That' s how many character animations are loaded into Assassin' s Creed, 700 of them alone contextual. To put things into perspective, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, developed by the same crack team at Ubisoft Montreal, features 500 character animations. And Prince remains to this day one of the finest animated games on the market. Get the picture?

Of course, controlling all these moves is something of a chore on a controller that doesn' t read minds. Jade Raymond, producer on Assassin' s, took a few minutes to break down a complex yet seemingly intuitive control scheme that will have you offing targets faster than you can say John Wilkes Booth.

As Altair, a medieval hitman with a mysterious past (Raymond confirmed that he' s not a time traveler), you have free reign to explore vast cities and countryside. You will investigate your targets by exploring, eavesdropping and even picking pockets for clues on his whereabouts. When you have three clues-- and there are many more you can choose to find through thorough investigation -- you can then move to the assassination stage, using " social stealth" to blend in with crowds, searching for handholds to scale castle walls, using killer' s intuition to hone in on the target and, finally, sinking a blade in his gullet.

In order to control Altair, Ubisoft attached four " puppet strings." One to his head (the Y button) his weapon hand (X), off hand (B) and his lower body (A). The right trigger has been jokingly dubbed " emotional control" by Raymond and her team. In short, it is a strength modifier. While walking, hold it down to run. While swashbuckling, hold it down for a lumbering power strike.

Using Y, you will do things like eavesdrop and use intuition. A, then, would be used to jump. An interesting control feature is climbing, done in a way we' ve never seen before. We didn' t get a chance to touch the controller, but you will actually feel for handholds, like rock climbing. With it, Altair can climb anywhere in the world where there is a decent grip, and we' re hoping he has a chance to move up the tallest of towers while sneaking past the castle guard.

There wasn' t much more news out of Ubisoft' s camp, except that the team is trying to put together a package of downloadable content that Raymond could only say is " something ambitious." She hinted slightly at extended gameplay and possibly even some kind of multiplayer -- the team did create a prototype multiplayer and co-op mode. But, as of now, there is still nothing to announce.

While the PlayStation 3 and 360 versions of Assassin' s Creed are virtually identical, Raymond did say that on the 360 the team is putting a special emphasis on achievements. The hardware also allows for improved threading, which will improve even further the crowd AI.

Even at this early stage, Assassin' s Creed is a safe-bet for one of the most innovative and beautiful games of 2007.