There is good and bad, in everyone

I'm currently playing inFamous, the PS3-exclusive action adventure. Your character, Cole, for tenuous and borderline silly reasons, gets electrical superpowers following a huge explosion at the start of the game. I'll probably review the game after I've completed it, so won't describe it in great depth here but for now I want to discuss its 'good or evil' dichotomy.

Like several other games in recent years, it asks you to make decisions relating to certain actions, with a 'good' or 'evil' outcome. Last year, this was used to good effect in Fable II and had earlier been used, less effectively, in its predecessor. It was also a staple of the KOTOR series, with its choices between the light and dark side of the Force.

So, a well-established gaming concept. Its execution in inFamous however, seems a retrograde step, certainly compared to Fable II. The choices in inFamous are stark and are either deepest black or Persil white. For example, on the first of the game's three islands (that together form Empire City, the game's setting), quite early on you have to prevent a device from pumping poison into a residential building's water supply. You have two choices - to break the pump, thereby pumping a lot of additional poison into the water, or to turn the pump handle in such a way as the excess poison squirts you in the face, temporarily blinding you. Can you guess which one is the evil choice? Other good/evil choices are similarly pitched.

I'd have liked some shades of grey, something that Fable II was moving towards in certain parts. An ability, perhaps, to force one of the bad guys to turn the pump and have the poison squirted in his face - maybe not what Superman would do in the same situation but probably at least what The Punisher would do. Maybe an option of forcing an innocent bystander to turn the pump? A darker shade of grey, admittedly but still a move away from the game's toggle switch moral choices.

I'm not advocating that all games should be turned into a succession of deep philosophical choices but if a moral compass is to be implemented in a game, I would like more points on it than 'Lone Ranger' and 'moustache-twirling silent movie villain'.