Polygon said:

Ubisoft's free Uplay app for Nintendo's Wii U doesn't just add-on an achievement system for the publisher's games, it also offers up some neat freebies for their titles.


Once registered, players can browse through Ubisoft's (currently tiny) library and check out the actions and rewards for each game. Actions are essentially point-awarding achievements, while the rewards include things like new costumes, perks and even modes for the games.


Players unlock these bonus items by spending Uplay points. So far you can unlock all of a game's freebies by completing all of a game's actions.


Here's the full break down by game:


Assassin's Creed 3


Actions

Mystery Guest (10 Uplay points): Complete sequence 1 & 2.

Tea is for Englishmen (20 Uplay points): Complete sequence 6.

The Sum of Truth (30 Uplay points): Complete sequence 12.

Abstergo Entertainment (40 Uplay points): Reach level 20 in the multiplayer mode.


Rewards

10 Uplay: £3000 in single player the next time you play as Connor.

20 Uplay: Increase the capacity of Connor's tool pouches and unlock exclusive multiplayer profile items.

30 Uplay: Play in Ezio's outfit from Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood.

40 Uplay: Unlock the multiplayer night stalker's renegade costume and additional profile items.


Avengers Battle for Earth


Actions

Here I Am (10 Uplay): Win your first battle in campaign.

King of the hill (20 Uplay): Win the arcade mode once.

Earth united (30 Uplay): Finish the first part of the campaign.

Closure (40 Uplay): Finish the campaign.


Rewards

10 Uplay: Unlock "I mean business" collector's card.

20 Uplay: Receive 5,000 XP to boost your rank.

30 Uplay: Unlock a new appearance for Venom.

40 Uplay: Unlock 8 new trials.


Just Dance 4


Actions

Let the party begin! (10):Complete your first song.

Dance Quests Master (20): Complete 5 dance quests.

Dance, sweat and fun (30): Complete a sweat class.

Are you a real Just Dancer? (40): Get 5 stars on a song.


Rewards

10: Unlocks a new title page for Just Dance 4.

20: Unlocks the Good Feeling Dance mash-up for play in Just Dance 4.

30: Unlocks the Beauty Dance mash-up for play in Just Dance 4.

40: Unlocks the Call Me Maybe alternative version for play in Just Dance 4.


Rabbids Land


Actions

World Champion! (10): Win your first trophy in trophy race.

Very first time! (20): Complete a trophy race.

Numismatist! (30): Collect 10 coins in treasure hunt mode.

Osteopath! (40): Unlock all mini-games.


Rewards

10: A new rabbid color for the trophy race.

20: An exclusive level in the pyrobang mini game.

30: The best music in Rabbid Land.

40: An exclusive rabbids video.


Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2013


Actions

On Your Mark! (10): Create the first fitness program.

Endurance Rookie (20): Spend one hour working out.

Workout Wonder! (30): Bear your own or another player's high score in any workout.

Marathon Planner (40): Complete one four-week fitness program.


Rewards

10: Enjoy your training with this Ice Blue trainer.

20: Enjoy your training with this Deep Red trainer.

30: Use powerful yoga exercises to tighter your leg muscles. A Pilates exercise rounds off this workout.

40: Work through standing, sitting, prone and supine positions and strengthen your whole body.


ZombiU


Actions


Bob is your best friend (10): Pick up a backpack


Unbreakable (20): Reach a survivor score of 2,000 points.


CCTV is watching you (30): Hack all of the CCTV Junction Boxes in London.


I survived! (40): Complete the game.


Rewards


10: ZombiU logo 80's style.


20: Punk cricket bat customization.


30: God Save the Queen bonus video.


40: New multiplayer survival game mode.

Anyone tried this Uplay thing? Sounds okay if its free and you just get freebies.

Here's something to think about the Wii U CPU situation. I read this ages ago but someone posted it again recently.

One of the guys who ports emulators to consoles said that Wii 1's Broadway clocked @729MHz is, in essence, only 20% slower than a single core of Xenon

LibretroRetroArc said:

I believe if you program only against one main CPU (like we do for pretty much most emus), you would find that the PS3/Xenon CPUs in practice are only about 20% faster than the Wii CPU.

I've ported the same code over to enough platforms by now to state this with confidence - the PS3 and 360 at 3.2GHz are only (at best - I would stress) 20% faster than the 729Mhz out-of-order Wii CPU without multithreading (and multithreading isn't a be-all end-all solution and isn't a 'one size fits all' magic wand either). That's pretty pathetic considering the vast differences in clock speed, the increase in L2/L1 cache and other things considered - even for in-order CPUs, they shouldn't be this abysmally slow and should be totally leaving the Wii in the dust by at least 50/70% difference - but they don't.

BTW - if you search around on some of the game development forums you can hear game developers talking amongst themselves about how crap the 360/PS3 CPUs were to begin with. They were crap from the very first minute the systems were launched - with MS hardware executives (according to some 360 'making of' book) allegedly freaking out when IBM told them they would be getting in-order CPUs for their new console - which caused them to place an order to have three 'cores' instead of one because one core would be totally pathetic (pretty much like the PS3 then where you only have one main processor and 6/7 highly specialized 'vector' SIMD CPUs that are very fast but also very low on individual RAM and essentially have to be able to do some heavy code weightlighting for you to gain anything). Without utilizing multithreading, you're essentially looking at the equivalent of Pentium 4-spec consoles that have to be helped along by lots of vector CPUs (SPUs) and/or reasonably mid-specced, highly programmable GPUs (which the Wii admittedly lacks)

Someone else is the same thread follows up:

GAF said:

If 1 Xenon core only out performed Broadway by 20%, than could this be why Wii U's CPU cores were originally clocked at 1GHz? (a clock speed increase of 37%) wouldn't this than put the Wii U's 3 cores at 1.24GHz with as good or better performance clock for clock as Broadway, quite a bit beyond Xenon (Broadway would match or beat a Xenon core at only 875MHz?) so more like a 1.5x (I know we love those multiples) or 50% faster than Xenon according to the emulator developer from the quoted post above?


Obviously for certain tasks that are SIMD heavy would still likely fall short on Wii U, but for general computing of game logic and what not, wouldn't Wii U's CPU cores reasonably faster? or was the developer missing some other key component of Xenon's power that was unlocked later on?

So there you are. Pretty weird how a 3.2ghz clock speed CPU can only be 20% better than a 729mhz out of order CPU. Clock speeds. Eh.

Oh and some more info for you from GAF, the Wii U Zelda and bird garden demos were done when the U dev kits had a 1ghz triple core CPU and a 400 mhz GPU. Since then the CPU was boosted to 1.24 ghz and the GPU to 550 mhz.

gamingeek said:Twitter:




Shuhei Yoshida



@yosp




Got a Wii U (US version), my Nintendo ID is "ShuYoshida", pls send me a friend request so I see you on the Activity Feed.



4 Dec 12



Reply



Retweet



Favorite




Yoshida later admitted that he had the machine "for research"



pSvitaOB



@theonlymarcos



4 Dec 12




@yosp Haha you have a wiiU. Which is better in your opinion? Ps vita or Wiiu



Shuhei Yoshida



@yosp




@theonlymarcos I would not compare apples and oranges



4 Dec 12



Reply



Retweet



Favorite




By the way, don't bother trying to add him as a friend - he appears to have blown his 100 person limit already, unsurprisingly.


I clicked Follow by his name. But when I looked he only had 94/100 friends but I still couldn't send one.

I'm still waiting for Halo 4 and my Vita to arrive.

Steam sale for big picture mode is pretty good. Very few games they have not put on sale before, but Wizorb is supposed to be good.

Any clues ?  Or is just more Nintendo  smoke up my ass?

Hey I'm not sure if anyone caught the new PSN releases, but there's a cool PS2 Classic getting released - Chulips. It's a really weird game, and tough as hell to describe. It's sort of an adventure game where the focus is on kissing..... a lot of the design and core gameplay elements were actually taken by the development team and used in Little King Story though, so if that game did it for you, you may want to give this one a shot.  Poor game never really got a fair shake due to being released at the end of the PS2's cycle due to multiple publisher delays, and didn't have the polish that games of that time really were expected to have. Anyway it's a quirky Japanese game (that's pretty much a genre right?), and you may want to give it a try. For $10 it's worth it.

Hey Leo, question for you. Devil Survivor 2 - any thoughts? I thought I remember you mentioning it a while back, but I don't remember if you played much of it, if any at all.

gamingeek said:

What's with this u update size? 600mb? I'd rather stick with a 10 second loading time.

Happy Sinterklaas

Hopefully you have been good this year and got presents today.

Don't be a naughty boy or Black Pete is hauling your ass over to Spain!