Mixtape

Annapurna

Mixtape, the new game from Annapurna Interactive, is squarely aimed in my direction, a flashback to high school in 1999. While I was mostly playing Super Smash Bros. 64 in junior high that exact year, it’s close enough, and I thought Mixtape would hit harder, since anyone my age is going to feel a healthy dose of nostalgia at that time.

Mixtape, unfortunately, doesn’t stick the landing, unlike lead character Stacey and her never-ending string of can’t-miss skateboard tricks. I do not believe a game needs to be X long or feature Y fail states, and there are plenty of titles that make this kind of story-driven game work, from Telltale chapters to Gone Home, the last time a “walking sim” like this was so controversial.

But it doesn’t work especially well as either a game or a story. Much of the blame is due to Stacey herself, a strangely unlikable character who is a music snob of the highest order, playing mostly obscure tracks from the ’70s and ‘80s and calling classmates who listen to Pearl Jam and Green Day “jocks.” I’m not offended by that classification, but she doesn’t even feel like a real character, and has few redeeming qualities. She expresses a weird degree of “ownership” among her friends, including hating a girl her friend Cassandra is friendly with, and comes off as intensely selfish through the whole story.

There are some good moments here. I think the hints of pre-trio romance between Stacey and Slater are just enough to make that an interesting relationship. Cassandra’s rejection of being a jock to slack off with this crew is more interesting than Stacey’s characterization, though that story relies on an overly stereotypical cop dad locking her away, sometimes literally.

Yes, this entire thing is meant to be a John Hughes-style tribute, but it feels more like its trying to trace those movies rather than iterate on them. And it doesn’t work very well. The difference here is the addition of gameplay, making the tale interactive. While that’s a perfectly reasonable goal, and I don’t think the complaint of “this should have been a movie” is especially valid, the game aspects still have to…work.

Most of the game is walking around in three different bedrooms and looking at photos, inspiring flashbacks that often have confusing timelines. The rest are “traversal” sequences of skateboarding down roads, the equivalent of bowling with bumper rails on, that you have to actively try to screw up. Even then you can’t. There are also fantastical sequences where the group floats or flies around the woods or city, perhaps wondrous for a little while, but they go on way too long.

I thought some of these did work, particularly near the end. I enjoyed “conducting fireworks” as Stacey and the others drove to the final party of the year. I liked playing as Slater and walking around with a camcorder, recording the night's events for posterity. I wish there were more of this kind of thing, but those moments are few and far between.

I understand how, despite gameplay and story issues, this game may land especially well for some people based on their own life experiences, whether that’s similar friend dynamics, similar hobbies or a taste in hyper-eclectic music. But despite taking place in a treasured year of my youth, this looked nothing like that era of my life.

I’m not going to deduct points here because the nostalgia wasn’t my nostalgia, but then if I have to view it outside of that, where I still intensely dislike the lead of the game, and am underwhelmed by “gameplay” segments that I didn’t even especially have a high bar for. I don’t think it works together well outside of some specific interactive moments or the occasional beautiful pacific northwest scenery shot.

There are pieces of a good game and story here, but even in two hours, it feels like it wastes a lot of time and doesn’t create anything all that compelling in the end. It may be worth checking out to see if it hits for you like it has for many others, but it didn’t really move me, which I found a little surprising.

6.5/10

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.