and making your own mistakes )

Cool I was finding the starter sword a bit clunky - good to know there's variety out there. Currently using it 2-handed just to add the block move, but not sure that's strictly necessary at this stage.

More worried that I've been so cavalier as to die 5x & neck all health boosts. I'm about to hit the hub tho so imagine I can ride it out, and packing some nice early souls. Also the stone ring the first belly-beast dropped seems useful.

Sure I'll be quizzing y'all for pro-tips soon. Once I'm hiding back at the hub, wearing my hessian hood of shame

If you beat those ogres, you are doing just fine - they are not pushovers!

You died 5 times, you say? I have also died 5...thousand times....

Oh yeah, you will die loads. LOADS!

The more you learn the game the quicker you can get back to where you died and the further you'll be able to get before you die again. But you'll still die loads.

I like the way DS2 handles it too, with a little bit more health getting removed as you get more hollowed. You've got to be more circumspect that way.

Haha, I'm on catch up

Cool, thought they were pretty grouchy! That one-hit chomp came as a surprise from an opener baddie! (Which is why I took to kiting them to the doorways, and then cowardly goading them into falling over )

Dear god, why would anyone go deprived? (Soz, was backtracking through what you guys said about builds/gear etc). I could see it for a 'hardcore' replay, but not off the bat! Are there some hidden advantages I'm not seeing? (This wiki page is making me feel I'm kinda happy with Knight as a base for now, from what little I understand).

I didn't stick with Deprived for too long, went back to Swordsman.

The premise is that you start at a low level where increases don't cost a lot of souls. You can then min/max to your little hearts content without having any unliked stat higher than 6. The problem I had with deprived was that raising your preferred stats was taking far too much effort and time.

Yeah it does look like a proper masochistic roll! The sort of thing I mighta delved into back in my previous life when I had time

Just realised that I won't be getting any DS2 while off on a jaunt for a few days. Thought I could download onto the house macbook, but forgot macs can't play many a thing. Dammit. Never did sort out the emulator either (no mac-compliant external hardrive, natch). (And here's me sitting politely not rising to a new fanboi at work. I may have to take this out on him when I get back )

Anyways, will just have to binge tonight

*EDIT* Ok I've learned that I can't swim, and now I look like Doc Brown. This was not intentional.

It appears I did a bit too much CoOp and over-leveled...

I was told by the Emerald Herald that in order for me to open the final progression area, I needed to find four old souls, beat the bosses and light their primal bonfires. At least i think that's what she spouts at the beginning of the game.I had checked the big locked gate a couple times when I was near it, and it was always locked tight. I remembered I had seen an NPC sitting at the crossroads that I hadn't finished talking to, so at one point I decided to quickly pop back over and finish his dialogue to see if he moves or maybe gives me a goody or two. I like goodies. I found him,m chatted him up and he moved on, saying he would meet me in Tseldora. Since I was near the big gate, I dropped by, just to check. It looked different, although I couldn't pinpoint exactly why. I walked up to it, and instead of the "It is Locked" error I had been getting, it opened!

"Wait a second..." says I

I check my inventory and yup - 3 Old Souls. I thought back to the bosses, and was sure I had only encountered 3 primal bonfires so far. What gives? I dislike checking guides and walkthroughs, so i just typed in 'Dark Souls 2 Primal Fire Bosses" in hopes I get as spoiler-free of a list as possible.

"OK...The Rotten...check...Freya...check...The Sinner...check...The Iron King...uh wut."

Who the fak is The Iron King?? The zone says Iron Keep...a zone I had cleared a while back, definitely beating the boss, as I had used that same boss afterward to grind sunlight medals for my covenant... What the heck? That boss was called Smelter Demon, not Iron King. Perplexed, I begrudgingly opened the Iron Keep guide and scanned over ti quickly.

Three Bosses.

THREE!!! Not sure what I missed, but it was hidden well, because I scoured the level for loot and like I said, went back to hang around there and do CoOp with people stuck on the boss.

Doing a bit more reading, I find the issue - From Software tacked a Covenant-driven PVP zone in the middle Iron Keep, called Belfry Sol. When i got to the fire, and figured out it was one of the (optional) PVP dueling areas, I split, not checking to make sure there wasn't anymore PvE content beyond the tower. Whoops!

So, why did the gate open? I over-leveled, according to From Software. Once you reach 1 Million Soul memory (1 million souls spent), the Shrine cracks regardless of Primal Fire progress. I blame the jolly CoOp!

So, since there will probably be loots I missed on the back end of Iron Keep, off I go to finish that! Then, back to Drangleic Castle!

You guys are seriously making me want to play this game. I'm trying to plan a wedding over here!

Get married and then play the first one. It is definitely the better game, hands down. They both nail many of the same things, but the first is completely, ridiculously brilliant in its world design, while the second absolutely, totally phones that in. The levels aren't connected in as cool a way, and the levels themselves aren't as intricate or creative. DS2 is a really good game! DS is just better, and IMO the definitive Souls experience.

Well, uPlay is down, so I can't play Watch_Dogs. Ugh.

Welcome to UbiSoft...

Heh, just sent you a PM including that.

It took me 5 minutes to get into Uplay just now, which is an improvement on a few months ago when everyone who used BT as their ISP (the majority of people in the UK, I'd imagine) couldn't log in at all, even offline mode. Uplay blamed BT and BT blamed Uplay while no one could play anything on the service.