So on the night of August 11 a big bunch of game journos attended a special announcement by creator Ken Levine and team about their new super secret announcement. In a move not a single person predicted or expected they announced a new Bioshock game. Holy Crap.

Bioshock Infinite looks every bit as exciting and unique as the original did when it premiered to massive critical and commercial success barely thee years ago.

Take a look at the trailer below to get a taster of the new world of Bioshock Infinite. The bright and airy floating city of Columbia will replace the dark, leaking corridors of Rapture in your nightmares.

Yup that looks pretty damn amazing. There are more than a few important plot differences between the original Bioshock and this successor (sequel feels too gaudy a term for this game). Ken Levine describes the city of Columbia as a death star. A dream city created both to house an idealised way of life and to be used as a weapon against those who would threaten those ideals. On top of a brand new locale you've got a new character to follow, Booker DeWitt (great name). DeWitt is a disgraced Pinkerton agent (kind of a privately run pre-war FBI) hired by shady persons to seek out one 'Elizabeth'. All we know about Elizabeth is that she's missing, people are looking for her, she's incredibly 'powerful' in some way, and it's rumoured she's on Columbia.

The enemies of Bioshock Infinite? Tea baggers! Even more terrifying than splicers. Don't mention socialism round these guys

This doesn't help out much as nobody is sure exactly where Columbia is. In the demo the journos got to see there were powers that looked ten times crazier than the weirdest Plasmid (think about the bee swarm plasmid with crows instead of bees) and a menacing bad guy named Saltonstall. There was also a helluva lot of combat, instead of the three or four guys you handled in each battle in Rapture, Columbia will have a good dozen bad guys attacking you, thankfully you'll have the weapons and abilities to deal with them.

You can expect a lot from Bioshock Infinite. An alien but hauntingly familiar setting, crazy enemies with weird powers and steampunk fire arms, and Levine's own brand of criticism of whatever ideology he's laid on the chopping block, this time on the chopping block it's American exceptionalism which Levine made abundantly clear in his presentation. I'm all ready chomping at the bit to see how Bioshock Infinite will fly among the conservative patriot set in the US who are making such a song and dance about socialism invading their way of life right now. The fractured mirror of Bioshock Infinite held up to the American dream is going to get some people talking. 2011 is shaping up to be a pretty amazing year for games.