2. The weapons kick more ass than ever
You won't be getting your old guns back, but Ratchet's new arsenal is huge even without them. In addition to more standard guns like the Combustor plasma rifle, the hyperdestructive Negotiator rocket launcher and the rapid-fire Buzz Blades, you'll have more esoteric weapons at your disposal. These include the Plasma Beasts (which sit around looking tiny and cute until an enemy gets close, at which point they get beefy and angry and bull straight into them), the lock-on Predator cluster rockets (the longer you hold down the button, more and more appear) and the Death Springs, which spawn a swarm of killer Slinkys that bounce around absurdly, looking for enemies to explode.

As always, not all of your devices are necessarily lethal. Toward the end of the Sargasso level, for instance, we were able to try out the Gelanator, which spits out gelatinous green cubes that grow as you lob more shots at them, thus enabling you to create your own platforms. There's also a Geo-Laser, meant for obliterating otherwise impassable rock formations by slicing it through a series of little targets in a first-person view.

All of the weapons can be upgraded using a substance called Raritanium - hoarded by space pirates and hidden in chests throughout each level. Each gun has what amounts to a flowchart for upgrades; plug some Raritanium into one of its slots, and you'll unlock its power-up as well as opening up whatever slots are adjacent to it. In order to keep things simple, however, this system is optional; your weapons will automatically grow in power the more you use them.

3. The kid stays in the picture
Ratchet's robot bodyguards from Deadlocked aren't completely gone; they live on in the form of Mr. Zurkon. Deployed like any other weapon, Zurkon is a floating robot goon with a huge chin who refers to himself in the third person (e.g., "Mr. Zurkon is only for kill!") and shoots lasers. But if you don't like putting up with his creepy mutterings, there's an alternative: James Westbrook, aka Captain James the Galactic Defender.

Created by Insomniac in cooperation with the TV show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Captain James is based on nine-year-old James Westbrook, an avid gamer who was paralyzed in a 2006 car accident. In Ratchet & Clank Future, he's a big-headed stand-in for Mr. Zurkon who can be activated with a code, at which point he darts around in a novelty flying saucer and blasts everything that gets in your way. Due to the difficulty of getting him into a nearly finished game, James apparently didn't make it in as a fully playable character - as he was shown when Extreme Makeover aired - but it's still good to see that Insomniac was committed to keeping him in the game.