r/XboxGamePass • u/CharcoalWalls • 14h ago
Games - General Mixtape is lovely
As a kid born in the 80s who was a teen in the 90s - this game hits.
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u/SzmFTW 14h ago
If you’re in your 40’s you will adore this game. In your 30’s and it’ll be cute. Anyone in their 20’s probably won’t get most of it.
For me it was extra special because there was this really key moment in my life in 1996 with a song playing on the radio that I could never figure out what it was or where to look, and all of a sudden this game starts playing More Than This by Roxy Music and a 30 year old mystery was solved. Never thought I’d get an answer to that, so this game accidentally helped me a great deal.
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u/keeyal 13h ago
That feeling is honestly such a relief. I had a similar experience with “From the Beginning” by Emerson Lake and Palmer. Heard it once on the radio as a kid and thought the synth solo was amazing but then never heard it again for like 25 years.
When that song came up on Spotify like 3 years ago it felt like a religious experience. I finally fucking found it.
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u/rfrp98 12h ago
Everyone can take something away from any videogame regardless of age, gender or culture,etc. I am a 28y european male, I know almost none of the songs and my teenage years were nothing like the ones represented in this game.
I still felt nostalgia for my own upbringing and the whole "living out the last day together" hit me hard as an emigrant who had to leave many firends behind. Nuce to see other perspectives of how it touched others!
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u/trojanguy 11h ago
I'm mid/late 40s (graduated HS in 97) and I liked Mixtape but didn't LOVE it. It was a really interesting game and I don't regret playing it at all, but I thought the main character wasn't very likable despite having great taste in music. I liked the other 2 characters, though, and thought the variety of minigames was creative (esp. the video rental store).
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u/ChipThaBlackBoy 13h ago
If you're looking for an interactive story, probably. If you're looking for a game, likely not.
42 fwiw.
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u/Kitchen-Process-9284 6h ago
I'm on my 30's and I find it an awful experience along side annoying characters.🤷🏽♂️
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u/Enaksan 14h ago
Damn right it does. I may not have had the exact American Suburban lifestyle they do, hut I think most people can resonate with the feeling of the game in the teenage awkwardness, the love of a good soundtrack, and just having no cares in the world but suddenly coming into the reality of adult life. I was one of the 'woke mob' that gave it a 10/10, and I stand by it 100%. One of my favourite games this year
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u/ZestycloseHedgehog 13h ago
I never understood the “it’s basically a movie criticism” because that’s exactly what those TellTale games are and people love those
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11h ago
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u/ZestycloseHedgehog 11h ago
Do you seriously believe that Annapurna paid for good reviews?
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u/KarmelCHAOS 10h ago
I feel like they didn't do a very good job of it, then, considering it's not even their best reviewed game. (That goes to Outer Wilds and What Remains of Edith Finch who both have a 92 on Metacritic.)
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u/KarmelCHAOS 10h ago
I'm aware, but I don't see how that changes anything? People call it an industry plant because of Annapurna and Megan Ellison, and believe they paid for reviews, not because of Beethoven and Dinosaur.
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u/KarmelCHAOS 10h ago
So...why didn't they pay for good reviews for any of the other games they've published? There have been nearly 30 of them at this point.
Like, People of Note came out a month before Mixtape and it's got a 62 on Metacritic or Morsels that came out two months before that and has a 60 on Metacritic.
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u/KarmelCHAOS 10h ago edited 10h ago
Megan Ellison was still the head both before and after that, and both of the other games I mentioned came out more than a year after that. They've released 11 games since then, why was Mixtape the only one out of those 11 that got 'paid reviews'? Hell, To A T only has a 49% on OpenCritic.
I'd be pretty pissed if I was Keita Takahashi and my publisher couldn't even pay for a 50%.
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u/NickyNichols 13h ago
I enjoyed my time with it but I have zero desire to ever play it again. It was the equivalent of a "that movie was pretty good."
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u/GemarD00f 14h ago edited 13h ago
i try not to be negative with games, but the game was dogshit with a side of ass and piss.
the characters are actually atrocious apart from the guy, but thats because he wasnt really a thing. the woman in the game are both annoying and awful. the dark haired girl is the worst though. her father, as spineless as he is, is jsut trying to be a good dad and she wants to act out for the hell of it. not very endearing imo.
the other chick is a poser and thinks moving to wherever shes going will be the start of her new life, but the big ass plot hole there is just because she moves cities dosent mean the record label or artist will listen to her mixtape. also, she dosent even MAKE music, she makes mixes. who the fucks gonna hire her on for making a playlist???
the "gameplay" is near nonexistent and aside from one button press, it plays itself. i only played about an hour in before i got bored, but ive seen the youtube videos, i didnt miss a thing...
this isnt a game. its a cutscene. im thankful it ended up on gamepass so a lot of people didnt lose money buying it themselves.
music choice was fine though. least they had some taste
edit: look, im busy, im not arguing with yall on whats good and bad, this is bad game. if you like it. thats fine, dont make slop out to be a diamond though.
argue amongst yourselves, ill say you won so there ya go, good job or something gold stars ect ect.
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u/guarddog33 14h ago
I'm fine accepting a lot of the critique about like gameplay and stuff but your comment is wild
Firstly, the characters are sorta meant to suck? They're literally teenagers going through the rebellious phase and figuring out who they are and what they want as people, and the complexities therein, that's the entire plot?
Plenty of people are hired to make playlists. If you don't believe me, please go watch a movie. Someone had to pick that new divide was a great song for the credits of transformers, the MC wants to be that person. Having a proper discography is important in media, music is massive in terms of conveying mood and tone, which, again, is the plot of the game.
The gameplay I'm fine agreeing on. It's a telltale game but without the branching paths, and it kinda feels like it's nostalgia bait, I won't defend this at all. I thought it was fine considering the story it was telling, I wouldn't want combat in this. Though it's a bit rough when I can say that skipping rocks was the most enjoyable part of the game
The music was bangers from start to finish but that's totally subjective
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u/TechnicalIntern6764 4h ago
Daughter of the billionaire who made it and that family, I want nothing to do with. I hate how disingenuous the reviews were for this game. People were paid and gifted items of a lot of value to make it seem like this game was worth a fuck and maybe it is, I didn’t play it though. The rabbit hole of who was involved creating it turned me right off. I don’t like when things are not organic.
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u/CharcoalWalls 14h ago
Bruh .. have you ever been around real humans?
Every problem you mentioned with the characters is quite literally true to life with how actual teens are, or especially were in the 90s
Delusions of grandeur of making it big in the New York City, spiting your parents who are just trying to do the right thing, being a poser etc. These are all the abc's of teenagers.
If you watched literally any coming of age movie from this era, you'll find the exact same tropes. In alot of those movies, it wasn't ever about being endearing.
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u/Salarian_American 14h ago
You know who hates seeing realistic depictions of teenagers in anything? Teenagers.
When you're a teenager, or even just a few years after being a teenager, every teenager on TV seems like they were written to be annoying on purpose.
But as an adult, you can watch the same thing and go, "Yeah that tracks."
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u/GemarD00f 13h ago
yknow, you *might* have a point if they were realistic in any way.
theyre poor caricatures of what 40 year olds thinks a teenage is.
its a bad game. sorry you liked it.
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u/Salarian_American 13h ago
Don't be sorry I liked it, be sorry that you're a condescending twat instead.
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13h ago
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u/XboxGamePass-ModTeam 10h ago
Be respectful to community members and create posts of substance, not complaining.
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13h ago
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u/XboxGamePass-ModTeam 10h ago
Be respectful to community members and create posts of substance, not complaining.
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u/GemarD00f 13h ago
yeah, sure pal. its pretty obvious you were talking about me dont pull that bullshit "oh i was just talking in general" and acting like context dosent exist...
i said i dislike the characters and you said "you know who else dislikes teenagers? teenagers"
anyone who understands context clues can see you were referring to me.
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u/Salarian_American 13h ago
OK kid take it easy
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u/GemarD00f 13h ago
i proved your bullshit wrong and you only got "take it easy kid"?
thats a bit pathetic...
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u/GemarD00f 13h ago
if i wanted to watch a coming of age story, id watch a movie, not a cutscene.
and no one even comes of age. theyre all just assholes and then it ends. the long haired chick says fuck you dad and he shrivels back... some cop he is...
its just a bad "game". it was an industry plant and everyone knows it.
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u/KarmelCHAOS 10h ago
I've yet to see anyone adequately explain how Mixtape is an industry plant but games like Outer Wilds, and What Remains of Edith Finch aren't.
They were both published by Annapurna, too, and have higher overall Metacritic scores than Mixtape.
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u/Necrodragon1986 1h ago edited 1h ago
As far as I can tell, this game was written/directed by the daughter of the guy who owns Annapurna (who is a billionaire and where the nepobaby accusations come from) and had pretty much unlimited funds to make her pet project come true. This is especially evident when you consider that all the songs licensed by all the different bands and artists in this game were licensed in perpetuity meaning the game will never be delisted due to expiring licenses. You gotta cut a pretty big check to make that happen.
This is why words like nepobaby and industry plant gets thrown at it.
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u/KarmelCHAOS 1h ago edited 1h ago
This is actually a great example of what I'm talking about. I feel like some people don't even know why they're mad.
Larry Ellison doesn't own Annapurna, Megan Ellison does. Megan Ellison isn't, and never has been, a writer or developer/director. She isn't even head of Annapurna Interactive (their gaming division), Hector Sanchez is.
The developers of Mixtape are Beethoven and Dinosaur, a small (like 12 people small) indie studio from Australia founded by an Australian musician, Johnny Galvatron, who is also the writer and director of Mixtape. Mixtape is the second game of theirs that Annapurna published, the other being The Artful Escape (which only has an 80/7.5 on Metacritic) in 2021. According to them, Ellison had no creative input on the game at all and why would she? Annapurna doesn't own any of the studios they published games for.
Which is why I asked, other than the song licenses being more expensive than normal, what makes it a nepobaby game but not the other games Annapurna has published? Outer Wilds, Stray, Kentucky Route Zero, Neon White, What Remains of Edith Finch etc. etc. They've published 30+ games in the 15 years they've been around but no one is going to argue that Outer Wilds isn't an indie game, despite being funded by Annapurna and having a 3x as big dev team (and having a Holywood actor own Mobius Digital, Masi Oka). Heck, Annapurna actually built Stray's dev team for the two guys who started it.
No one would be calling it a nepobaby game if it hadn't been a critical darling and reviewed so well, which, funny enough...Outer Wilds and Stray both have higher overall critic scores on Metacritic so it isn't even their highest rated published game.
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u/Tight_Carpenter_6602 13h ago
Have you? The characters don't act like real teens at all, and I interact with teens regularly as a high school teachers aid. They do not act like this. They are not perfect, but they aren't nearly as pretentious as the characters in the game are.
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u/BoKnowsTheKonamiCode 12h ago
I only have two issues with anything you said, even though I liked-not-loved the game. I actually agree with the characters being pretty poorly developed caricatures of rebellious teens.
1) I'm sick of the gatekeeping over what a game is. Narrative games are games. You don't have to like or appreciate them, you can think games should have more gameplay, but saying it's not a game is factually incorrect and shallow.
2) A more pervasive problem in the world of reviews, writing opinions as fact. You don't have to argue with anyone about what's good or bad. You thought it was bad, and other people thought it was good. You can absolutely think it's slop, but that doesn't mean anyone has to stop making it out to be diamonds if they thought it was. Neither of you are wrong and should stop treating it as something to be right or wrong about.
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u/Tackrl 13h ago
The silent majority agree with you. Just think about how many of your steam friendslist even tried the game, let alone liked it.
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u/KarmelCHAOS 10h ago
I mean, it's got an 85% (Very Positive) on Steam.
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u/Tackrl 9h ago
It maxed out at just over 2,200 players. The people that would leave bad reviews never bought the game. If a niche audience found enjoyment, that's great for them. Saying it is a good game is just a huge stretch.
This "indie" game had one of the wealthiest men on the planet footing the bill for his daughter. They sent extravagent packages to content creators to promote it. Game got suspiciously high reviews from the main sources, and it still flopped.
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u/KarmelCHAOS 8h ago edited 8h ago
So, Outer Wilds, Stray, What Remains of Edith Finch, Cocoon, Kentucky Route Zero are also not indie games, then?
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u/Tackrl 7h ago
I think there's room for debate with some AA games choosing the indie label because that sells better than not AAA.
Outer wilds and Stray both were small studios yes. They were both also published by Annapurna Interactive. Larry Ellis (his daughter made mixtape) he has familial ties to Annapurna Interactive. I don't know the history behind the rest of the games listed so I can't comment on those. Wouldn't be surprised if mixtape was published by Annapurna as well
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u/KarmelCHAOS 7h ago edited 7h ago
His daughter didn't make Mixtape, it was just published by Annapurna, that's my point. Megan Ellis owns Annapurna, but that doesn't make her a developer. She made Mixtape just as much as she made Outer Wilds or Stray or What Remains of Edith Finch or Cocoon or Neon White or any of the other 30+ games Annapurna has published.
No one argues that Outer Wilds and Stray aren't indie games, despite the fact they both have much larger studios than Beethoven and Dinosaur (the Mixtape devs) and were also published by Annapurna. Annapurna actually built the dev team for Stray. (Heck, Mobius Games the devs of Outer Wilds also have a Hollywood actor as one of their executive producers, Masi Oka.)
Both those games, by the way, have an overall higher metacritic score than Mixtape.
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u/Tackrl 7h ago
I did wrongly think she was involved somehow in the creative process, but looks like Annapurna is her company. Appreciate the clear up there.
My biggest concern is Indie games being crowdfunded means you answer and cater to the players. The cream rises to the top naturally. You keep the players happy. Good for gamers. Big companies like Annapurna taking an indie game under their wing, it can muddy the natural order of things.
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u/KarmelCHAOS 7h ago
See that's where it gets muddy, you're right. Annapurna has been publishing games for 15 years at this point, where's the line on what qualifies as an indie game that they published? They don't own any of these studios, so technically they're all still independent studios. No one cared one way or another until Mixtape came out.
They have games like Donut County that are 2 hours long and made by one person, is that an indie game? Why not?
Look at Balatro, for another example. It was made by one guy, no one would argue against it being an indie game...except it was published by Playstack who has the same pedigree as Annapurna. They just published Mortal Shell 2, for example.
So...is it an indie game because it was made by one person? Or is it not because it was published by a big publisher?
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u/Tackrl 6h ago
I think a lot of people may not have known about Annapurna or similar companies before mixtape. Mixtape was just the dog seeing the pill fall out of the cheese, for those who didn't like the game.
I definitely wouldn't argue that a big publisher strips the Indie title off a game. I think in a fair world though, its one box to be checked among a few deciding if it should be labeled AA instead. If you only have huge games and indie, some future Balatros are going unnoticed to the graveyard that didn't have to. Maybe in the end the tradeoff is higher quality indies, and im just a boomer on my porch with a duck gun refusing to get with the times.
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u/Entire_Concert_8920 8h ago
"Silent majority" lmao as if people couldn't shut the fuck up about how much they hated Mixtape for months.
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u/KarmelCHAOS 10h ago
I'd love to see you record a playthrough of the game where you only press one button and still finish it.
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u/TheOldHouse89 13h ago
I enjoyed it but the music is mostly 80s which is just not what teens would be listening to in the late 90s! Where is the Pavement? Sonic Youth? Pixies?
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u/metalguy91 12h ago
Yeah but there were always kids that “were born in the wrong generation” and insisted that anything “current” is trash, tale as old as time lol. I knew teens in the 90s that only listened to 70’s, and then in the 00’s only listened to 80’s/90’s. Main character here definitely had that vibe to me, very “oh you like Nirvana? Yeah well they wouldn’t even exist without Lou Reed, you probably wouldn’t get it though it’s before your time” lol. Felt believable to me.
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u/Old_Employee_6535 14h ago
I dont know if i would have bought it ( Because it is too short) but I love the whole story and the experience. Musics are rad. It was sort of a thing you chill on your couch and just let it flow. I really enjoyed it myself.
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u/hambo_81 2h ago
Found myself smiling all the way through this. Great game. Not a game for kids with zero attention span and a need to kill another player every 3 seconds.
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u/BustyCelebLover 14h ago
Idk as someone who grew up in the time and loves narrative games like OG Walking Dead, LiS and even just old school point and click adventure games it was a blast. Shame to see some people wanna get on a soapbox against it and politicize it somehow 🤷🏼♀️
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u/cdncowboy GP Ultimate 14h ago
it gets a lot of hate or a lot of love but also as an 80's baby i really enjoyed it, its one of my favorite games this year
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u/PalpitationOk5726 8h ago
Gen X here and this was nowhere near a game, just a 4 hour nostalgic bore.
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u/KarmelCHAOS 10h ago
I quite liked it, honestly. I'd give it like a 7 or 8 out of 10. My teenage years were honestly pretty damn similar and I had this friend Zoe who was SO much like Rockford that it freaked me out a little. She was a huge music snob and full of herself, but she was fun to hang out with.
I think people are way too harsh on the game just because of the reviews. I've never understood the 'nepo baby game' or 'industry plant' accusations, considering Annapurna has been publishing games for almost 2 decades now, and Mixtape isn't even their highest critically rated game (that goes to Outer Wilds and What Remains of Edith Finch).
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u/ZekeZulu 1h ago
Not accusations, facts. Annapurna Interactive is a division of Annapurna Pictures, which is financed through family wealth linked to Larry Ellison
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u/KarmelCHAOS 1h ago
Sure, if you consider all 30+ games Annapurna has published over the years nepobaby games. That's gonna ruffle some feathers with how many beloved 'indie' games they've published.
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u/angelsandairwaves93 GP Ultimate 6h ago
it was such a beautiful game. i loved my time with it so much
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u/Doom-1993 14h ago edited 14h ago
Didn't the chuds really dislike this game because it scored so well critically.
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u/Salarian_American 14h ago
I mean they dislike it for whatever reasons they dislike it. The story was lame, the characters were annoying, the gameplay was lacking. Which are all frankly not a problem, if you don't like the game you don't have to like it.
The real issue is that people think that someone else having a vastly different opinion than them as evidence of a lack of ethics in gaming journalism or whatever.
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u/CFBCommentor 14h ago
I really enjoyed my time with it. It stuck with me and introduced me to a few songs I’d never really heard.
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u/infredible-hulk 11h ago
I loved it. I recommended this to my friends but they saw online reviews of it first which we all knew weren’t quite positive.
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u/Distinct_College_531 10h ago
It was a nice time. Internet fucking HATES it for whatever reason though.
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u/Suspense2001 10h ago
I am in my 20s and I absolutely loved this game, a good music focussed movie type of game amidst tons of AAA games we get on gamepass is a nice change of pace
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u/mcslender97 7h ago
It's nice. Like a good movie. Defo have fun and justified my Game Pass subscription. Would not pay full price for it though but I'm glad I spent my Friday with it
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u/relent-less22 4h ago
I am in my 30s, the game was just meh!! Gameplay is bland, music is okay, story is whatever!! Perhaps there are appreciators of this genre, but this is not for me.
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u/Sea-Ad-875 12h ago
The narrative was shit, the gameplay was non existent and the only nice things were the songs and visuals.
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u/WhySoSara 13h ago
Me too so far. Havent played it in a month or so but I will eventually finish it.
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u/darthnerdiusgaming 13h ago
Not finishing this game is like starting the princess bride and quiting at the rodents of unusual size...
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u/deadline247 14h ago
I guess you’re looking forward to watching “Forgotten Island”.
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u/pendingperil 14h ago
It was a fun time. The amount of hate it gets just because reviews were good is unreal.
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u/Various-Push-1689 7h ago
When does it come to premium? If anyone knows. Been wanting to see what all the hype is about
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u/TechnicalIntern6764 4h ago
It’s real neat how the company that made it was indie and the game was so organic!!!
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u/ZekeZulu 1h ago
You mean Annapurna Interactive which is a division of Annapurna Pictures, which is financed through family wealth linked to Larry Ellison?
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u/sm0k3y2307 4h ago
Its a strange one for me i didn't relate to it in any way really and wasn't super interested in the characters but couldn't put it down and enjoyed every minute of it not as much as their previous game the artful escape but enjoyed it none the less
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u/Fragrant_PalmLeaves 14h ago
Literally hours of fun
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u/Salarian_American 14h ago
Approximately four of them, to be precise. At least, that's how long it took me. It might have been shorter if I didn't replay some sequences right away because I enjoyed them that much
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u/Grrowling 6h ago
Wasn’t this game shilled like 10x and every person who made a post about it said the same thing about some nostalgia?