Ubisoft Uplay DRM security hole exposed, promptly fixed

Ubisoft’s always-on DRM mechanisms have been a point among a majority of gamers who feel they are a hassle to paying customers and ineffective at thwarting pirates. Well, it appears that even more worrisome side-effects are possible too, with the revelation that installing the company's UPlay game management system can open up your computer to malicious code insertion through the web browser.

The flaw was disclosed by Google security engineer Tavis Ormandy this morning, who noted that a browser plugin installed alongside Uplay, meant to launch locally-stored games from the web, doesn't have a filter for what websites can use it. This essentially left an open door on thousands of machines that can be exploited via a maliciously crafted web page.

Ormandy posted a few lines of JavaScript code as a tentative proof of concept. The story later made it onto Hacker News and so did a working implementation of the proof of concept that launched the built-in calculator in Windows. The code was confirmed to work on a Windows 7 PC with Assassin's Creed and Firefox installed.

Ubisoft has since released an update for their browser plug-in (found in over 20 different titles) to address the issue. You can also disable the plug-in altogether in your browser settings. Below is the company’s official statement and the full list of games that install the plug-in in question:

“We have made a forced patch to correct the flaw in the browser plug-in for the Uplay PC application that was brought to our attention earlier today. We recommend that all Uplay users update their Uplay PC application without a Web browser open. This will allow the plug-in to update correctly. An updated version of the Uplay PC installer with the patch also is available from Uplay.com.

Ubisoft takes security issues very seriously, and we will continue to monitor all reports of vulnerabilities within our software and take swift action to resolve such issues.”

List of Uplay enabled games

• Assassin’s Creed II
• Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
• Assassin’s Creed: Project Legacy
• Assassin’s Creed Revelations
• Assassin’s Creed III
• Beowulf: The Game
• Brothers in Arms: Furious 4
• Call of Juarez: The Cartel
• Driver: San Francisco
• Heroes of Might and Magic VI
• Just Dance 3
• Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
• Pure Football
• R.U.S.E.
• Shaun White Skateboarding
• Silent Hunter 5: Battle of the Atlantic
• The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom
• Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. 2
• Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier
• Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction
• Your Shape: Fitness Evolved

Far Cry 3 delayed three months, U.S. release is December 4

Although previously scheduled for a September 4 release, Ubisoft has announced it will delay Far Cry 3's launch date by three months. The official North American release date for the first person shooter on all platforms, including PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, is now December 4, 2012. Ubisoft states that the game will land on shelves November 29 for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Earlier this year, a Far Cry 3 trailer was leaked, ultimately making its way to YouTube. The video claimed a September 6 release date.

Additionally, a couple months ago, we also saw a five minute video which highlighted some of the multiplayer aspects of Far Cry 3. The footage originated from a pre-alpha build.

Based on the multi-player video demo, fellow news contributor Shawn Knight pointed out some of the similarities between Far Cry 3 and Battlefield or Call of Duty, namely experience points, levels, kill-cam and carpet-bombing air support.

Although FC3 definitely borrows some elements from other modern shooters, there were some unique aspects as well. Check out the multi-player video for yourself here. Multiplayer is also expected to feature a 4-player co-op mode, seemingly not unlike what Left 4 Dead offers.

Far Cry 3 E3 2011 Gameplay Demo -- Warning: NSFW - strong language and violence

Far Cry 3 will be based on Ubisoft's Dunia 2 game engine, the successor to Far Cry 2's original engine by the same name. Little is known about Dunia 2, but certain elements from Dunia have made it into other games, like Assassin's Creed II. Currently, Avatar (the game) is the only title based on Dunia other than Far Cry 2 itself. Assassin's Creed II uses its own "Anvil" game engine, however developers borrowed Dunia's excellent foliage and vegetation algorithms.

Assassin's Creed: Revelations Ubisoft Game Review 2011

Assassin's Creed Revelations presents the most immersive experience available in the series to date and the culmination of Ezio's adventure. In Assassin’s Creed Revelations, master assassin Ezio Auditore walks in the footsteps of his legendary mentor, Altaïr, on a journey of discovery and revelation. It is a perilous path – one that will take Ezio to Constantinople, the heart of the Ottoman Empire, where a growing army of Templars threatens to destabilize the region.
In addition to Ezio’s award-winning story, the acclaimed online multiplayer experience from Assassin's Creed Brotherhood returns, refined and expanded, with more modes, more maps and more characters that allow players to test their assassin skills against others from around the world. The latest chapter in the Assassin’s Creed saga also includes revolutionary gameplay, allowing players to manipulate the construct of Desmond’s memories and the Animus to decipher the mysteries of his past and gain insight into the future.


BECOME DEADLIER THAN EVER – Wield the lethal skills of a wiser, more efficient and deadlier Ezio. Swiftly eliminate your adversaries by deploying a new arsenal of weapons and abilities, such as enhanced free-running and hook blade combat. Experience new levels of gameplay customization with bomb crafting, and use heightened Eagle Vision to overcome your enemies and the environment.


TEST YOUR SKILLS AGAINST THE BEST – A critically acclaimed multiplayer experience gets even better, with all-new team modes and infinite replay value.
EXPERIENCE REVOLUTIONARY GAMEPLAY – Explore the farthest reaches of the Animus as you uncover the mysteries of Desmond’s past while gaining insight into what the future might hold.

Driver: San Francisco review

If you’ve never played the Driver series, you can easily convince everyone in the room you have with one sentence: “It was rubbish when I got out of the car.” When Driver – which pre-dated GTA3 – started mimicking the new market leader, it kind of lost its way. The series’ real appeal was always in bounding over hills, smashing through boxes in alleys and watching the police slam into things as they tried to catch you.

Martin Edmondson, returning creative director from the first instalment, says that the new game will keep John Tanner firmly out of the fresh air. “Going further down that road would have put us on the back foot,” he says. “Focusing on the driving aspect, what we did so well in the first game, means we can do more interesting things.”

That they are. The big surprise when the new game was first revealed was that it basically takes place in a dream. Tanner is knocked unconscious by his Driver 3 nemesis, Charles Jericho, almost immediately, and the story then takes place in an imaginary version of San Francisco. Missions, tricks and side quests all earn Tanner willpower. On one level, this makes the city a metaphor for his brain. On a slightly more tangible level, it’s an excuse to introduce willpower as the dream currency and XP system of Coma Frisco.

Being in a vegetative state gives Tanner one magical ability: he can Shift into the body of any driver in the city. This happens for the first time during an involuntary leap into an ambulance driver called Ray. Delivering the patient safely to hospital before his heartbeat counts down to zero squirts Tanner back into his regular body, and you only have to wait a couple of annoying minutes before he stops shouting, “What’s happening, I’m Ray, this is crazy” and starts playing with the ability properly.

Earning willpower doesn’t just let you buy cars, it also expands your overview of San Francisco, letting you zip from one side of the city to the other in seconds. It also unlocks Tanner Missions – plot-advancing objectives that get you close to the Jericho in your brain. On a side note: if Jericho represents an undiagnosed brain tumour, I will personally rip out our hard drives and hurl them into the sun.

Jumping into a car will often find you mid-conversation. “There are hundreds – hundreds – of these exchanges,” says Edmondson. “There are more lines of dialogue than in Mass Effect 2. It sounds like a cheesy thing, but playing it now, I’m hearing dialogue I’d forgotten, because it’s been so long since I last heard it. We used every American-speaking actor in the UK, then went to LA to record more.”

I climb into a number of cars that aren’t explicitly marked for missions, and I find myself in lots of San Francisco’s ‘life bubbles’. It’s an unusual level of detail; a system of creating depth in the city that’s not actually deep, just incredibly wide. Along with the new, undisclosed multiplayer modes and splitscreen play for consoles, it explains what the devs have been doing for the last year.

As well as possessing Ray the unsuspecting ambulance driver, the opening missions will have you dealing spontaneous and arbitrary justice on behalf of the citizens of the West Coast. You’ll startle an obnoxious driving instructor by, yes, driving dangerously. You’ll park a television broadcast vehicle and make other cars do stunts in front of it for the benefit of a cheap TV show. You’ll also bully a ‘jackass’ into trading paint with the police, just to prove to your partner, Jones, that you’re capable of these magic tricks.

Yes, a lot of these missions do seem slightly divorced from powdered-snow heroism. But you’ll have to forgive the game a slightly wonky moral compass; it’s difficult to think of many ways in which Tanner’s powers can be used for the unequivocal good. The missions are instead designed to take advantage of the Shift system, and over the course of the first hour, it pulls off a convincing tutorial in a way that’s not subtle but is clever, varied and involving.

One more example: you’re asked to use the vehicle transporters that roam San Francisco as ramps, and you have to do it three times in 45 seconds. If you’ve been slow to take advantage of Shift without being told to, this is the mission that forces you to use it as a simple puzzlesolving skill. Without it, it’s impossible. Using the power, you simply ride the ramp, then swap to another car behind the transporter. Easy – it just asks you to think about Shift as a tool, not just a gimmick.

If I’ve got any concerns, it’s that this level of interest will be difficult to keep pacey over the duration of a whole game. But apart from a couple of moments of entertainingly crap dialogue – and it’s to the game’s credit that it’s an entertaining grade of crap, at least – the opening moments showing San Francisco are unexpectedly convincing. Colour me newly optimistic.

Ubisoft our DRM “is a success”

We recently reported on how Driver: San Francisco will require a constant internet connection to play. It’s a controversial measure put in place to defend against piracy, and we don’t like it. We don’t like pirates either, mind.

Ubisoft see the DRM as a success. Speaking to us earlier today, a Ubisoft representative admitted that the developer has seen “a clear reduction in piracy of our titles which required a persistent online connection, and from that point of view the requirement is a success”.

Ubisoft have traditionally been the developer with some of the harshest DRM in the industry. In the games that use their always online “connected services”, players can no longer to play if no internet connection is detected. The publisher first implemented this always-online DRM with Settlers 7. Since then, it’s featured in Silent Hunter V and Assassin’s Creed 2 and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.

Sadly, legitimate players often take the brunt of such security measures. Intermittent internet connections and server issues at Ubisoft’s end can stop PC Gamers from playing the game entirely. Not cool.

Similarly frustrating measures were also introduced in the recent Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition, where offline players were restricted to playing a small selection of the characters. Capcom later withdrewthe DRM after fan criticism.

Driver: San Francisco is out on August 30 in the US, and September 2 in Europe