Author Archives: Meg Townsend

Introducing Medium Rare

Posted on September 12, 2013 by Meg Townsend

We’re very proud to present Medium Rare, Medium Difficulty’s all-woman podcast. Intersectional, diverse, outspoken, and often silly. We also just like to play video games. There will be general discussion of video games, video game criticism, as well as gender, … Continue reading →

Posted in Critical Conversation | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Milking Cows: Female Subjectivity in “Harvest Moon: Boy and Girl”

Posted on June 6, 2012 by Meg Townsend

by Megan Townsend About six years ago, sometime during the middle of my second year of university, an ex-boyfriend introduced me to Harvest Moon 64. It’s one of the few times that he enthusiastically urged me to play a game and I actually did. Now, an amicable break up later, I find myself still consuming most Harvest Moon games as they come out. With the exception of the Nintendo DS version, I adore Harvest Moon and have a particular love of the Rune Factory Series. Rune Factory relies less on the farming mechanic than it does on RPG elements. My game usually proceeds as such: I wake up daily at 6pm and down breakfast in one gulp. Sometimes I have a dog. I pick him up and give him a cuddle before heading to the fields or attending to my cows. I wish I could say that the farm was Continue reading →

Posted in Criticism | Tagged Boy and Girl , Cows , Harvest Moon , Marriage Plot , , Milking , Natsume , PSP | 4 Comments

Genre and Girl-on-Girl Action: Feminism and Skullgirls

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Meg Townsend

You know that joke where a boy walks into his parent’s bedroom and catches them having sex? The one where the punchline is something like “What you’ve seen you can never unsee?” I’m not even sure if there is a joke like that but it pretty much sums up my experience with day-to-day things after my liberal arts education exposed me to many facets of feminism. I can see sexism. I can never unsee it. I’m not imagining it and it’s everywhere. I’m glad I see – I am a politically aware, socially active woman – but damn, it ruins shit for me that I used to enjoy.

So when I volunteered to write an article on Skullgirls it was not without an amount of trepidation or masochism. The game could very well enrage me.

Now, I don’t take myself too seriously and I like a good off-colour joke. But it really depends on the context of that joke. It’s the difference between, say, Chapelle’s Show and Fox News. It’s about awareness: of your art, of your medium, of your audience — most of all, of your genre. Continue reading →

Posted in Criticism | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments