Like an 80s history documentary, the kind that you'd see in school back when they had to roll in the projector and pull down the screen in front of the blackboard, the new BioShock: Infinite trailer takes you from Columbia's unveiling to its fall from grace.
It's narrated by someone who sounds a lot like Frontline's Will Lyman, the faux documentary, "Columbia: A Modern Day Icarus?" takes us back to 1893 at the real-life World's Columbian Exposition, where the actual futuristic attractions included a huge wheel-like ride built by George Ferris (a "Ferris Wheel," if you will), feats of electrification by the rivals Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, and an exhibition of the Zoopraxiscope by Eadweard Muybridge, bringing moving pictures to the public.
The real-world alter-history is great, melding perfectly with the documentary style. According to the video, topping all of these inventions was a floating city of Columbia, created by Zachary Comstock. Columbia was the "pride of the United States," until tensions arose between Comstock and the McKinley Administration. Those tensions exploded when Comstock and the city of Columbia violently put down the Chinese Boxer Rebellion and then seceded from the United States. "Disappears into Clouds!" says an invented old-timey newspaper headline. The video ends with a "mysterious building" that was found in 1981 high in the alps.
The best part comes at the end of the video, with a display of "Columbian artifacts," real-life relics made to look like they came from the fallen city of Columbia. I wonder if any of those will ever turn up on eBay.
Bioshock: Infinite, the prequel to, and third story in the hit series, is supposed to be released for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC on March 26th.
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