A couple weeks ago I had the chance to interview Joe Ishikura, a game designer at Sucker Punch Productions, developer of the recently released PS3 exclusive Infamous 2. He talks about some of the improvements the studio made this time around. He also goes in-depth as to why main character Cole looks so different in the sequel. Below is a full transcript of our chat. Enjoy!

What are you most proud of in Infamous 2?

Joe Ishikura: It’s tough for that one. It’s like picking your favorite child. Every single part of this game was created through blood, sweat, and tears, and iterations of finding out that “You’re so stupid, you shouldn’t have done it that way” -- finally you’ve got something that you’re really proud of.

I think overall, presentation is one of my favorite ones, because to me it was unexpected that I would care about it so much. For instance, we have brand-new cut-scenes, we changed the hand that Cole shoots with -- we made those kinds of little tweaks across the board, and I think all of those things made the gameplay so much more satisfying.

What’s been improved from the first game?

JI: You know, it’s funny, because we tried to improve everything possible. We have an internal mantra that we repeat to ourselves: “Leave no stone unturned.” And that really means leave nothing holy; everything is on the table to be improved. We obviously improved the most important aspects: the karma, the combat, the powers, and the parkour. Of course, the brand-new thing that we have is UGC [user-generated content]; it’s a brand-new feature.

You worked on the first Infamous as well, so how has your role changed between games?

JI: Well, my role actually changed pretty drastically because I was actually a programmer on Infamous 1 -- I worked on side missions a lot. I would work with designers really carefully and implement their ideas.

This time around, I almost feel neutered because I don’t get to do anything by myself any more -- like a prototype by myself. As far as what goes into the game, there’s a lot more communication, a lot more talking to people -- it’s really cool! This is kind of a jump that I’ve always wanted to make, so I’m really happy Sucker Punch gave me an opportunity to do it.

What was the toughest thing you experienced during the whole development cycle?

JI: You know, they always say that the last 20% of a game is 80% of the work. That was absolutely true with Infamous 2. I was actually just talking to somebody who looked at a build back in November, and he said, “You could see the promise of it, but it was kind of choppy; things didn’t quite work together.” So for us, it’s about looking at that and saying, “What are the absolutely important things that we should change?” and then making improvements on those.

Realistically, we don’t have unlimited time, we don’t have unlimited resources, so we have to pick our spots. For me, the hard part was figuring out how to pick those spots -- which ones are the most important things to improve -- and then just going from there.