Bioshock Infinite
Playstation 3 | Xbox 360 | PC | PC Download
Rating: M
Developers: Irrational Games/2K Australia
Publisher: 2K Games
Creative Director/Lead Writer: Ken Levine
Original Music by Gary Schyman
Release Date: March 26, 2013

I can remember the first time I popped in the original Bioshock, and was literally blown away as I watched our hero survive a plane crash and end up finding this lighthouse, and then taking the magical journey to Rapture, an underwater paradise that surprised and fascinated me with every turn. I can say that that initial journey to Rapture and the first time we come in contact with a Big Daddy, will forever be sketched into my video game history.

I have gotten about halfway through both Bioshock and Bioshock 2, although since I have finished the newest game in the series, BioShock Infinite, I have decided to go back and finish both of the previous installments.

The Art of BioShock Infinite
Writer: Julian Murdoch
Dark Horse
Release Date: April 9, 2013
Hardcover
Cover Price: $39.99

Written by Julian Murdoch, The Art of BioShock Infinite allows fans of Ken Levine‘s BioShock series to delve deeper into design of BioShock Infinite.

This deluxe hardcover by Dark Horse features production designs and concept illustrations focusing on main characters Booker DeWitt, Elizabeth, and Songbird from the BioShock Infinite video game, as well as the city of Columbia “” the fabled floating metropolis that serves as the game’s setting. BioShock Infinite takes place in 1912 during the rise of American Exceptionalism. The player assumes the identity of DeWitt, a former agent of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.

There’s been no talk of the long-rumored BioShock movie for quite some time now, and for good reason…because the anticipated cinematic adaptation has been killed off.

The movie was first in the hands of Gore Verbinski, director of the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies and the upcoming Lone Ranger, who had plans to remain faithful to the adult-aimed game with a brutal, R-rated movie take on the story of Andrew Ryan and his dream, the underwater city of Rapture, which began as a government-less utopian heaven and quickly descended into a anarchic dystopian hell.

Cosplayers are extraordinarily passionate about their craft, most going to great lengths to achieve the mimicry they desire. Now there may just be even more incentive to find the characters said cosplayers feel they can best embody, and do everything in their power to replicate that character.

Russian cosplayer Anna Moleva is one such case. The Moscow resident, who’s also known as “Ormeli,” has an affinity for video game characters, and when she saw Elizabeth, the female lead in Irrational Games’ upcoming BioShock Infinite, she knew she had to become her. The results were so successful, so eerily similar, that the makers of Infinite, including game designer Ken Levine, decided to hire her as the face of Elizabeth going forward.

Click on over to the other side for more, and to see some of Moleva’s images, including a stunning replica of the one above.

Back in September of 2010 when we witnessed in awe the first 10-minute gameplay demo for Ken Levine and Irrational Games’ BioShock prequel, BioShock Infinite, it already looked beautiful and dreamlike and perfect (enhanced by the 15-minute E3 gameplay demo that followed); perfect enough to being close to a release. But we knew there would be a bit of a wait in store as they perfected the game for a 2012 release, and that only heightened expectation, anticipation, and excitement levels.

Then came a release date, finally: October 16, 2012—over two years after we’d first seen the gameplay demo. But now, sadly, we the impatiently patient will have to wait even longer. Due to how big BioShock Infinite is, it’s been decided to push the game back to February 26, 2013.