If there's any company that has failed at online frippery more often than Electronic Arts, it would have to be Ubisoft. But the difference is that Ubisoft doesn't seem to try quite so hard as Electronic Arts. That's why Ubisoft doesn't have a Sims Online, a Motor City Online, and a long list of games pre-dating 2007 that no longer work online.

But in the tradition of not trying very hard, Ubisoft has released Assassin's Creed II with support for something called Uplay. I have no idea idea how you're supposed to say that out loud. "Oo-play"? "Ewe-play"? "Uh-play"? No matter, since I still have no idea how to say "Ubisoft" out loud either. Here's the skinny on Uplay:

Uplay is Ubisoft's online destination where gamers are at the center of a connected gaming universe that has been developed around four primary services: Uplay Win, Uplay Help, Uplay Share and Uplay Shop. The Uplay Beta is launching with Uplay Win.

When you load up Uplay from Assassin's Creed II, most of these various bits are "coming soon". However, you get points for a couple of your ingame achievements that you can spend in Uplay Win.

Uplay Win enables players to collect units based on their actions in the games and exchange them for rewards such as exclusive in-game content or digital items. Uplay Win Units can also be gathered cross-platform and are currently available for PlayStation 3 system, Xbox 360 and PC.

Right now, you can use these points to buy five extra slots for carrying throwing knives (very handy!) and an Altair costume for Ezio (very anachronistic!). You can also spend your Upoints to Unlock a mysterious door in your stronghold that leads to Ezio's family tomb. Neat, huh?

No. It's not neat. It's terrible. It's like a dungeon that wasn't good enough to make it into the full game. It's timed jumping puzzles with terrible camera angles. After ten tries at the same jump in this stupid thing, I was bound and determined to suffer through the entire thing to find out what reward awaited me at the end of this shoddy ordeal.

For my troubles, I got a few thousand flora and bits of doled out text detailing Ezio Auditore's ancestory. The disappointing thing is that the story is actually pretty cool. It seems that -- spoiler! -- Ezio's forefather was a commoner trained by Dante. The Dante. Who was an Assassin! However, the Templars murdered Dante and sent pirates after Ezio's forefather. The pirates raped and murdered his wife and left him for dead. So he drained Dante's bank account, assumed a new identity, and founded the villa that becomes Ezio's stronghold.

It's a nice twist that the Auditore family isn't actually noble, but was an invention of an ancient equivalent of the witness protection program, funded by proceeds from the Divina Commedia. I also liked the explanation for why the villa was founded in Florence and not Venice: being near the sea reminded Ezio's forefather of his wife's murder at the hands of the pirates.

There. Now you don't have to play through that terrible dungeon and you can spend your Upoints on more throwing knives!