Since we don't want you to be overwhelmed by the deluge of media emerging from E3, we've picked a bouquet of the best screenshots from Sony first-party PSN lineup, including luscious images from ex-seed expectations experience, Flower. Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty, PixelJunk Eden, Fat Princess, Siren: Blood Curse ... Which of these are you dying to download?

As revealed earlier in Sony's E3 press conference, popular platforming pair Ratchet & Clank are to embark on a $15 PSN adventure sometime this Summer. The cheaper, bite-sized game will serve as a "great introduction to what R&C is all about," depicting the adventures of the Lombax and robot following Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction's climax.

For those excited by the news but alarmed by the lack of a physical disc to cherish and smell when nobody's looking, SCEE president David Reeves has promised a Blu-ray disc version of Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty, just for PAL territories. There will also be PSN version, but we all know that'll look completely rubbish in your sprawling disc collection.

Le sigh. A sincere question coming from the developers of acrobatic Gears of Civil War shooter, Damnation, once again brings us in direct competition with longtime Joystiq nemesis and mistaken alternate identity, Joystick Magazine. "You guys did a cover for us, right?" asks a member of Blue Omega Entertainment, unaware of our disdain for paper and our geographical avoidance of France.

Being mistaken for Joystick has become one of our favorite trade show traditions (does it happen to them too?), if only for the ironic reminder that the Joystiq with a "q" is the one that isn't French.

There are plenty of reasons to attend tonight's second annual Joystiq E3 afterparty. The first one (pictured above) weighs in at roughly 200 pounds -- masses of game-related clothing, doohickeys, doodads, thingamabobs and pointless junk could be yours! You'll also be able to devour free food, meet your fellow readers and play some video games on our projectors. Which video games? That's a surprise.

As for the drawbacks of coming ... well, you might run into us. If you want to have a good time, be sure to avoid the individuals with pasty skins, bloodshot eyes and a habit of muttering endlessly about some unreleased game.

When: 6pm - 10pm PT on Thursday, July 17th
Where: Mahalo HQ, 902 Colorado Ave. Santa Monica 90401 (map)
Who: Yes, this event is all ages!
RSVP: Facebook

Just like last year, we'd like to give a shout-out to the folks over at Mahalo.com for hosting the event.

For some unfathomable reason, we've recorded a second E3 2008 podcast. Not only that, but we've uploaded it onto the interweb and constructed a largely vacuous paragraph urging you to listen to the show. What can you expect? There's talk of Prince of Persia, Mirror's Edge, Tom Clancy's Endwar and boring press conferences, not to mention a strict adherence to our remarkably high audio quality and professionalism. Ahem.

Get the podcast:
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Hosts: Chris Grant, Ludwig Kietzmann and Justin McElroy

For fans: Joystiq Podcast Facebook group

2:39PM PST: As is the standard procedure for attending an E3 press conference, we're currently waiting in line for Konami's E3 2008 event. Keep an eye on this post and brace yourself for unimaginable megatons and/or insipid fizzles!

2:41PM PST: We've taken our seats! Jay Boor, Konami's head PR guy welcomes us. Here we go!

The zombie apocalypse is not funny. Modern civilization crumbles, your friends are eaten alive and those with a pulse are forced to adopt a rather rigorous and unrelenting exercise program, one largely motivated by the desire to stay alive. Shakily counting out your precious remaining bullets and praying that the snarling, undead legion won't find you huddling beneath a desk is hardly a situation worthy of a chuckle. It certainly isn't the basis for a fun party game.

"It is a fun party game, in a way," remarks Valve's Chet Faliszek. The fun party game in question, of course, is Left 4 Dead, a team-based shooter that actually makes Armageddon amusing. Don't get us wrong -- horrible, horrible things are happening to you and three friends. You're all fighting for your lives, living from room-to-room as you aggressively expend ammo, rummage for medical supplies and desperately try not to shoot each other in the back. Good times!

Plastic instrument rivalry news now, with Stephen Totilo of MTV Multiplayer confirming that the upcoming Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero: World Tour will happily work with non-Guitar Hero peripherals – including those from Harmonix's first Rock Band game. The fate of Rock Band 2's instruments has yet to be decided – they haven't become available for testing just yet.

We're happy to see Activision tear down this wailing wall, even though we'll have to tweak our peripheral compatibility matrix for the umpteenth time. We're not quite sure how many an "ump" is, but we're thinking it's somewhere in the region of 119.

Q-Games' wildly colorful and inherently trippy PSN title, Pixeljunk Eden, has been confirmed for a July 31 release on both the US and Japanese PlayStation Network. The downloadable game, which has captured plenty of attention thanks to a unique art style and mellow gameplay, is the third 2D game in the popular PixelJunk series.

We always appreciate the sort of video game trailer that can take time out of its self-absorbed, snappily edited posturing to teach us something valuable. Take this brief God of War III announcement trailer, for instance, which handily sums up the entirety of history in just a few seconds, bookending thousands of years with sheer, unrelenting chaos. Thanks for the lesson, Kratos.

Ubisoft has officially announced I Am Alive, a new adventure that forces players to "think, react and take risks that will directly affect themselves and those around them" as they navigate a Chicago "left in ruins." The game is currently targeted for release on "current generation video game consoles" during Spring 2009. Not much else is known about the title, though earlier reports suggested that Assassin's Creed producer, Jade Raymond, would be taking the reins of this disaster game.

We'll let you know as soon as we learn more. Update: Teaser trailer after the break.

While barking orders into a headset and commanding our tanks to ineffectually annihilate agitate the enemy army, we received some release date intel for upcoming tanks-go-here-helicopters-go-there skirmish, Tom Clancy's EndWar. According to Ubisoft, the console-oriented, real-time strategy game will march onto shelves in the US and Europe on October 14th. It'll launch on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 first, followed by PSP and DS versions at a later stage. A PC version is currenty "under consideration."

Check back later this week for our hands-on impressions of Tom Clancy's EndWar.

When is Final Fantasy XIII coming out? To deliver even a vague answer, you'll need to consider the long and winding path the immensely anticipated RPG still has to take -- and the Xbox 360 version isn't about to take a shortcut. Speaking at a special Square Enix Q&A event at E3, Square Enix exec Shinji Hashimoto detailed the developer's strategy, taking care to consider not only the game's multiplatform development, but its localization period as well.

Final Fantasy XIII is currently being developed using Square Enix's "Crystal Tools" technology with the PC as base platform. "As we have already announced, we will complete the PS3 version in Japan," explained Hashimoto. "After that, we will start the localization for US and Europe." Once localization is underway, Square will begin development of the Xbox 360 version, with the aim of releasing it in America (with no meaningful content changes) alongside the localized PlayStation 3 version. "Because of languages and other conditions, it may not release in US and Europe simultaneously," noted Hashimoto.

Convenient summary: Final Fantasy XIII isn't coming out soon.

The Last Remnant, which given Square Enix's typical grasp of words like "final" is probably the first remnant on top a great pile of discarded remnants, will be found on the Xbox 360 on November 20th. In an announcement that was almost swept away by multiplatform Final Fantasy XIII hysteria, Square Enix president Yoichi Wada confirmed at Microsoft's E3 press conference that the pointy-haired, teary-eyed RPG would arrive on Microsoft's system first, just in time for the end-of-year purchasing frenzy. A Games For Windows version will follow at a later stage.

Be sure to view the trailer posted after the break!