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I happened to review Mixtape, then made the mistake of going online to see what all the discourse and fuss was about it.
So, Mixtape. In case you've been wisely keeping out of the loop, Mixtape released last week to a series of rave reviews online. I went ahead and played it, giving it a 74 in our Mixtape review (which I would like to take a moment to remind people is a good score) but it didn't connect with me in the same way as other reviewers.
Just rattling down the list, IGN gave it a 10 alongside VGC's five-star review. GameSpot gave it a nine, Nintendo Life gave it a nine—it's been critically well-received, is what I'm saying. Others, like our friends at GamesRadar+, gave it four stars. A little more in-line with the mixed bag I'd denoted it as.
Rather than a game simply being allowed to release and be somewhat divisive, however, Mixtape has found itself in the unenviable position of being wrapped up in another one of those tedious culture war things.
Rewind, repeat
Now, some critiques levelled are somewhat rooted in reasonable stances. Annapurna Interactive (which published the game, rather than developed it) was founded by Megan Ellison, the daughter of billionaire and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison—who, among other things (he is a billionaire) has been vocally and financially supportive of the Israeli Defense Forces.
If you don't want to put money towards Annapurna on those grounds then, hey—fair enough. I wouldn't resent anybody for doing that any more than I would, say, boycotting Microsoft over its business relationship with the Israeli government. Everyone has a right to decide where their money does and doesn't go.
What doesn't make sense to me are the accusations that this is evidence that Mixtape has somehow been astroturfed for positive reviews (Annapurna's listed as a publisher on the store page, this is all publicly available information), or, more bafflingly, that developer Beethoven & Dinosaur is somehow trying to be a "fake indie."
Speaking bluntly, I don't think that a game developer making zero effort to hide the fact they've got a publisher, in a game with a huge amount of expensive licensed music, can be reasonably accused of any sort of duplicity. Sometimes coming-of-age stories come from expensive places.
And, as ever, the "it's too woke!" Angles are also tedious. Particularly because Mixtape isn't even that socially progressive, and I'm saying that as someone with more pronouns than productive follicles on my head. Stacy Rockford is clearly bi-curious (there's even a compelling argument that she's just gay, given the disaster of her first and only kiss with a boy) though her sexuality is never "explicitly" confirmed.
The closest Mixtape comes to making a point on social issues is in Morino's relationship with her dad—he's a strict cop and, the game implies, a second-generation immigrant who grew up in 1950s America. This is something the story nudges at, but Morino's resolution with her dad happens almost entirely off-screen aside from her initial blow-up moment, and it's less of a focal point than Rockford's parting with Slater.
No, I don't think Mixtape's been astroturfed, or that the praise for it is insincere. What I think is occurring has more to do with the kind of game that Mixtape is. It's what makes it interesting, but it's also what means I might give it a 74 while IGN calls it a "Masterpiece".
Mixtape's a game about nostalgia. That's it. That's as complicated as it gets.
Good old days
I'm not saying it's "nostalgia bait" or "nostalgiaslop" or whatever nuance-stripping label someone might hypothetically slap on it. I mean to say that it is a story about nostalgia, and stories about nostalgia are, to state the obvious, allowed to exist.
Mixtape is a videogame that'll either speak directly to your heart, or it'll clash with your lived experiences. There's an argument to be made that it's deliberately saccharine—a representation of a fantastical '90s suburban America so idealistic that it borders on, and could even be read as, a heartfelt parody.
I, for one, am from the UK, but I also had a much less wild and wonderful teenage experience. My late teens were characterised by cosy house parties with cider our parents bought us just so they knew where we'd be chundering (told you I was from the UK). As a result, Mixtape only charmed me insofar as I think it's a beautiful, lovely little character drama. One that pulled some laughs and "awws" out of me.
That some people think it's an all-time great, and that some (like me) think it's just okay? That's about as shocking as finding a fork in a kitchen."
Other reviewers might think differently, and that's kind of the point. I'm not sitting here secretly grinding my teeth because I don't think it's a masterpiece and IGN's Simon Cardy does. Just as I'm not letting my blood pressure rise at scathing criticism of the thing—some of it's even very fun to read.
In other words, some disparity between what you think of a game and what a reviewer might say about it, or a disagreement between outlets, is not the sign of some broader conspiracy.
I think the spread of reviews for Mixtape are exactly a consequence of the kind of game it is, of the nostalgia it's trying to capture—that some people think it's an all-time great, and that some (like me) think it's just okay? That's about as shocking as finding a fork in a kitchen.
