Game break

Spent some time on my lazy 4th playing some games on the 360. Some random thoughts on the subject:

Prey: I played the Prey demo. I'm not a fan of shooters on the console, but it was there, and hey, this is a game 10 years in the making. Perhaps I should have worn my decade old, very worn, glow in the dark, Prey T-Shirt I got from the initial team working on it; in celebration. Anyhow, thoughts:

• Is it good, yes. Is it "10 years in the making" good, not quite. It's very Doom3-ish (very bump-mappy, very shiny, very half-this-spaceship-is-living-fleshy) and Heavily Half-Life 2 influenced. But if you liked those games, you'll likely like this one as well.
• I loved the magnetic catwalks that allow for inverted gravity and Escher-like level scenarios. Between that and the portals, it's very easy to be disoriented in the levels. I could imagine this making for AWESOME multiplayer levels.
• The opening level takes place in a bar, and has playable video poker, arcade machines and a jukebox. The fact that the Jukebox has some Nugent on it among the selections wins it some extra points in my book!

Xbox Live & Marble Blast Ultra: I'd sunk a bunch of time into this game a while back and after finishing 57 of 60 levels, I'd more or less petered out on it. Then on monday I got a message from my friend Marty (aka the Arctic Gin Monk) saying "Hey, I picked up MBU have have been working my way through the levels beating your times on all of them". To which I says, "Pardon me?" Then I was back on last night kicking his butt. Anyhow, I guess there's something to this Xbox Live leaderboard stuff after all.

Cameo: Pretty graphics, interesting mechanic with the acquiring of the different creatures and allowing you to swap them (and thus your capabilities) out. On the down side, the dialog writing is so painful that I alsmost gave up on the game after a couple bad jokes. Also, the intro level feels very bolted on.

Geometry Wars: I can't beat 500k to save my life. How do these young gamer whippersnappers do it?!?