#10 - Mixed up

The soundtrack of my childhood wouldn’t be nearly as cool as the one in Mix Tape, the latest release to come under fire from angry man babies that seem hellbent on trying to gatekeep video games from everyone but people exactly like them. A coming-of-age adventure set over a friendship group’s last day together in their home town, Mix Tape is essentially an interactive story connected by a series of short gameplay vignettes, most offering more of an illusion of control than a requirement of S-Rank-level skills. Oh, and there’s a lot of hella cool music, Stacy, the lead character, setting the day and all her memories to a soundtrack of her choosing.

While mostly everyone else in the world is able to understand that everything isn’t made with the sole purpose of pleasing them, that it’s unrealistic to enjoy every single piece of media/art that’s created, and that’s it’s OK to just not like something much and move on, the aforementioned man babies, drama-farming megaphones of hate, either didn’t grow up or disingenuously fake outrage for attention. Both are worrying. I wonder what they’d make of a game based on my memories of being young, but I should probably simply choose not to care about them.

Actually, they’d probably call it a “game” along with the air quotes action, because there’s clearly never been a more brutal putdown in the history of time. I’m not going to dwell on what makes a video game a game, but for me Mix Tape simply wouldn’t work as well if it lacked all interactivity. It’s not so much a story being told to you, as it might be as a film; it is your story, and it doesn’t really matter if you lived anything like it or not. For three to four hours you are very much part of a trio of friends living their best lives as they teeter on the edge of adulthood - all told with plenty of elaborate flourishes during light gameplay sequences accompanied by top notch tunes.

Also, and I’m not sure if this is my main point or not, but I’m able to play, watch, or read something featuring people, and places, and things (such as music) I don’t relate to, and still find enjoyment and emotional touching points. Do I like the characters in Mix Tape? The jury's still out after about 90 minutes. Am I familiar with all the music? No. Do I or have I ever skateboarded? Also no. Did I have a secret hideout? Definitely not. Did I talk like the biggest know it all of all time much to the annoyance of everyone within hearing distance? I hope not, but quite possibly. Did I have friends? Yeah. Do I have memories? Absolutely. You see, maybe we aren’t so different.

I can’t say I’m a big music person, but I can vividly picture various points of my life accompanied by certain tracks, most of which weren’t played by me. As a very small child my mum used to play Killing Me Softly with His Song by Roberta Flack as we went to bed in order to get me and my brother calm enough for sleep. Car trips with my mum and step dad were a mixture of Mariah Carey, R.E.M. and the Bee Gees, with a bit of Van Morrison thrown in for good measure, but if I hear Billy Joel or Meatloaf I’m instantly transported back to swimming trips with my uncle and cousin. Uptown Girl only means one thing to me: wave machines!

Music, for me then, was something I mostly listened to in cars or in bed, and it was just kind of there - not something I associate with the more exciting, life-changing events of my life. For example, Smells Like Teen Spirit doesn’t trigger memories of riding our bikes around the local housing estates (probably my favourite childhood pastime), in my mind doing cool tricks when in reality we’d mostly just cycle round and round this one small roundabout at the end of a quiet road. The Winner Takes it All isn’t on loop as I reminisce about my glorious teenage years in snooker halls, playing tournaments (although if my brother were to comment here, he’d no doubt point out that I didn’t win much). The birth of my son isn’t tied to Splish Splash by Bobby Darin - yet, Sigur Rós plays and I’m back changing one of his reusable nappies following a poonami in the middle of the night.

But then sometimes things just hit you out of nowhere, and there’s nothing you can do about it. A few weeks ago my wife played A Thousand Trees by Stereophonics. It distinctly made me think of one of my best school friends, for reasons I’m not clear on, but we were great friends from age 5 through to college, walking to and from school together. He was the first of our group to get his own flat after school, so we’d go to his for some Quake 3 deathmatch and Unreal Tournament. Until that song played I don’t think I’d thought about him in years. Bizarre what music can do.

Days later I found out he’d died very recently, completely out of the blue. Childhood friendships come and go, and even the longest tend to peter out once new, adult lives are created. Every time I hear that song now I’ll wonder if I did enough to keep in touch, if I’d been a good enough friend. I don’t think he even liked Stereophonics.

Back on point, all this is to say that Mix Tape stirred some stuff up. You don’t play it in the traditional sense, you can argue until there’s no oxygen left about if those kids would have listened to that music or not, and if it’s representative enough, but that shouldn’t diminish what it’s been able to do. Even in my brief time with it, Beethoven & Dinosaur’s game has made me think more than anything else I’ve played in the last year has managed, combined.

Funnily enough Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance is forever connected in my head to the first holiday I had with my wife, then girlfriend. Our relationship is anything but - you mostly can’t choose the music that follows you around forever.

What songs make up the soundtrack to your life? Do you think of hanging up the washing when Toxic by Britney Spears plays on the radio? I cut this out of the main portion of the article, but You Get What You Give by the New Radicals always makes me think about just having enough time as a teen to doss around on a computer, MTV or any of the other million music TV channels on in the background. Let’s face it, I wasn’t cool. It was probably pop-fest, The Box.

This newsletter isn’t entirely about video games - in fact, it rarely is to be honest. I’ll have a think about some other bits and pieces and round them up in the quick reviews below. I’m a critic, too, you see.

Things I can review:

• Magnetic by Tunde Adebimpe (places you get music): I’ve been playing a new video game for a future thing, and it’s got a bloody brilliant soundtrack. I love it when games introduce me to new artists, and this game features this absolute banger from Tunde Adebimpe. I’m now working my way through his back catalogue, most of which is with his band TV on the Radio. 5 uncontrollable urges to sing out of 5 head bops.

• Child sickness (my house): It’s midnight. I’m sitting on the floor of our bathroom, holding my daughter on my lap. My wife has a bowl ready to catch. Outside of the real big deal stuff, a child being sick must rank as one of the most unpleasant parts of being a parent. Why do they seem so intent to aim at you? 1 chunk out of 5 splashes.
• The LEGO Store (Brighton): I’m not really a person who offers feedback, the like of which is asked for on receipts or on little cards handed out after a meal. Everyone is just doing their job, we all do a job (apart from me, LOL!), so let’s just get on with it. But, the staff in the Brighton LEGO Store were so brilliant this last week that I felt compelled to give positive feedback when a survey popped into my inbox. My daughter, buying a delightful Monsters Inc BrickHeadz set with her own birthday money, loved every moment of being in the shop, and the staff were so nice to her. She even got excited by the yellow LEGO bag. 5 perfectly placed stickers out of 5 found lost pieces.
• The Touch by Stan Bush (Mix Tape): Just incredible. Having it in Mix Tape is like using a cheat code on anyone who grew up a Transformers fan. 5 opens of the Matrix out of 5 fallen Galvatrons.