{"id":9217,"date":"2026-05-12T13:49:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T10:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/?p=9217"},"modified":"2026-05-12T18:49:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T15:19:05","slug":"mixtape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/2026\/05\/12\/mixtape\/","title":{"rendered":"Mixtape"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Platforms:<\/strong> PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, PC<\/p>\n

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Nostalgia isn\u2019t memories, it\u2019s feelings; emotions connected to life\u2019s milestones eternally more resonant than the blunt reality of events. That\u2019s especially true for the brief, almost liminal space between finishing school and stepping into adulthood \u2014 and a sensation that Mixtape<\/em> captures perfectly.<\/p>\n

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Set in the late \u201890s, it charts the friendship between three teenagers on the eve of a final party. Music-obsessed protagonist Stacy Rockford knows the perfect song for any occasion, creative genius Van Slater is two decades late for true hippy status, while Cassandra Morino is a wannabe rebel trapped by her authoritarian parents\u2019 suburban perfectionism. If those archetypes sound suspiciously familiar, it\u2019s because Mixtape is unashamedly inspired by John Hughes\u2019 filmography. It\u2019s not a straight cover though, also sampling Kevin Smith\u2019s Mallrats<\/em> and Allan Moyles\u2019 (vastly underrated) Empire Records<\/em> for a pitch-perfect vibe of disaffected youth.<\/p>\n

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This is about feelings though, not cold mechanics, and there Mixtape<\/em> utterly succeeds.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Told over a single day, the story sees the trio ostensibly hunting booze for the rager, but really they\u2019re dragging out their final night before the world intrudes. Trinkets scattered about bedrooms \u2014 a photo here, a trophy there \u2014 spark memories, each one a playable recollection of their time together, and it\u2019s with these that Mixtape<\/em> goes off on some Bueller-esque whimsical tangents.<\/p>\n

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These sequences are brief but gloriously weird: an interactive awkward first kiss, controlling both tongues; guiding a stoned Van around as the camera warps; stomping through an abandoned theme park like a kaiju. They\u2019re often bizarre, sometimes trippy, but all evoke a beautifully misspent youth.<\/p>\n

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\"Mixtape\"<\/div>\n

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Every beat is set to a track on Rockford\u2019s painstakingly curated setlist, each introduced to the camera with an explanation of its importance. Appropriately, it\u2019s filled with achingly cool period hits, such as Lush\u2019s \u2018Monochrome\u2019 and The Smashing Pumpkins\u2019 \u2018Love\u2019, but travels back through New Wave delights like Devo\u2019s \u2018That\u2019s Good\u2019, or the extremely niche, borderline hipsterish inclusion of Harpers Bazaar\u2019s \u2018Witchi Tai To\u2019. Despite Rockford\u2019s High Fidelity<\/em>-worthy cooler-than-thou musical tastes, every song fits each scene perfectly, reframing even Stan Bush\u2019s brilliantly cheesy \u2018The Touch\u2019 (from 1986\u2019s Transformers: The Movie<\/em>) into a laser-targeted attack on the feels.<\/p>\n

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Mixtape<\/em> does stumble in places. Each of those playable memories feels little more than a Warioware<\/em> microgame, while the visuals \u2014 a pseudo-stop motion evocative of Into The Spider-Verse<\/em> \u2014 work beautifully for those bespoke experiences, but the deliberately low frame rate makes controlling Rockford in-between feel like manoeuvring a juddering marionette.<\/p>\n

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This is about feelings though, not cold mechanics, and there Mixtape<\/em> utterly succeeds. Coming-of-age outings are rare in gaming, but this pulls it off with barely a dud note. Mixtape<\/em> is a short, almost dreamlike experience that plays like a memory you wish you had.<\/p>\n

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Platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, PC Nostalgia isn\u2019t memories, it\u2019s feelings; emotions connected to life\u2019s milestones eternally more resonant than the blunt reality of events. That\u2019s especially true for the brief, almost liminal space between finishing school and stepping into adulthood \u2014 and a sensation that Mixtape captures perfectly. Set in the late \u201890s, it charts the friendship […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-47"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9219,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9217\/revisions\/9219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}