OK so we’ve all seen the discourse surrounding the game Mixtape on social media. Some are calling it “woke slop” whilst others are praising it as a generational masterpiece. The truth is, it’s neither. It has elements some would describe as “woke,” however these are completely arbitrary and are immediately dropped as soon as they’re introduced. As for being a generational masterpiece, I can confirm this isn’t the case either as it’s less nostalgic and more a hodgepodge of random references from different eras of pop culture strung together to form an incoherent plot meant to touch upon the feelings of nostalgic gamers playing it.
I’ll dismantle the “woke” elements of this game first as honestly this was most of the internet’s pushback against this game following the virality of the footage people had shared on social media. The first myth is that this game is for LGBT people, it’s not. It’s a classic example of queer baiting as around the midpoint of the game, there’s a fantasy sequence of its two main leads Stacey and Cassandra falling in love with each other under a pale moonlight that ultimately doesn’t transpire in the real world. In fact, the only hint of a lesbian relationship between the two is Stacey’s intense jealousy of Cassandra whenever she hangs out with Jenny Goodspeed which Stacey dislikes for completely arbitrary reasons. Outside of the dream sequence, Cassandra doesn’t seem to reciprocate Stacey’s affections of her, suggesting that if anything, Stacey is simply confusing her kinship with Cassandra for something more interment. I also know this is queer baiting because it’s HEAVILY implied that she ends up with Slader by the end of the game as the two share an interment moment with each other before parting ways.
The other “woke” element of this game is that there’s a subtle anti police message that crops up around two thirds into the game due to Cassandra’s father being a strict cop and is the closest thing to an antagonist this game has. It turns out however that it’s less anti police and more a look into Cassandra’s daddy issues as surprise, he was just simply concerned that his daughter’s delinquent friends were leading her down a path of destruction which required said daughter to reassure him that even if that were the case, she would wind up rebelling against his strict upbringing regardless. Again, this was done deliberately to cause a storm on social media which worked like a charm as both sides of the culture war came out looking like fools once regular players finished the game and found these elements to be trivial parts of the story at best. There was a point where it felt like Slader was a complete third wheel to the game but again, he does eventually prove his worth, further confirming that the “woke” elements of this game were completely misleading.
With that out of the way, I want to talk about how the game looks because it is absolutely terrible. Apparently, it was inspired by the Spiderverse films which in turn were inspired by comic book art, resulting in choppy animation in both projects. What works in Spiderverse however doesn’t translate well here given how this game doesn’t seem to want to resemble a comic book and instead resemble the real world of the 1990’s using this art style. The result is an ugly looking game that wouldn’t feel out of place as an extended cutscene for an early 3d platformer.
It’s not just the comic book art style clashing with the realism of the game, it’s the fact that the overall colour scheme and character designs are ugly to look at which coupled with the choppy framerate, results in a game that is visually unappealing all around. This is particularly noticeable in the sequences where our three leads appear to defy the laws of physics whenever they fly in an open meadow or travel down a busy highway in a shopping trolly.
But believe it or not, that’s not even the worst aspect of this game for me. No that honour goes to just how pretentious it is. If there’s one thing this game excels at, it’s capturing the worst aspects of nerd culture are there’s a smug, holier than thou attitude when it comes to what type of music/movies/TV shows you’re SUPPOSED to like. The story is structured in a way where each set piece has a song playing in the background to accompany it, each song of course being highly acclaimed by online music snobs due to them being highly obscure to normies (unless you’re from Australia, in which case there’s several big hits from Aussies artists such as Mondo rock, John Paul Young and Silverchair and even some international artists such as Roxy music and Iggy Pop that only found success down under.) “Have you seen her” by the Chi lites is the only track to find any success internationally back in the day, even then I have a feeling most people will only know it as a song MC Hammer sampled given how big his version was in 1990 globally. The thing is though, the game has a smugness to how it introduces these songs, as if to say, “we’re so cool for liking these tracks and if you want to be cool, you’ll like them too.” This isn’t the fault of these songs of course which are all great, rather it’s the result of a bunch of smug elitists who think they’re better than you because they knew about it before you did.
Of course, this smugness carries over to the character’s personalities which are just insufferable. All three of our leads are unlikable in the exact same way in that they’re annoying, narcissistic, devoid of accountability and above all, completely pretentious. Stacey is the worst of the three given how she has “main character syndrome” however Cassandra and Slader aren’t much better as Cassandra allows her daddy issues to let people like Stacey walk all over her whilst Slader often feels completely out of place in any situation which leads you wondering why he hangs out with these two girls. A personal pet peeve of mine is whenever there’s a group of friends which makes you wonder why they’re friends in the first place, this game is guilty of this troupe to a tee as I can’t think of a single reason why these three enjoy the company of each other. You can almost see Stacey and Cassandra getting along due to being in love with each other but again, the game discards this potential relationship resulting in two girls hanging out with each other despite having almost nothing in common.
That said, I have to question why ANYONE would want to be friends with Stacey in particular. A large chunk of the conflict in this game is how both Slader and Cassandra are unhappy with her leaving for New York, Cassandra even having a massive blow up with Stacey due to how selfish she feels Stacey is for leaving her behind. While it’s understandable that you want to pursue your dreams and that sometimes you have to make sacrifices, this argument goes out the window when you realise the trio cancelled a road trip with each other in order for Stacey to move to New York which to my knowledge, she’ll end up doing following the events of the game regardless. Her big character ark is that she needs to learn how to compromise but the fact is, she doesn’t compromise with anyone. The closest is when she allows Cassandra’s father to arrest her in order to protect Cassandra, however that’s quickly undercut when Slader immediately frees her from the car and the trio escape from him.
So, we’ve talked about the contents of the game and why they’re not good, but what about its humble roots as an indie game? Yeah that’s not true either as while it’s unlikely you’ve heard of Beethoven and Dinosaur, the fact is we’re expected to believe this tiny indie studio from Australia managed to not only afford the licensing fees for ALL of its copywrited music, but also the merchandising it gave several notorious shills in the journalism industry to entice them to give the game perfects scores which will no doubt lead to it winning multiple game awards later in the year. This is another reason for this games backlash as well as one that lead to its label of being a “woke” game as these tactics are typically reserved for big budget games that are filled to the brim with divisive leftist politics which as I’ve stated, this game is largely devoid of and honestly feels like they only included the small bits of it purely to enrage culture war hostility.
This is more of a pedantic nitpick compared to everything else I’ve talked about so far, but I really struggle to pin down when exactly this game is set. We know it’s sometime in the 90’s since that was how this game was marketed, but when exactly? Judging by the fashion, you’d think it was 1992 as it has that 80’s aesthetic that was still around in the early stretch of the 90’s. That’s undercut however when you have songs on the soundtrack from as recently as 1997, suggesting the game takes place in the tail end of the decade which really makes you wonder how these kids are willing to look so niche and out of date even if they weren’t exactly trying to please a mainstream crowd. This to me is the perfect argument for how this is nostalgia slop, that is, a period piece put together by people who have little to no knowledge about said period and thus threw together a bunch of staples from the time period without any consideration as to why they were popular back then. This should put to rest the theory that this game was written by nostalgic gen x/early millennial people as they would realise how anarchistic these characters are acting, or at least it’s the second biggest clue this was written by zoomers as the first clue should be how these kids from the 90’s talk exactly like kids today talk. This is another theme that can be found in the viral clips of this game as we have dialogue that feels like it was ripped from Tik Tok spoken by these characters.
The final topic I want to bring up about this game is well, it’s gameplay. Now I want to dispel a VERY common myth that’s spread about this game, it’s not that it doesn’t offer any gameplay, rather than the gameplay it DOES offer is completely optional as yes, it is possible to complete this game without actually engaging with its gameplay. That said, the only reason you’d want to engage with the gameplay is if you’re looking to pop its multiple achievements which often have you completing tasks in a set period of time, avoid crashing into oncoming traffic when you’re skating down the street or even the now infamous chase sequence where you have to have Stacey actually jump and/or crouch under the obstacles in her path rather than let the game do so for you. It’s the fact that this game has no fail state that’s rubbing gamers the wrong way and what’s convincing many people that this is a game made not just for journalists, but for the “woke” crowd given how notoriously bad at games both camps have proven themselves to be over the years.
I want it to be known that I didn’t write this article as someone rubbernecking on this game’s well deserved backlash, I actually played the game and even put in decent effort into popping its achievements which is how I know the claim that it offers no gameplay is a lie. The fact is, this is a game that absolutely doesn’t deserve the success or even infamy it’s received over the last few days. That said, the fact that there’s so many people shilling for what is objectively a bad game is worthy of calling out even if like I said, I wouldn’t call it a “woke” game, rather it just utilises “woke” elements to trick “progressives” into defending it without actually engaging with the game. The best thing to do at this point is to simply laugh at what an artistic failure it ultimately is as well as let people know that it’s commercial success was completely bought and paid for by a studio who clearly has connections to titans in not just the gaming industry, but also the music industry despite their claims as a “humble indie company.”
So yeah, that’s my take on this game. The main character wants to be Ferris Bueller but comes off as a pretentious asshole instead (although in fairness, I always felt Ferris was a bit pretentious in his own movie) the game isn’t sure which part of the 90’s it wants to take place in and above all, it’s proof that there’s still plenty of corruption happening in the entertainment industry with how astoturfed its notoriety is.
This was originally published on x during the height of the games well deserved backlash, I’ve since left the platform due to how exhausting the culture war nonsense has gotten for me, however aside from thinking EVERYONE on the internet are all as idiotic as each other, my opinions on the culture war remain the same as they were during my time on x. I’m a right wing gay furry femboy who has complicated feelings with feminism, religion, gender ideology and society in general. That said, I do appreciate the push the site gave me since I joined in early 2025 as well as it filtering out those who would be otherwise made my life hell with the kind of use identity politics EVERYONE is sick to death of. If anyone I interacted with positively on x is reading this, I know you can’t make a clean getaway from the site like I did, but I do advise you to at least limit your time on there as especially as of late, you’ve all gone and lost your minds dealing with the aforementioned feminists, religious nutjobs and gender activists. Hell I even betrayed my own advice I’ve given ON THIS SITE by falling for the obvious ragebait that permeates on social media. I meant every post I gave to these baiters, but doing so just gave them undeserved attention even if I got a bunch of followers and engagement of my own for doing so. You’re all good people, but right now, you’re coming off as lolcows and my sanity can only take so much of the stupid shit you’re replying to on the site. Again I know you can’t fully leave social media, but just remember many of you have your own families and/or prospects that are getting tainted by the stupidity you’re interacting with online, keep that in mind when going forward in this insanity.
