Though it builds on the established bits of gameplay rather than breaking them, the boss fight that we finally ended the demo with was honestly a very, very cool linking of some of the familiar styles of play in previous games. What started out as a simple rail sliding moment turned hairy as the boss started shooting rockets though the windowed area where Ratchet was skating along. When the cover finally ended, rather than just attack openly, the boss started hacking away at the grind rails. All of this you've probably seen if you watched the trailer (and seriously, just scroll up and click the Videos link there, you won't be disappointed).

What you haven't seen was when the rail bits ended Ratchet faced down the boss in an arena upside-down. Insomniac uberpimp Brian Algeier was quick to point out that the battle could be fought on two different levels (at least for a while, since the level was being busted up pretty quickly); you could choose to use the gravity boots and attack while upside-down, thus limiting the number of attacks the boss could unleash on you, but sacrifice mobility, or drop down and take him on in close-quarters combat with stronger weapons, but open yourself up to area effect attacks and such.

It demonstrated a few salient points about where the franchise is headed. Rather than being a complete tear-down restart of the series, it's more of a jumping off point, using the core gameplay mechanics and established universe to begin a new chapter in the life of the lombox and his mechanical friend. Insomniac feels that the last four games (well, three games, really, the fourth was more of a multiplayer test with a light story that didn't really fit with the previous games' narrative) bookended rather nicely, and so they're using Tools of Destruction to kick-start a new thread about Ratchet learning about his race, the lomboxes, by way of a new villain, Tachyon, who wants to wipe 'em all out. There will be romance, there will be intrigue and, if Insomniac has their way, there will be some big questions raised about just how much of a part Ratchet and his species play in the grand scheme of the series.

Despite the apologies, we were assured that the game would look "better" by the time E3 rolled around in about two months. Given that the game doesn't really look "bad" right now, we're kinda curious to see what "better" actually means, but one thing is for sure: we're gonna get some new info about the next-gen direction of the series as a whole, and when we do, we'll be sure you guys know about it.