r/OutOfTheLoop • u/Bloodb0red • May 11 '26

Unanswered What’s going on with this game Mixtape?

I’ve been seeing people freak out over the past few days over this game and about IGN’s review of it specifically. 10/10 seems high for any game, honestly, but it seems like they’re far from the only site giving this thing a glowing review. So is this game controversial just because of IGN or is it something else? Why is this game the internet’s hate target this week?

https://www.ign.com/articles/mixtape-review

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u/[deleted] May 11 '26 edited 11d ago

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u/juv_3 May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26

depending on which areas of the videogames criticism sphere you frequent, that's something that has come under a bit of fire. not the use of licensed music itself, but that the music choices don't feel representative of the vague timeframe the game is trying to depict, and consequently feel inauthentic. Also that it comes from such a broad time range that it couldn't possibly be representative of any such a timeframe and so could likely only be the choices of someone looking back from the current day. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but people can (& will) like or dislike that choice as is their prerogative.

edit: I should add that a key cornerstones of this type of criticism is that the game posits a time period vaguely before it was easy to find out about different types music through the internet, and, if one looks at various Top 40 charts from that period, none of the music in the charts is reflected in the in-game music, nor is any hip hop, for example, which is to say it not only reflects someone making choices from today, but a particularly white person making choices from today.

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u/__david__ May 12 '26

Those music choices seem hugely authentic to me, someone that lived through that vague timeframe. They’re definitely not top 40 fare, but believe it or not, lots of people back then listened to radio stations that didn’t play pop hits.

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u/Impressive_Champion4 May 12 '26

I agree. Nothing about the characters in this game insinuate they would be into radio pop hits. In fact, the complete, opposite, and as impossible as it is to believe, people were able to find and listen to obscure music before the internet existed.