It seems like everywhere I go I'm confronted with people who are die-hard XBOX or PS2 fans; and they have nothing good to say about the Cube.

I don't see how anyone could say bad things about the Cube, it's such a great game system. It sure can pump the triangles, and I love some of the procedural-renderer tricks they're doing with its graphics engine. And, I dearly love the fact that there are more and more games with a 16:9 anamorphic widescreen mode available in the options. And of course, having the best joystick in the business helps.

You mentioned wondering what you'd get after Metroid Prime... We just picked up StarFox Adventures and have been playing through it. Great game in every way: Visually stunning, great music and sound production, fun to play (not too hard), riveting. It's kept me and my daughter entertained for weeks and we're almost finished with it. They're doing a rather cool procedural renderer trick to do Fox's fur, and it impresses me every time I see it, especially in the close-ups of Fox during the cinematics. Not quite up to the level of the every-hair-is-a-polygon detail of the fur in Monsters, Inc., but very convincing and impressive nonetheless. The game has a lot of detail to keep you interested, and is paced well so that there's always something new to do at exactly the right moment. I read that StarFox Adventures was originally going to be an N64 game called "Dinosaur Planet", and they reworked the unfinished content from that title to fit into StarFox Adventures. Even knowing this, it doesn't seem too shoehorned. Anyway, I can recommend this title wholeheartedly.