Review - Mixtape
"The teenage experience is unobtainable"
Mixtape
Beethoven & Dinosaur / PC, NSW2, PS5, XBSX
Played on Xbox Series X
Major Note - As many of you may know, I was going to use this year to try a new review system. Ultimately, I did use this new system in my Resident Evil: Requiem review. However, over time, I’ve come to dislike it. I’ve never been a big fan of the ten-point max score in reviews, and my idea of using ten categories and assigning separate scores to each started to feel stressful. So, I’ve decided to keep things a little simpler and use a final letter grade. However, I do like the breakdown of the ten categories I created, and I’m going to keep that format, just without a score at the end of each.
Story & Lore
In the last day of their high school years, teenage friends Stacy Rockford, Van Slater, and Cassandra Morino set out to drink liquor and crash a secret party before Stacy goes to New York. Stacy is obsessed with music and has an entire mixtape CD with the “correct” songs to play during the day’s events. The game sets up the traditional John Hughes-like town and stereotypical characters, and at times you see them sort of experience an imaginative state that’s mostly there to add some gameplay moments. The story does take place through one day, but there are many flashbacks that add backstory and character arcs.
Characters & Writing
The characters of the game are going to be more relatable to a specific culture and generation. These are late Gen-X, early Millennial high schoolers in the 90s who want to rebel and look down on parents and institutions. Due to this, I personally had an issue relating to these characters, but I never felt angry or disliked them. Slater is the skater who ‘s probably on his way to being the stereotypical weed smoker of the town. Cassandra is the typical kid stuck in suburbia with parents who think they know what’s best for her, and she doesn’t want to do what they want, but is also a little afraid to tell them. Cassandra’s dad is the closest thing to a villain, as he’s a cop in the area who doesn’t like her friends, but I do think towards the end he shows a more interesting side and is not just a one-dimensional character.
Stacy, our protagonist , is the one who narrates the story, and she breaks the fourth wall a lot, specifically to introduce songs and give us facts. I loved this, and I thought it was an interesting way of going through the soundtrack and story beats. However, she was a bit of a rollercoaster for me to understand. She’s anti-institutions, the opposite of me, and she has a little smugness to her, as well as some selfish characteristics. But, she does slightly evolve towards the end, and you can see that if we were given a bigger story, her character arc would have developed.
I think if you’re part of a specific culture and generation, this game’s story is going to feel like a dream. However, for me, a Millennial whose high school years were in the mid-2000s, who listened to my parents and didn’t rebel or get into a lot of trouble, and also a Puerto Rican who mostly grew up on video games and a mix of music, I had trouble fully relating to much of the story and themes. They had slang and words on here that I’ve never heard of in my life and that’s saying something as a history/pop culture nerd. That being said, I’ve seen many stories featuring different cultures and types of narratives that I can’t relate to, and they’re not bad because they allow you to see a side to these things. My motto when it comes to people who have different religions, culture, or overall perspectives of the world than me is that we are all going to same destination, we are just taking different roads to get there. You can still feel empathy and cheer on people different than you. It’s not a bad story by any means, but it’s going to resonate more with a certain crowd. I will say this - you can feel that the team is relating a lot of their personal experiences to the story, and those are some of the best stories.
Gameplay & Mechanics
Now we come to the more controversial part of the game, and it’s, well... the game part. There is very little gameplay to talk about here when it comes to Mixtape. That’s not to say there isn’t anything, but it’s pretty sparse content. Most of the game is about walking to an area of a room or space and triggering conversations and flashbacks. There’s also some skateboarding and dodging cars while trying to nail a trick. There are some really cool moments, however, including a softball section that I felt had poor mechanics for hitting the ball, but every time you hit it, the ballpark did something cool. There‘s a moment near the end where Stacy has to run fast to help a friend, and the song that kicks in and the obstacles all just fit perfectly. It‘s my favorite part of the game. It’s a narrative story first, so if you’re looking for a bunch of action, you will not find it here, but there are still some cool mini-games, and the gameplay sections are linked up to the soundtrack well.
World & Level Design
As mentioned, there’s not much level design here considering this is mostly narrative. However, there are some cool level-like moments with the skateboarding segments, in the car at the end, and the running moment I mentioned earlier. When they do this, it’s done well, and there’s a section where Stacy is skateboarding angrily, and the way everything links up in the moment is designed nearly perfectly. The town feels like a small town from the ‘90s, even if we don’t see enough of it. The cameras and technology feel like old tech in the ways you remember them, including a pretty crappy resolution that was the norm back then. So even if there’s not too much to talk about regarding level design, the aspects of everything around the game are crafted in a fashion that feels real.
Audio & Sound Design
The number one best and strongest part of Mixtape is the music. Now, I love me some needle drops in movies, and I would love to see a trend of more of them in video games. Here’s the funny part… I only recognized two or three songs here. Despite this, the songs all fit well with their moments, and there are also shout-outs to other songs of the time (I’m guessing the ones that they couldn’t license). Stacy’s character is all about putting music to fit the moment, and it’s why she wants to do that in Hollywood. The mixtape CD she puts together is perfect for her last night with friends. That being said, like the teenage culture shown in the story, it’s going to resonate with a certain group much more than others. I don’t have a favorite genre; I like music as long as it tells a story, has a good flow, and the singer sounds good, so I could vibe with these songs even if I didn’t really know them like others will. Overall, a great soundtrack, and the sounds throughout the game are just as good. It fits the billing of the name.
Art Direction & Graphics
Another strong part of this game is the art style and direction. The characters move around in a semi-stop motion animation, while the world is a traditional 3D environment. It’s one of those things that gives it an identity and personality, and I love when games do that. The art direction during the dreamlike moments is done almost like a symphony or music video that ties to the soundtrack well, especially in the final moments. Graphically, it’s not something that’s going to set the world on fire, but the art style makes up for it.
Direction & Performances
The performances are important here considering how narrative-driven this game is. The voice cast does a great job with each of their characters, and they do feel like actual people, which helps when you can’t fully relate to them. The animations and facial reactions are also well done, and it does feel like you’re interacting with a John Hughes-like film.
User Experience
This is a user friendly game, as expected. I was never confused, and this is an easy game because you can’t die. The pause menu has a cool image of a CD in a player. When you crash during gameplay moments, it rewinds a bit and lets you do it again. That may not sound like something everyone will like, but for a narrative-driven game, it’s fine for me.
Replay Value
Mixtape is a really short game. This is the first time in a long time I’ve completed a game in just one day. Due to this, it is a very replayable game. There are enough moments where you’ll want to replay certain sections and try to improve your performance in some of the mini-games. There’s one section where you skip rocks, and you’ll want to collect everything in the lake for fun.
Recommendation
If you’re all about action and gameplay and you’re not crazy about story titles like Life is Strange or even Until Dawn, this is not a game for you. This is, for the most part, an interactive movie similar to the Gen-X coming of age films that John Hughes made famous. If none of that sounds interesting, I can’t recommend this game. But if you want a cool short experience that may be relatable to you, Mixtape is a possibly unforgettable experience.
B - Good
When I was a high schooler, my mom saw that the movie The Breakfast Club was about to come on TV. She hyped it up a lot, and I watched it for the first time, feeling like it was okay, but she overhyped it. Now I see it’s because it was closer to the experiences she had during her high school and young adult years. It was a story she loved, but it was just okay for me as part of a different generation. That’s what Mixtape is for me.
Mixtape is a coming-of-age story about a time lost that is obviously deeply personal for the developers of this game. It may be more an interactive movie than a game, but it has its moments, and the mini games are pretty fun. While I couldn’t relate to the characters and the story they were telling, due to cultural and generational reasons, it doesn’t mean it’s not an interesting one to experience at least once. It’s great that we are getting these types of games and stories in gaming, and it shows how the medium is transforming and evolving.