Just when you think you're clear of the curse... Spazmat comes along. As with last week, listener Matthew "Spazmat" Goss joins GamerEdie Sellers as co-host for the Humpdate. And as with last week, depsite everything be double and quadruple checked prior to recording, a mystery buzz showed up on Edie's side of the conversation. Only at 36 minutes in does it get fixed. So you have two choices this week: Listen to a full show with half static, or listen to half a show that sounds great. It's your call. If you'd rather just jump to the show notes, this week Edie and Spaz talk about:

• Enter Platform Nation's LittleBigPlanet contest! Win any game of your choosing!
• PlayStation 3 gets a firmware update that offers full-screen Flash support and automatic shut-off after downloading.
• Microsoft performs an achievement-ectomy to the tune of 121,250 points on a player it says cheated his way to gamerscore fortune. But that raises the question: How do they know, and is there a way to appeal this decision if you can prove otherwise?
• Columbia Pictures releases are now available on Netflix streaming on your Xbox 360. But nobody can agree as to why it took so long?
• Black Friday sales aren't just for department stores! Check out Xbox Live's and Playstation Network's holiday deals. And you can sleep in, too!
• Bethesda annnounces a mod tool and three different DLCs for Fallout 3. It's going to be a very busy 2009!

Enjoy.

If you'll notice, GameHounds has decided to bypass last week, pretend it doesn't exist, and carry on with head held high as if nothing happened. It's better for everyone. So, you'll be glad to know that the curse is broken. We do indeed have a GameHounds this week. Complete and on time. Edie Sellers and Cooper Hawkes have so much to catch up on, this episode's chock full of gaming news goodness. Topics include:

• Don't load Halo 3 onto your Xbox 360 hard drive, but you knew that already.
• A European leaker flapped his or her trap unabashedly about Sony's recent annual staff meeting in London, dishing on such insider dirt as a price cut for the PS3, LittleBigPlanet and Motorstorm coming to the PSP, Uncharted 2, Killzone 2, and God of War 3.
• Sony and Columbia Pictures movies not on the NXE's Netflix? No conspiracy, says Sony.
• GTA IV's DLC details are here. New character, new cars, new music. It's like a new game!c
• Random Shit: Googlemap for Fallout 3; Valve offers "complete pack" for $99; Street Fighter IV to consoles February 17 (North America) and February 20 (UK); LittleBlackFriday coming your way -- heard any good deals?

Enjoy.

There are some weeks that you just wish you could hit the reset button on your life. You'll notice that there has not been a GameHounds or Humpdate for longer than usual. Yeah, we noticed, too. Not for lack of trying. We had repeated, yet unrelated, problems with GameHounds Episode 42 over several nights. So, after a certain point you just throw your hands up and say, "F*ck it." Which is what we did -- but we did so promising that we'd deliver a massive, mindblowing, best-evar Humpdate this week to make up for it. We pre-prepped the show. We double-checked our show notes. Hell, we even freakin' spellchecked our shownotes. We got listener Spazmatt, our guest host, online good and early. We didn't even freak out when we had some audio problems. "We can do this," we thought. "We must do this. For the fans!" And then --after two hours of recording some of the most hilarious listener-generated rants we've had in a long time -- only then did we realize that we had done the podcast entirely wrong and it was entirely unlistenable. So, again we threw our hands up in the air and said, "F*ck it." Not for lack of trying, but because it became patently evident that someone up there did not want us to release a podcast this week. And no amount of determination on our part would change things. Thus we present to you the Not a Humpdate. It is not a podcast. There is no discussion of gaming within. It's not really anything except an explaination in detail of what happened and why we aren't discussing gaming. Your welcome to listen, as we've tried to make is remotely entertaining. However, if you don't want to hear Edie and Spazmatt bellyache about all the messed up things that have happened in the last week, you're also welcome to ignore it. Hopefully this curse will abate sometime before Sunday, when we really do release a new GameHounds episode, this time with guest host Commander Tim joining Edie and Cooper Hawkes. Enjoy... actually, scratch that. Don't enjoy. Because This is Not a Humpdate. Dammit.

Wow. Has it really been more than a week since we chatted? Rather than bore you with details, we'll just shoot to the crux of it all. This is GameHounds Episode 41. It was recorded 10 hours before Edie boarded a plane, and it was uploaded from Boise, Idaho. Yeah, that's why it's late. Edie and Kevin were in the air and having their bags disappear into the airline netherworld. So we apologize. But at least you have it now, right? On the show, Edie and Cooper Hawkes discuss the latest in the gaming industry news, including:

• User-created LittleBigPlanet levels get yanked without notice or explaination.
• Two more EA customers sue over Secu-ROM being installed on their computers.
• Activison/Blizzard CEO tells shareholders that the user-created Guitar Hero music may be the next big subscription-revenue stream.
• Warring fanboys manage to wreck MetaCritic user rating system for everyone who's not a big-league game critic, including sites like this. Thanks, douchebags.
• Godfather 2 releases a new trailer. Interesting stuff, which will merit an explaination, later.

Enjoy.

Wow. Has it really been more than a week since we chatted? Rather than bore you with details, we'll just shoot to the crux of it all. This is GameHounds Episode 41. It was recorded 10 hours before Edie boarded a plane, and it was uploaded from Boise, Idaho. Yeah, that's why it's late. Edie and Kevin were in the air and having their bags disappear into the airline netherworld. So we apologize. But at least you have it now, right? On the show, Edie and Cooper Hawkes discuss the latest in the gaming industry news, including:

• User-created LittleBigPlanet levels get yanked without notice or explaination.
• Two more EA customers sue over Secu-ROM being installed on their computers.
• Activison/Blizzard CEO tells shareholders that the user-created Guitar Hero music may be the next big subscription-revenue stream.
• Warring fanboys manage to wreck MetaCritic user rating system for everyone who's not a big-league game critic, including sites like this. Thanks, douchebags.
• Godfather 2 releases a new trailer. Interesting stuff, which will merit an explaination, later.

Enjoy.

It's pretty clear when all the most anticipated games start to drop. Let's just say that the consumption of adult diapers goes way up at the GameHounds Towers. This week, GamerEdie Sellers has been eye-deep in Fallout 3, and she offers her opinion to listeners and co-host Cooper Hawkes. She and Hawkes also discuss the latest in this week's gaming news. Including:

• The good news for Nintendo this week is that its latest mega-release, Wii Music, topped Japanese sales charts in its first week of release. The bad news is the number of units moved was less than awe-inspiring.
• Sony Computer Entertainment UK managing director Ray Maguire told VideoGamer.com this week that "nothing is ever exclusive" in response to questions surrounding exclusive DLC on Microsoft's Xbox 360.
• If you're thinking you just might grab a copy of Xbox's NXE floating around on Bit Torrent, think again. According to Major Nelson using the leaked update will disable your Xbox Live until November 19, the actual date of release for NXE.
• The Beatles' music, the single-most important catalog in music and which has not ever been available up to now for digital sales, will become part of a future MTV Games release in time for the 2009 holiday season.
• Random Shit Corner: Brütal Legend still has no developer and Mercenaries 2 introduces Obama and Palin playable characters -- but NOT McCain.
• Voice mail, emails, thank yous and the lot.

Enjoy.