We have a special guest this week, Mike L. aka Svenn joins Mike, Jenni and Eric to accidentally invent the ESRB. Heed our warnings of the coming Wiipocalypse and find out more about the E74 error and its connection to the RRoD. Games discussed include Resident Evil 5, Persona 4, Monster Hunter, Halo Wars, Call of Duty: World at War.

We’re a little late this week, but luckily not pregnant with a baby podcast. Mike, Eric and Jenni fight off a zombie infestation while determining the best strategies against aliens and avoid random battles. (Actually they just talk about Resident Evil 5, Halo Wars and Persona 4 a.) For an added bonus, listen to the cast stumble awkwardly over issues of racism in Resident Evil 5.

1. No Random Battles

The number of RPG’s still employing the archaic genre convention of random encounters seems to have decreased dramatically over the past decade, and Persona 4 makes the final case against them. While there was a time when I thought the absence of random battles in Japanese RPG’s would be the end of the genre itself, planned encounters significantly decrease frustration in a game where even simple encounters can be challenging. Even though the Dungeons in Persona 4 are little more the randomly generated corridors, the option to try and sneak by enemies or face them head feels much more rewarding then having to go into a battle every 6 steps.

In this week’s exciting episode Mike Eric and Jenni discuss Halo Wars, Star Ocean: The Last Hope, Persona 4, The Fifth Estate, Amazon’s new trade in program, the iPhone as a gaming platform, and the dangers of drinking White Russians while podcasting.