So my entire week has been wrapped up in playing games, mostly. And trying to get the inspiration to do art; I want to practice drawing people now that I've gotten the hang of facial features (except eyes--why can I draw noses and mouths but not eyes?) and although I have plenty of model pictures on my computer I could draw off of... I find myself preferring live people to work from. I guess I'm spoiled. At least with the (hopeful) trip to the zoo tomorrow I'll have a chance to wander from spot to spot sketching some creatures. Not exactly people, but still live model work.

I've been playing two games: Ōkami and Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria this entire week despite recurrent stomach nastiness that came out of nowhere. Both are worth playing and I fully recommend them to all of my gaming geeks. Both of them are games based around mythology, Japanese and Norse respectively.

Okami reminds me a lot like Zelda, it's a similar RPG type. I find it pretty unique and fun to play, it's like an art game and a roleplaying game all rolled into one, and the story is fascinating in the fact that every time you think the story is over, it's not. What I had originally thought was a short game is turning into a nice, lengthy one with plenty of things to do and hunt for. I've already managed thirty hours in it, and I expect at least twenty more before all is said and done. Basically, you're a god incarnated in the statue of a wolf that once saved a village, called upon to rescue the world from evil. Pretty standard good versus evil storyline but I like the twist of the main character not being human while everyone else is, practically. And the way the NPCs interact with you is cute, too. The cool thing is that while you can fight with weapons -- swords you can cut at enemies with and rosaries that act like holy whips -- you can also fight with your main arsenal, this thing called the Celestial Brush. With a click of a button you transform the world into a canvas and different brushstrokes perform different actions; you learn different brush techniques as you go. Techniques for cutting, manipulating the elements, and techniques for restoring life. It's a fun kind of interaction (and I promise I don't go around drawing on people to cover them in ink -- watching them go "!" and then shaking it off is amusing).

Valkyrie Profile is intriguing, too. Norse mythology happens to be one of my favorites. It's sort of like a standard party-based RPG -- not like Zelda, more like the group Baldur's Gate and D&D are from. Typical character classes like wizard, swordsman, archer. You don't construct characters yourself, though. You play the game as the main heroin who was supposed to be the rebirth of a Valkyrie but due to a fuck up (basically) ended up sharing her body with the Valkyrie instead. .. everybody thinks she's schizo, which is pretty amusing, because she does talk to herself (the Valkyrie in her head) a lot. They switch command of the body a lot, too, which makes her seem like she has a multiple personality disorder because the Valkyrie is very confident and strong while the girl is very timid and shy. Anyway, they're off to wage war on the gods! Rufus is a sassy goof, and Lezard is hot lying bastard. I just wish he was a few years older; I like my hot lying bastards more around 26 or so and he looks more like he's 21. :( Sigh. I guess we can't all get what we want. The fighting system is interesting, since you can split your group up and move them independently -- very strategy based and a lot of manipulation and control of the fight is left up to the player, which you don't see often.

...

In other news I saw a short but nice dance performance again last night. I sort of had to, admittedly, but it's just impossible to feel like it's a chore when I love watching dance performances so much. Last night was the last night we were allowed to go see a performance of choice for class because we have to write a critique and the critique is due.. oh, tonight at midnight. I'd gone to previous performances but due to the idiocy of losing my syllabus in the chaos of my parents packing everything up in the house just as fall classes started (which means they put all of my papers somewhere) I didn't have the material we were supposed to write on. I got them from a classmate finally this morning. I'm actually writing two critiques on two separate pieces from the performance since one can be counted as extra credit and extra credit never hurts.

I'd babble about all of the pieces and how much I loved this or that one (there was one really sad, wistful piece I'm mad in love with), but I actually have to, you know, go do my work.

... hey, I have music to do a music post now! I'll try to do that later.