I’ll be the first to admit that I had my expectations tempered when I was going into my Ratchet and Clank

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Rarely have I been so happy to be wrong.Simply titled Ratchet and Clank, this reboot ushers in a new era for Insomniac’s destruction-fueled platformer with a deep origin story, an expanded suite of absolutely insane weapons, and some of the most beautiful and colorful visuals I’ve spotted so far this generation.Set to release in spring 2016 somewhere near the upcoming movie of the same name, Ratchet once again tells the story of how the feisty Lombax meets his stoic robo buddy, and the wacky adventures they find themselves getting into. Though I only got to play through two short sections, it turns out that the entire game is framed as a story told by Captain Qwark, so expect Insomniac’s typically sharp and witty writing to play well with the unreliable narrator.I honestly wasn’t expecting Ratchet and Clank to be so gorgeous this time around. I remembered being amazed the first time I saw Insomniac demo Metropolis on PS3 at an E3 way back when. The density of the city, amount of hustle and bustle in the world, and wide use of the color pallet really stood out as something special. I’m so happy that this PS4 reimagining was able to recapture that same sense of wonderment. Going through Metropolis once again presented a type of colorful playground that not enough games are exploring this generation. The city stretches infinitely in all directions, with flying cars zipping past above and below you. I wanted to just stand still and soak everything in, but the mass of enemies hell-bent on killing me forced me to dig into my arsenal and do what Ratchet does best.From Ratchet to Resistance to Sunset Overdrive, Insomniac has continually built upon their fantastic presentation of insane weapons that grow and evolve in a really satisfying way. Standard rocket launchers, hand grenades, Groovitrons, and Mr. Zurkon (full disclosure: I breathed a heavy sigh of relief when I saw that he was back in the game) all made destroying the robots and monsters that roamed Metropolis a blast. Insomniac promised me that there was a new and improved RPG-like upgrade system with this version of Ratchet, but weren't quite ready to delve into that. If it's anything like the "grow as you use it" nature of the Future series and Sunset Overdrive, count me in.The big new weapon that really wowed me was a gun that transformed enemies into an array of 8-bit-inspired pixels. With only a few well-placed shots, even the biggest foe quickly derezzed into a familiar mound of basic-colored pixels that could be knocked over and scattered across the environment with a quick swipe of your wrench. It looked unlike anything I'd seen before, but displayed that fantastic level of creativity that we've come to expect from Insomniac.During my time with the game, it became clear that this Ratchet and Clank, for lack of a better term, reboot is aiming to deliver a completely new experience to life-long fans of the series, while ushering in a whole new crowd who might not have been around to jump on board 13 years ago. A revamped origin story that acts as sort of an expanded companion piece to 2016's movie, an entirely new array of bosses, tons of new weapons with a new upgrade system, and new Clank gameplay that they weren't quite ready to discuss all make it seem like this is the Ratchet game I've wanted since I finished 2009's Crack in Time.

Marty Sliva is a Senior Editor at IGN. He once ate a whole blueberry. Follow him on Twitter @McBiggitty