Mixtape Review - Rage in the U.S.A.
Mixtape isn’t a terrifically long game, comparable to an overstuffed feature film in length. It makes no bones about this, and players are, in fact, more or less straight-up told as such. The music that plays as a band prepares is always the same, we’re informed, because it also serves as a timer; the end of the final track marking the point when the roadies should be done and out of sight, the main act ready and on stage. Mixtape works to the same logic, the player almost in the role of an invisible documentary crew as a series of songs curated by Stacey, a 17-year-old never seen without headphones, timestamps the countdown of her final night in Blue Moon Lagoon – a fictional town in northern California – as she and two friends (Casandra and Slater) quest to a beach party. The following morning, Stacy will abandon her friends for a chance to fly to New York and kickstart her big dream.
Said big dream? Music supervisor. Effectively, a professional mixtape producer.
This structure is perhaps important to understand. In a way that is lightly comparable to a game such as Sayonara Wild Hearts, Mixtape dances with the idea of being a playable album. There are key differences, though. Sayonara is an album with an original track-list; Mixtape would be misleadingly labelled were its musical choices not a, well… a mixtape. Perhaps of more interest, though, is that Sayonara is rooted in a set of consistent and coherent mechanics, whereas Mixtape is even more invested in its vibes to the point where, mechanically, it could (somewhat reductively) be described as mostly being a collection of strung-together mini games.
This is because, in a very literal sense, the bulk of Mixtape is a collection of mini games. It simply is. You could describe each as a lightly interactive vignette, if that’s more palatable. Thank heavens that gameplay-first isn’t the only critical frame that exists. Context matters. Presentation is gold. And Mixtape is avant-garde nostalgia purée wrapped up in the structural form of a video game. It’s glorious. It’s wonderful. It’s heartfelt. Pick the adjectives that move you the most and run with them. Mixtape is a triumph, both as a piece of expressive art, as well as a statement about what video games can be, and – arguably more importantly – what they don’t have to be.
Mixtape serves as a reminder (not proof; a reminder) that video games can be accomplished, heartfelt and expressive works of art. Also, that they very much don’t have to be built around intricate systems and scaling challenges.
They can be, very simply, the medium with which you use as a canvas for your ideas.
Could Mixtape have been a film instead? Very probably, and quite likely a good one. That tidbit doesn’t detract from Mixtape-the-video game being excellent.
Opening with a narrative dialogue about how CDs represent the “sound of the future,” Mixtape is nostalgic, not just for an unspecified point in the sunset of the 1990s, but also for the very idea of being excited for what might come next. For being excited about stuff. In a world of streaming and wireless connectivity, where we have allowed for convenience to let us settle for ‘good enough’, even though what we had before was actually, on a technical level, better, it comes off as actual advice to the player when we’re instructed to “invest in quality headphones”. Strap a Discman to your belt, bitches; let’s effing go!
It begins with some skateboarding, a scrolling tour of a representation of American suburbia shimmering gold with surreal, syrup-dipped Autumnal foliage. The roads are generously weighed to slope in the direction travelled. The soundtrack thumps and pulses, unashamed about its volume, the weightiness of the audio clear as the characters clap along; it would require some cheap-arse TV speakers to not be able to tell that Beethoven & Dinosaur have made a point of not compressing the soundtrack into the smallest file sizes possible. We may be travelling back to the ‘90s, but we’re damn well doing so in full stereo.
In a very real sense, in a world where tinny phone speakers can apparently receive a Dolby Atmos stamp, we’re being reminded just what full stereo can be.
Australiana
If there is any noteworthy disappointment with Mixtape, it’s that, despite being developed in Melbourne, it is nonetheless set in the United States. This is the only way that a bunch of kids at the end of high school struggling to get a hold of alcohol could really make any sense. It’s difficult to blame Beethoven & Dinosaur, and they do still get some points for the inclusion of Silverchair early on in the soundtrack (helping solidify the setting as the latter half of the ‘90s), as well as a rather prominent Rage-logo t-shirt during one scene.
Full colour, too. Holy damn, does Mixtape look good. I mean, games look good these days. It’s just a general thing. But still. Damn. Double damn. Daaaaaaaaamn. There is a genuine sense of mild warmth to the air, and the stop-motion character animation just plain works. There is an intentionality to said animation, and it is pulled off without for a moment clashing with just how smooth the rest of the gorgeously expressive world is. Camera placement is perfect. In twenty years time, when we’re all somehow nostalgic about Mixtape itself, it will still look incredible. Very few Unreal Engine 5 games will be able to claim likewise.
This is important. Looking good isn’t always superficial. Mixtape looks good in a way that is crafted, that infuses a very specific energy into each and every scene. It needs that energy; arguably, a key part of its appeal is that energy. It’s fused to the music. The story, such as it is, is effectively a turning-point coming-of-age tale told over one afternoon as the sun sets and the stars begin to litter the sky. Three friends at the end of school, spending their final night together before Stacey abandons their road trip plans in order to fly to New York. It’s mostly happy vibes and sweet memories, but the setup allows for an infusion of just enough drama.
Events fluctuate between present events and flashbacks to the recent past, triggered primarily by bits of memorabilia in each character’s home. As already alluded to, these events are, mechanically speaking, incredibly straightforward. Frictionless. There is no meaningful challenge. At one point, you may be mixing flavours in a slushy machine, at another running through an impossibly long grassy field. The only thing you can do while running across said field is jump, and there are no platforming or similar challenges attached. It doesn’t matter. Beethoven & Dinosaur has dialled in the visuals and audio, such as each leap makes it feel like you’re goddamn flying. These kids remember it as though they were flying. It’s awesome.
This is but one of many examples of Mixtape’s magic. It understands how memories work, of how they make us feel and why we tint some with rose light. Time and again, through clever timing of visual spectacle – and yes, a masterful understanding of music selection –, it captures a very specific emotional reality. These moments are earned. As the three friends hand out together one last time, teasing, reminiscing with and ultimately encouraging each other, a deft hand at teenage banter that actually sounds like teenage banter is on display. The writing never falters, and it hinges on familiarity. These kids feel real, and there is a core, almost universal quality to the shenanigans that they get up to; at one point, as they tear across a highway in a shopping cart, a newscaster quips that this is only the fifth or sixth time they’ve borne witness to such an event.
Personally, I managed to get through my teenage years without stealing a trolley and riding it down a hill, but for that entire stretch of my life, it felt like I was living in a possibility-space of this happening. These are memories of experiences that most people will feel at least some level of connection to. Maybe this is what gives Mixtape its most potent emotional weight. Stacey is about to leave, and is effectively abandoning her two closest friends; she is straight-up tearing a hole in a road trip that they had planned together. As the sun sets on the single day of gameplay, the reality of transience comes into focus, bubbling up with full ferocity for maybe the first time in this not-quite-adult cast’s lives. It makes sense that each activity is a vignette that plays host to simplistic mechanics. At the core, each one is about the simple joy of being in that very moment.
And from this perspective, Mixtape doesn’t miss. Not once.
As with most people in 2026, I no longer have a means of playing actual CDs set up at home. Still, in the immediate aftermath of scrolling credits, I went and dug up my dedicated audio player, plugged in the best quality pair of headphones I have, and then lay down and simply… listened and refamiliarised myself with how good music can sound. As I lay there, I started to remember, to really, truly understand again that what I was listening to was not content; it was music. It was at this moment that it became crystal clear that it’s not a period of time, specifically, that Mixtape is an ode to, but rather of, quite simply, the innate ability – the willingness – to appreciate the crafted media, the art, in our lives. Framed from a teenage perspective, it comes with hope that things still have a chance to get better, to become more exciting.
Mixtape clearly can’t stop the likes of Spotify from grinding music down into the chalky paste of content, but that was never its scope. It is, after all, a video game; a medium that is classically thought of as providing fun and moments of joy. Mixtape unequivocally does this. Big deal; so do most games. There are several things that still separate Mixtape, but few are as meaningful as its ability to return the sparkle to the other art in the lives of anyone who plays it, if only we can give each a small moment of undivided attention.
In that sense, as trite as it may sound, you may very well owe it to yourself to play Mixtape.
Mixtape was reviewed on PS5 with code kindly supplied by the publisher.
