Today's episode of Blog Herding marks the one year anniversary and 52 consecutive weekly episodes of this feature since Andy McNamara agreed to turn over the reins to a member of the community. Thanks go out to the staff, the loyal readers, and the dedicated bloggers for your continued support.

Blog Herding Stats:

Period Reviewed: August 13 - August 19, 2012
Number of User Blogs: 133
Number of User Bloggers: 74
Number of User Blogs Herded: 20

Community Events:

GIO Fantasy Football 2012
Football season (that sport you play outside with a ball) is a few weeks away from the official kickoff and Supersnake is coordinating the GIO Fantasy Football 2012 league. Read his blog for all of the details.

Community Blogs:

The Next-Gen Gameplan: Nintendo
Jon Gregory aka JMan240 continues his series of blogs evaluating the different manufactures and the direction he thinks they should pursue in their next generation of consoles.

Do Game Journalists Show Favoritism Towards Japanese Games?
Cameron Koch responds to the claim made by Alex Hutchinson, creative director on Assassins Creed 3, suggesting Japanese games and developers seem to get preferential treatment from western game critics.

What's The Most Underrated Game Of All Time?
A collaborative project compiled by JC featuring a number of members from the community, as each discusses what game they consider to be the most underrated of all time.

Behind The Character
There are all sorts of roles involved with bringing our video game characters to life and one of the most underappreciated are the voice actors. J Warrior takes a moment to recognize some of the best.

10 Questions With Adventure Time's Jesse Moynihan
His first blog since attaining the Level 5 milestone, messyFishstick arranges an interview with Jesse Moynihan, the storyboard artist from Adventure Time and the artist behind the web comic Forming.

Return To Post-Apocalyptia
Having recently returned from a follow-up trip through the wastelands of Fallout 3, Stranger describes the experience in great detail while comparing it to the similarly vast world found in The Elder Scrolls.

What Needs To Be In Dragon's Dogma 2
A slick and thoughtful piece by The Monster Hunter detailing a few features he would like to see implemented in the next edition of Capcom's new action role-playing series, Dragon's Dogma.

Reasons Why I'm Pitching Darksiders II To You
Darksiders II has been one of the hot topics for the week and if you haven't experienced it yet, this compelling blog by DrJoeystein very well might convince you to give it a try.

What Is Metal Gear Solid 5?
Romars202129 considers the future direction of the Metal Gear Solid series and the prospect that Kojima Productions will somehow associate Project Ogre with the latest chapter in the MGS series.

The Consequences Of Complexity
A brilliantly written post from quasiconundrum suggesting that the more complex and technically advanced a video game is, the more tolerant players should be when they discover flaws with it.

Gaming Through The Years
A heartwarming personal testimony from DJH chronicling a few of his memorable gaming experiences over the years, complete with pictures showcasing hardware from the past.

Girlfriend Mode
The controversial comment made recently by John Hemingway, lead designer of Borderlands 2, sparked several responses from the community including this succinct response from ace13.

Sony's Incredible Risks
Hannibal eloquently categorizes some of the risks taken by Sony that have yielded positive results and then shares his thoughts on each of the different initiatives.

A Quick Look At The 2012 Video Game Olympics
Even though the 2012 Olympics ended nearly two weeks ago, thegodofwine7 just finished tallying the results and is ready to hand out the medals to certain video game characters. See who won gold.

Expand Your Horizons...Through Video Games
Despite video games not truly being accepted by mainstream society for their artistic expression or intrinsic value, Marco Polo makes a lofty claim of just how significant they can be on our culture.          

How Do You Make Time For Gaming?
A short but popular blog from Doctor Apozem that questions something many of us struggle with and that's how to make time to play video games when there are only so many hours in a day.

The Unlockable Content In My New Game Purchase
TOGNick reveals his frustration dealing with the errors he received trying to unlock the Darksiders II bonus content that was supposed to be available the day of release but wasn't.

My Open-World ADD
AshaMan3000 describes a condition he suffers from that you might too whereby he plays and enjoys the large, open-ended worlds of certain games like Red Dead Redemption, but never finishes them.

1 Is The Loneliest Number
Following up from his blog from last week focusing on gamers playing co-op, this week Jolt the Cynic shifts gears and examines some of our favorite video game pairs.

The Most Overrated Characters
The Joyful Penguin doesn't pull any punches with this blog about the most overrated video game characters with a list that includes some big names that might surprise you.

Community Reviews:

Riding With The Devil And The Damned
The prolific Grand Theft Auto series has aged over the years but is still able to attract fans of the series. Doctor Apozem plays through The Lost & Damned DLC for GTA IV and lives to write about it here.

Darksiders II
The recently released Darksiders II is receiving a ton of praise and this review from John Wrek details his reasons why he likes it enough to award it a score of 9.25 out of 10.

Stop! Bullet Time!
It's been nearly a month since Craigaleg posted one of his video reviews, but he's back and armed with one of the best Max Payne 3 critiques you'll ever find. Be sure to check out the companion blog too.

Community Podcasts:

The Jacked Up Indie & Mojo Show Episode 44
Arguably one of their best episodes, the hosts welcome Game Informer's own Ben Hanson who graciously talks about working at the world's most popular video game magazine as a video producer.

Don't forget to send your feedback, recommendations, and community events in to my personal Game Informer account located here to ensure this feature continues to provide the content you're eager to read.

Happy Blogging!

Your friendly neighborhood blogging community (08/13/12 – 08/19/12):
ace13; AshaMan3000 (3); benderstrike64; BlackHeartedWolf (7); Bradamantium (3); BRAV0 F1VE; Cameron Koch (2); Caudex (2); Craigaleg; Cru Hunter; dadarkheart; Daniel Jones; DJH (7); Doctor Apozem; DrJoeystein; DrPool (2); Enigma (3); Frosty (3); Gaming Warthog; Ghost; GoldvsSilver; Hannibal (3); Hist; Hobo Baggins; J Warrior; Jack Gardner; JC; John Wrek; Jolt the Cynic (4); Jon Gregory aka JMan240; jordanthegamer (4); Joyful Penguin (2); Juanolo (4); KAGEHOSHI-; Kid Ica; KillerRabbitsFTW; killjoy115; LastQuestion; LGAR; Light Gamebeast23456; Marco Polo (2); messyFishstick; Mike (2); mojomonkey12; Nintendo Fan (2); OneArmedWonder; Pokémon Trainer Red (4); quasiconundrum; Queso6p4; Rabid Chipmunk; RadiantChaos; Reptar7; Romars202129; ScruffTheNerfHerder; Seamoni; Senshuro; shadowBack (2); ShadowDragyn; sorryjzargo; Storm One; Stranger; Supersnake; The Great Cubone; The Man With Many Dogs, Blake; The Monster Hunter; thegodofwine7 (3); Thejourneyman66 (2); TOGNick (7); Warbuff (2); Wayne Strickland; wayoverdue (3); xking595x (2); xl9; and of course yours truly...Saint.

Video Game Quote of the Week:
"Survival is overrated. You need to live a little too."  – Celeste, Mirror's Edge