New Trailer Friday

Ken Levine Announces Bioshock Infinite 

For many, Bioshock not only represented the best game of year in 2007, but one of the best interactive narratives created for the current console generation.  Ken Levine, the mastermind behind Bioshock as well as its spiritual progenitor System Shock 2, has been annoyingly mute for the last 3 years.  We knew he was not behind Bioshock 2, a sequel which revisited the action packed fun of traversing the sunken city of Rapture, but failed to recapture the wonder and awe of that Bioshock established for the franchise.  Some speculated he was working an a new XCOM game, but after the game debuted at E3 this year, we knew it was also not Levine's project.  So what on earth has the geeky rock-star game designer been up to?

Turns out he was inflating big balloons, and bringing the city of Rapture into the sky.  

After both finishing the game, my brother and I, having both incredibly enjoyed the game, discussed where you could go from here.  Our immediate thought was to reuse the "steam-punk" pipes-n-gauges theme, and take it to the clouds, creating a giant floating city which replaced claustrophobic depths with acrophobic heights.  Apparently our brainwave was transmitted directly to Levine's brain, because that's exactly what Bioshock Infinite promises in the form of the mechanically aloft city of Columbia.

We know exactly enough to keep us voraciously hungry for new information, but so far Levine's spilled the beans on a few major concepts:

• The story takes place in 1912 (before the events of Bioshock) in the air-city of Columbia, a gilded age experiment in American exceptionalism gone (of course) terribly awry

• You play a real person this time, not just a cypher, in the form of former Pinkerton "Booker DeWitt," and you will play with an AI controlled co-op partner in the form of the girl you are sent to rescue, the enigmatic Elizabeth. 

• Customer tailored gun play is back (duh), Powers are back (though unlikely to be "plasmids"), and something akin to, but not quite like Big Daddies in the form of the mechanical monster "Alphas"

• Bioshock focused on a city in ruin, whereas Columbia will be a city still in its prime, though its not guaranteed to be so by the time the game is over. 

• Just because the new game will take place in the bright, shiny sun (for parts of the game at least) doesn't mean it won't be as scary or unnerving.

There are many games I am excited to play, but even though Bioshock Infinite has tentative release schedule of 2012, it is by a large margin the game I'm most excited about.

Levine, you've done it again!