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   No, it's not going to be a game about guessing what kind of apocalyptic future awaits us, nor about when will EA stop milking their Need for Speed franchise with cheap arcade racing games (though the prophecy says NFS: Pro Street might be the chosen one). Instead, the new game announced by Microids (nowdays known as MC2, after their fusion with Wanadoo) will be a traditional adventure title, called Nostradamus: The Last Prophecy. It's being developed by Kheops Studio, TOTM Studio and Mzone Studio, and it's produced by an even larger group of companies that also includes the independent French producer Elektrogames.

   For reference, the most recent adventures made by Kheops were Safecracker and The Secrets of Da Vinci: The Forbidden Manuscript. These should give you an idea of what to expect from Nostradamus, or if you haven't played them, maybe the the first few screenshots will. They're available now in the local gallery, and from what MC2 predicts, the final game should come out in the third quarter of 2007.

   So now that we've gone over the technical stuff, here's a bit about the actual game. Nostradamus: The Last Prophecy is set in 16th century Provence, in a country ravaged by religious wars and devastated by the plague. Curiously, the player will take on the role of the prophet's daughter, Madeleine, who must pose as an astrologer and doctor, sent to aid the (former) queen - Catherine de Médicis. To be accepted as such, Madeleine must go in disguise and assume her younger brother's identity, Cesar, which means that the play style (and they way (s)he interacts with other characters) will alternate between "Madeleine the young woman" and "Madeleine disguised as Cesar".

   All in all, Nostradamus promises to be a thrilling historical adventure full of political scheming and ancestral prophecies, with all the suspense of a detective novel: from one murder to another, players make their way through a test-riddled forensic investigation, and solve puzzles inspired by the works of Nostradamus, taking them through the worlds of astrology, medicine and medicinal plants. Fascinating.