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Angry Birds creator Rovio Entertainment returned from the money-filled vacuum of space today and used its massive gravitational pull to acquire Finnish developer Futuremark Games Studios. The studio is the gaming wing (terrible pun definitely intended) of 60-employee-strong Futuremark Corporation, which develops tools and services for PC and mobile applications.

“Futuremark will now focus on supporting gamers and industry with 3DMark, our professional grade benchmark which, in a new version to be released later this year, will allow unified gaming performance comparison across operating systems and form factors for the first time,” Jukka Mäkinen, Futuremark CEO, said of the move.

The developer is probably best known among gamers for its work on the tower-defense title Unstoppable Gorg, which is currently available on PC and iOS. An XBLA version port of the game was previously announced and is currently listed as “coming soon” on the game’s official website.

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With a licensed game it would be easy to slap a different render on the same character build and just pretend that makes them unique, especially with a property …
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This week’s Deal of the Week is aimed at those petrol-heads amongst us. As well as some offers for Forza fans, 3 XBLA games will get a 50% discount …
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As part of a push for an enhanced presence at the upcoming PAX East, Ska Studios has unleashed upon the world the first official logo for its upcoming side-scrolling …
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Xbox owners who choose to stream Comcast Xfinity On Demand to their consoles once the service launches won’t have to worry about the data adding up towards their 250-gigabyte bandwidth caps, according to a Comcast FAQ. The reasoning is that “since the content is being delivered over our private IP network and not the public Internet, it does not count against a customer’s bandwidth cap,” reads the FAQ.

Users will thus be able to stream all the on-demand national broadcasts, premium channel programming and free videos they please once the Xfinity service makes its way to Microsoft’s console. They will not, however, gain the ability to watch live TV on their 360s. Furthermore, Comcast currently has no plans “at this time” to offer live TV streaming at any future date. What Xbox 360 owners will be able to do is take advantage of Kinect and the dashboard’s search function when they’re looking to enjoy a little HBO Go or other compatible programming.

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Two is always better than one — except, of course, when it’s not. Whether it actually is or not in developer Demiurge’s Shoot Many Robots is a topic that is open to no small amount of debate. In fact, there is so much disagreement as to whether the game’s current single-stick controls or a more modernized dual analog scheme — which is not currently an option available to players — is best, that the Boston-based studio has decided to host what it’s dubbing the “Control Scheme Throwdown” at PAX East in April.

A special build of the XBLA title will be playable at the dev’s booth during the show (April 6—8) that is going to enable play with the power of not just one but two analog sticks. Attendees who wish to participate will be pitted against players using a single stick in a competition to help Demiurge decide whether or not to patch in support for the additional stick. Should the team reach the decision to do so , the control style employed by the PAX competition’s winner will become the standard once the option is added. The gauntlet — it has been thrown down.

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Second Update: The game has been delayed by a week, so next Wednesday, April 4.

Update: The game will launch as a four table pack for 800 points.

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Publishers Kalypso Media have released a new video that proves that alien spiders are cuter than your average bathtub beastie. The latest trailer for upcoming physics based platformer Alien …
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In what feels like an eternity, the long-awaited two-time IGF winner Fez has finally passed Microsoft certification. This bodes well with hopeful release sometime very shortly. While the rumored …
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When we started XBLA’s Most Wanted back in February of 2011 we did so more for fun. It was, in our minds, a pipe dream to actually think some of these games would be hitting Xbox Live Arcade. Yet over the past year we’ve seen both announcements and releases that directly correlate with some of the games on our most wanted list. Now to be fair we realize that we’re just one site, but at the same time we know that developers and publishers look out on the web for what the fans want. We like to think we’re a little part of that. Here are some examples that make us think XBLA’s Most Wanted is successful:

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