Let's talk about karma for a minute because in the previous game I, no offense is meant, felt that the karma was one of the weaker elements. Because in the first scenario where you're presented a choice, it's like, "Do I keep all this food for myself or do I let the other people have it?" That's just a choice of "Do I want to be a dick?", because food doesn't actually exist in the game world as a thing you use. So have you guys addressed that at all?

NF: Well, yeah. A lot of the choices you make in Infamous 2 are of course about moral dilemmas that you can think about in relationship to your own life and your own world, sort of like that food mission.

But they're better in Infamous 2 because really it's about characters trying to pull for your attention. You know, it's your girlfriend saying, "Why don't you come home? It's Valentine's Day!" and your boss saying, "You gotta stay at work, because this is due tomorrow." and you really want to make both people happy.

So in Infamous 2, it's about these 2 characters -- Nix and Kuo -- who are your partners in missions, and by helping one, you piss off the other. And they both have plans, they present them to you, and you have to make choices.

Yeah, context is extremely important if you want to make people care about a moral choice. It's got to be like, "This is relevant to me!" or "I care about what this character's going to do."

NF: Yeah. So I think it's less about, at least to me, through what you're making a choice about and more about the repercussions of the choice and your relationships with these characters. Because you're thinking about, "Well, down the line, do I want her to be my partner? Do I want them to be on my side?"

And in the middle of the game, you're confronted with this choice where you get to swap powers, you get to pick up the powers of one of the ladies and that plays into it, too. Do you do the thing you might think is right, or do you do the thing that gives you a power you think is the coolest that is opposed to your kind of moral guidance?

And that's a pretty interesting choice, because of course as a gamer you think, "Well, I'm going to do the thing that gives me the coolest power." But then you also have that little niggling thing in you that says, "Well, I don't want to be a bad guy…" Maybe the other way around if you're a bad guy and you really want ice powers you say "I'm going to go with Kuo."

That sounds more compelling. Because then it's just less of a like "Do I feel like being a jerk?" choice, and more of a "I have a choice to make, and both of them are interesting" kind of thing.

NF: Oh yeah. We try and definitely make choices that are alluring in either direction. In fact, I forgot to tell you, the coolest thing about karma -- and it's nothing that we probably ever demo because it's small -- all around the world we put in these karmic opportunities. Things that, you can completely ignore them when you play the game. You can finish the game and not do one of them.

They'll be like, somebody just getting mugged on the street -- a really small thing -- and you're playing through the game and you're on a mission and somebody yells out for help. And you can ignore that person getting mugged; you don't have to do it or you can help them and move on. Spider-Man can do it, right? You know, both defuse a bomb and stop the mugging at the same time.

And you almost challenge yourself to be the person you want, and we have a lot of equal opportunities, too. And I find that when I go through the game and I play those, that's where I actually feel the most like a hero. And they're completely 100 percent optional but because you really chose it, the game didn't say, "Here's a choice." It's more important who you are.

Are those like nodes where there's like an icon over the person's head, or is it something that's just happening and you can do it or not kind of thing? Like is it more like a side mission, or more like when you see bandits in Red Dead Redemption chasing somebody?

NF: It's just in the world happening; it's very similar to Red Dead Redemption. And I guess they're really optional, and I will never like tout them as a huge improvement to the game because they're so small. But I tell you when you play the game, I'm positive you'll get the sense that it's actually the most profound karmic aspect of the product because, for whatever reason, they get under your skin.

Some of the people in New Marais have found some glass shards that will give Cole more power, and they're just walking around with them, because they collected them to take home. But if you want to, you can just beat on this person and steal it from him. And if you're a good person you probably wouldn't do that, but if you're bad you would, but it's really tempting just to steal. And it's small, but it really gets under your skin.