2K Games and Gearbox Software have just announced that members of the Duke Nukem Forever "First Access Club -- aka those who purchased the Borderlands Game of the Year Edition -- will be able to download the extra-long-delayed first-person rauncher shooter's demo on June 3. Exactly which platforms the demo will be available for on that day weren't revealed, but it's a Friday, so is doesn't fall in line with Sony's weekly Tuesday PSN update schedule (unless it'll be part of the more frequent post-outage refreshes).

Also up in the air is when the average gamer who doesn't own the GOTY edition of Borderlands will be able to get their hard disks on the demo (or vice versa). "Sometime between June 3 and June 14" just isn't going to cut it after 14 years in development. Watch Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford drop the news after the break.

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"When I started at WB, one of the things I was most excited about was that I was going to get to work with the creative teams behind No One Lives Forever, Shogo and FEAR," Laura Fryer, general manager of WBIE's myriad Seattle studios told an assembled audience of E3 judges this morning. "So when I started, the first thing I did when I got that NDA signed was I went and found that team, and I said 'Okay guys, what are you working on?'"

As it turns out, the team at Monolith Productions was in between projects and wasn't actively working on anything. After some encouraging words from Fryer, the team put some serious thought into what it wanted to work on next and the answer was ... Batman.

"Okay, it's cool," Fryer told them, "but we already have a Batman game. And last time I checked, people really liked it so I'm not sure how that's going to work."

"No, not the Batman," they told her. "We want to work on multiplayer Batman."

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A new day, a new Steam deal -- from here on out, apparently. Valve has announced that one title will be discounted every 24 hours on Steam, as featured on the main store page, beginning at roughly 1PM ET "every single day."

The daily deals promotion kicks off by slashing 75 percent off the price of Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, rendering it a lean $5 purchase.

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PlayStation Network and Qriocity haven't even been back for 48 hours, but Sony is already explaining its "Welcome Back" program. The company detailed its "Customer Appreciation Program" this afternoon for North America and Europe on its regional PlayStation blogs, laying out a long list of free stuff that PSN users are eligible to receive as a thank you for weathering the outage.

Aside from offering the previously announced free 30 days of PlayStation Plus for all PSN users, the company is giving away two free PlayStation 3 games and two free PlayStation Portable games, all from two lists of (mostly) wonderful releases. The European Union is being offered similar titles, with a few notable swaps (Super Stardust HD is an option in the US, replaced by Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty in the EU).

Additionally, an unnamed selection of "On Us" movies will be available for free rental on an unspecified weekend in the coming weeks. Oh, and those of you who were already paying for PlayStation Plus? You'll get an additional 60 days of free subscription time tacked on to your existing plan. And, for the Home loyal among us, "100 free virtual items" will be made available at some point soon.

Sony hopes to offer all of this stuff as soon as possible, noting that it is waiting for all services to be fully restored before it does. Head past the break for a full list of options in both North America and Europe.

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During every E3, the internet is thrown into a full-blown panic as it desperately searches for a stable livestream of the Big Three's press conferences. This year, Spike will make this task far less intimidating for those who want to watch Microsoft's briefing. Tthe network has announced that it will air the Xbox 360-centric show live at 12:30 pm PT on Monday, June 6.

Of course, we'll be breaking out the most important announcements of the show here on our humble gaming news blog -- but sometimes, our words can't capture the magic of the events that unfold on that stage. For instance: Kudo's Magic Foot Dance.

After over four years on the digital airwaves, it's time to say goodbye to the Xbox 360 Fancast. Come join Alexander, Dave and Richard as they bid a fond farewell to the show that started it all. We've got tons of listener emails, tweets and voicemails, and a few tidbits on what you can expect from Joystiq in the near future.

A huge thank you to all of our listeners old and new. Check out some favorite X3F moments after the break!

Please note: Subscribe to the Joystiq Podcast feed to receive our site's upcoming podcast, "The Joystiq Show."

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Hosts: Richard Mitchell (SenseiRAM, @senseiram), Alexander Sliwinski (Sli Xander, @xandersliwinski) and Dave Hinkle (KnifefightYaDad, @davehinkle)

Music: Intro/Outro: "Electromooq" by Uma Floresta

For fans: Xbox 360 Fancast Facebook group

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We've already gone over the purpose and proclivities of The Witcher: He hunts and exterminates beasts that don't belong in this world, imbibes body-altering mutagens, and perpetually responds to the world with a determined grimace. It's a pretty cool job.

Witcher watchers are likely aware that the grizzled warrior-monk, Geralt of Rivia, is set to return tomorrow in The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. We've got three copies to give away, courtesy of GOG. The game is already available for pre-purchase on the retro service, and while it's not exactly fitting with those old PC games, it does come without DRM. (Copies bought elsewhere will require a one-time online activation via Securom.)

We're also giving away ten GOG download codes for The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, the revamped RPG that kicked off Geralt's gareer -- uh, career. Read the instructions below the break, leave a comment, and you're in.

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Perhaps all that "playing" of your favorite Ubisoft games was getting tiresome? The French game publisher's film arm, Ubisoft Motion Pictures, told Variety this week that it's working to adapt three of Ubisoft's biggest properties -- Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon -- into "3D features," confirming speculative plans that appeared in a consumer survey last month. UMP head Jean-Julien Baronnet explained that his division "has been working with the games' producers and Ubisoft's marketing team to identify the DNA of each game and come up with storylines that are consistent." He also noted that the group's plans have garnered plenty of interest "from US studios and screenwriters."

Further, senior VP of international marketing and distribution Jean de Rivieres promises a script for at least one of the projects "by the end of the year." He and two other UMP execs will be taking a trip to Los Angeles next month in order to broker deals with studios and agents, Rivieres added.

In addition to the trio of feature projects, the studio is reportedly developing a 3D, CGI animated series based on the Rabbids property and named after the Raving Rabbids game series. It's said to comprise 78 episodes, at seven minutes apiece, and negotiations are apparently underway to distribution the series in France and the US.

[Pictured: Assassin's Creed Lineage (2009 web series) set]

It's an oldie, but a goodie -- actually, you know what? It's a bestie. Square Enix's beloved SNES RPG Chrono Trigger arrives on the Wii Virtual Console for 800 Points, giving us yet another platform upon which to totally hang with Robo, Frog, Lucca, the prehistoric one, the princess, and that one wizard guy. Oh, Chrono Trigger. It has obviously been far too long.

Other games added today include Big Bass Arcade on DSiWare, in which bass -- preferably big bass -- are pulled from bodies of water using sticks and twine, and Natsume's gothic rhythm title, Gabrielle's Ghostly Groove: Monster Mix for WiiWare. Check out the full list of new releases below!

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According to a report from the Dow Jones newswire, a Japanese regulatory official has confirmed that the nation's government hasn't given Sony approval to relaunch PSN services in the territory. The source, Ministry of Economy Content Industry director Kazushige Nobutani, says the government refused Sony's initiative to resuscitate the platform. "As of May 13, Sony was incomplete in exercising measures that they said they will do on the May 1 press conference." The details of which measures haven't been enacted yet were not released.

The source added that the government wants clearer terms on what Sony's doing to protect its users' credit card info, saying, "There were similar cases in the past that were caused by other firms, and we are asking Sony whether their measures are good enough when compared to countermeasures taken in the past."

We're telling you guys -- just put all the credit card info in a big pile surrounded by a shark-filled moat. Done!

The so-called "God of War Portable Collection" is headed to PS3 in Asia this July, according to a reported press release sent out by Sony Computer Entertainment Taiwan and posted by international gaming news outlet The Magic Box. While we could not locate the press release on the SCET website, it does appear to have been redistributed on additional news sites, including China Times, a major Taiwan-based media company.

According to The Magic Box, the collection will include graphically enhanced versions of the two God of War PSP games, 2008's Chains of Olympus (pictured) and last November's Ghost of Sparta. The HD ports are said to include both Chinese and English language options and will be packaged together for release in Asia on July 7. It's not been specified whether the collection will be disc-based or digital (or both).

Additionally, no development studio has been attached to the project. The PSP games were created by Ready At Dawn (Ghost of Sparta in collaboration with Santa Monica Studio). Last fall, Ready At Dawn co-founder Ru Weerasuriya said the team had moved on to an action-adventure game based on new IP.

The original God of War Collection, an HD-ification of the first two PS2 games, was released as a single-disc compilation for PS3 in November 2009. A downloadable version followed a year later. We've contacted SCEA for comment on the Portable Collection.

If you've been keeping score, we've missed out on three regularly scheduled PlayStation Store updates since the service went down last month, preventing users from downloading items like the already long-delayed PSN RTS Under Siege. There's a lot of content to get caught up on -- and to get us there, the storefront will receive updates "multiple times per week once commerce functionality is restored," according to the latest PlayStation Blog FAQ.

"We will update the PlayStation.Blog with information on timing of the Store restoration," adds the FAQ, "as well as the full list of new content as each publish occurs." If you're the type who likes to spend exorbitant sums of money on each batch of PSN additions, you might want to steel yourself for the oncoming deluge.

Just announced at this morning's Warner Bros. Interactive pre-E3 event, the long-rumored Gotham City Impostors is a new shooter from F.E.A.R. dev Monolith Productions. It's a multiplayer shooter set in the Batman universe. If that sounds weird ("But Batman doesn't use guns!"), then you're a step ahead of the curve.

The crux of Impostors is simple: You don't play as Batman or Joker. Instead you play as a highly customizable "imposter" on Team Bats or Team Jokers. "Posing as amateur vigilantes or villains," explains the press release, "gamers will create their very own Bats and Jokerz characters using unprecedented customization options including insane costumes, homebrewed gadgets and a wide range of traditional and imagined weapons." From there, you'll take your character into a series of gametypes and maps, which are "inspired by DC Comics' Batman license."

Impostors is being shown running 4v4 multiplayer at today's preview event, but WBIE tells us that the maximum number of players isn't yet set in stone.

Update: Clarified details based on press release. Additionally, GothamCityImpostors.com is now live.

Darkspore appears to be headed to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, courtesy of developer Naked Sky Entertainment (Microbot). Twitter-based internet detective Superannuation spotted a reference to the port in level designer Jordan Patz' resume (PDF link), which says he "worked with Maxis to modify Darkspore for release on Xbox/PS3."

Though EA has never officially announced the title for anything other than PC/Mac, a recent interview on GameRant with Maxis executive producer Mike Perry indicated that the game could be ported to consoles if the community demanded it. It seems, however, that plans were already underway. When contacted, EA offered a "No comment," and we've yet to hear back from Patz or Naked Sky Entertainment.

PopCaps's Chuzzle and Plants vs. Zombies will launch for Android devices exclusively through Amazon's Appstore for Android. Amazon will have a two-week exclusive on both titles for the "U.S. market."

Chuzzle will be available tomorrow, May 17, through May 30 and Plants vs. Zombies will shamble in "during a second exclusive offer later this month." Both games will be free on the first day of availability and $2.99 after.

PopCap's announcement is missing a lot of details about the timetable for the exclusives. We're currently following up and asking if a similar approach is planned for the company's future Android titles.

Video games have tested your thumbs and brain so many times that you almost don't notice that it's happening. Trials of deduction and dexterity are the vernacular of game design, the foundation of almost every release.

While L.A. Noire still features those classic building blocks, it's also testing something entirely new: Your instinct. Though Team Bondi's execution of the idea is not quite perfect, the results of the experiment are just too interesting to ignore.

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Listen, everyone -- your desk simply isn't intimidating enough. What you need, what you've got to have is an 11-inch statue of a muscle-bound future-marine. That's just one of the many, many bonuses include in the $150 Epic Edition of Gears of War 3; a monstrous package that encapsulates the aforementioned statue; a 96-page book penned by Tom Bissell (author of "Extra Lives") about the art and design of the shooter; an "Octus Service Medal;" and everything else pictured above. (Is that Adam Fenix's will? It certainly is.)

Shoppers will also have the option of purchasing the game's $80 Limited Edition, which includes the Service Medal, a COG flag, some Fenix family documents and an exclusive Adam Fenix multiplayer skin. No statue, though; so who's going to keep your mug full of pens from stepping out of line? Check out the full list of the extras in the Epic and Limited Editions -- as well as a video demonstration of that statue -- after the break!

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