Weekly Roundup: December 8 – Middle-earth, Minecraft and modifications

Weekly Roundup compiles all the biggest news stories, reviews and features from the week into one handy post on the weekends.

A solid week for Xbox Live Arcade. We’ve got some big releases and DLC to pour over, a lot of great games on the horizon and a few impressive milestones for XBLA favorites. What did you pick up this week? Are you battling for Middle-earth? Hitting monster combos in Tony Hawk, or pitting historic figures against each other in fantasy duels to the death?

Here’s our week in review:

News

• Guardians of Middle-earth?aims to get around the lengthy recertification process by administering patches via cloud storage.
• The Deal of the Week offers up the Deadliest Warrior?series at half price, in addition to a ton of other great buys.
• Trials Evolution ushers in the apocalypse early with the newly announced?Riders of Doom?downloadable content.
• Dream-shifting platformer Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams?will conjure itself on XBLA next spring.
• Out of nowhere, Suda 51’s Black Knight Sword?was revealed to be taking center stage next week, December 12.
• Namco Bandai has pulled the development-rug out from under Aero-Cross, citing “various reasons.”
• Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition?hits it big this week, as it runs down the 4.5 million sales mark, reaches 1 billion (with a B) worlds created, and outlines the next update for the title.

Features

• This week’s Straw Poll wants to know all about your favorite genre on XBLA.
• Matthew Smail ponders density and value on Xbox Live Arcade, with our Friday Top Five feature: Best Bang for your buck!