I won’t yet get into why I have an Xbox 360 or what the general consensus is, but I would like to say that I’ve recently purchased a couple Xbox Live Arcade titles that I absolutely love.

This weekend it is Bungie’s classic Marathon: Durandal. I first learned it was coming to Xbox Live as I saw it flash by in the E3 2007 Xbox Live Arcade Games Montage and was giddy as a school girl due to the fact that I’ve played some Marathon in my day.

Freeverse released this Marathon port mid-last week and I have to say that its fast-paced multiplayer action feels like it was originally intended for the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live! Plus, playing this in HD on very fast hardware is a quite the dream-come-true.

I had also picked up Prince of Persia Classic when it was released on Xbox Live Arcade as well. This too brings back memories of playing it on various classic Macs in my younger years. They did a great job of updating it with much better graphics and animations, but keeping the game-play and levels exactly as I remember them.

New developers have a lot to learn from the greats of yesteryear, so it’s good to see some of them making it back into the mass market. I think Cliff Bleszinski, lead game designer for Gears of War, is one of the few recent developers who “gets it”. Especially with regard to keeping controls simple and using context-sensitivity to his advantage (much like Prince of Persia). He also seems to have Bungie’s knack for focusing on making fun games.