Assassin's Creed is about as ambitious as it gets. Not because you can go anywhere, as many games claim to do.

Not because it's got gorgeous graphics and silky smooth stealthy gameplay either.

It's because we've been told that sticks out of a wall more than two inches can be latched on to and used to escape from a mob of 12th century Middle-Eastern guards. We took a trip to Ubisoft's UK base to sit down with a beta version of the 360 game to find out if that bold claim is true.

On the face of it, it is. You can climb up almost anything, from what look like smooth walls with no grip points to high towers with tiny windows.

We're not sure how strong main character and expert assassin Altair's fingers are, but would wager he'd beat most people at Thumb War.

Assassin's Creed has a lot in common with Tony Hawk's in a funny way, in that before long you stop looking at the various houses and roofs contained within the game's three cities as obstacles and start to think of them more as opportunities.

There's no one path you should take to get from where you are to that alley two miles in the distance. It's up to you to make your own way there using every two inches you can get your super strong mitts on.

But you'd imagine leaping from a foot-wide beam onto a castle wall ledge then falling twenty feet into a haystack would be about as complicated as a two-hour history lesson on the Crusades. Not so.

Assassin's Creed is easy to play. The control system is so clever that the game will make even the most rubbish of noobs look as good as a master assassin.

Walk to a ledge and you won't automatically fall. This is supposed to be seamless escapism, quite literally, and the dev team doesn't want the game to turn into a pixel perfect platformer. In fact, the main philosophy with the game has clearly been to make the game as accessible as possible.

There is no difficulty level to choose from. Combat isn't about complex combos but well-timed counters.

Even when surrounded by ten guards, you're not in massive trouble. They won't all attack at once, instead stalking, conveniently waiting for the other to strike first.

Counter one thrust, and you'll trigger one of Altair's animations (24 in total) which usually result in a gruesome death. Do this for a bit and your enemies will start to get edgy. Then it's time to go on the offensive.

You could probably go on like this, countering every strike, until the cows come home. But you'll have to make a run for it eventually. During our play test, we managed to collect what looked like an army of bad guys chasing us up and down every ally.

When you have been spotted, it's all about breaking line of sight with the guards, hiding in hay or blending into the crowd, either by sitting in between two people on a bench, bowing your head in prayer in amongst some monks (if you've made friends with them earlier in the game), or getting some help from vigilantes (again, only if you've helped them earlier). Then things will calm down and you can start that muffed assassination over.