MOUSE: P.I. For Hire Review - Chasing Tail Never Felt So Gouda

Got any cheese?

Rubber hose animation, a term I only recently learned, is the style of wiggly, wobbly old-school cartoon you see before your eyes, and it has way too little representation in the gaming space. The most famous example is 2017's Cuphead, but you probably didn't experience that entire game unless you were willing to bash your head against a retro-style difficulty curve harder than a necrophiliac watching Dawn of the Dead.

If that level of masochism isn't your jam, I can hardly blame you. But if this is a style you dig, there's so little comparable modern media out there that you're pretty much out of luck. Which is seemingly why a game like Mouse: PI For Hire has managed to garner so much attention in the lead-up to its release that nothing short of Henry Cavill's leaked nudes could tear me away from giving it a go. No, those didn't actually leak but come on - a gay can dream.

In any case, Mouse: PI for Hire is finally here! But does it come with more to offer than just a fantastic art style?

Mouse: PI for Hire places you in the shoes of Jack Pepper, not only the game's gruff, hard-boiled detective fantastically brought to life by renowned voice actor Troy Baker, but just one of many, MANY cheese-themed jokes the game has to offer. Jack Pepper is on the case to tackle corruption plaguing the seedy underbelly of Mouseberg and will stop at nothing to bring its villains to justice.

So far, so noir, but narrative is the first place where Mouse's creators aim to prove that their talents extend far beyond animation and character design. Every film noir trope imaginable gets representation here, from our grizzled, cynical but quippy detective protagonist, to the femme fatale who shows up unannounced at his office, to the various themes of greed, corruption, and organized crime. But the way Mouse tackles these tropes instills each and every one with a kind of deadpan comedy that winks and nods at its own absurdity with every turn. You'll see a character get squashed by a falling piano. You'll eat spinach as a supercharged power-up. And you’ll read collectible newspaper articles full of Mouseberg lore, such as nightclubs holding illegal underground cheese tastings. The game also includes a huge variety of characters, each written with a distinct voice, many of whom will give you side missions, extra lore, or just another opportunity to be immersed in this impressively well-realized world. 

The game's high-quality writing is a boon in its own right, but Mouse’s voice acting is consistently Oscar-worthy.  There are too many fantastic performances to count, and they elevate each and every interaction so much further. It's one of the few games where I'd rarely skip past lines of dialogue once I read them myself because I wanted to hear the characters act it out in all of their glory.  And while I don’t mean to gush, the soundtrack must be given an enthusiastic nod too – from the game’s jazzy main tune to classics like The Entertainer, to a modern electro swing song from the likes of none other than Caravan Palace, Mouse: P.I. For Hire’s soundtrack is stellar.  No notes.  You’ll be humming the main tune in your head for weeks, guaranteed.

Now, let’s talk about what likely drew you to Mouse in the first place – the visuals.  I won’t dwell on this topic for too long because you can see them before your eyes – the game looks phenomenal.  Its character designs and animations are a spot-on match for the early 20^th century cartoons it aims to evoke, and I was consistently in awe of the level of detail in everything from the menu screens to the NPCs to even your own health bar, which has several different melodramatic animations that change based on how close you are to death.  Clearly aiming not to be outdone by the game's animators, the devs who worked on the environments have also done a great job providing a huge variety of locations to visit. You'll ride on a luxury cruise, explore the backlots of a movie set, head underwater in a diving suit and even shoot your way through actual hell in a goofy nod to Doom. If anything, it was hard not to wish with the massive variety of levels that there were some colors involved rather than black, white and the greys in between. But hey, now I'm just being picky.  The game also runs great, including a mostly consistent 60 fps on the Steam Deck if you can handle some drops into the 40s in busy areas.

When it comes to gameplay, Mouse: P.I. for Hire does little to reinvent the wheel on arcade shooters, nor does it need to. This is essentially Doom with the grisly, bloody violence softened into a cheeky cartoon analogue. Make no mistake - Mouse is still plenty violent, as shotguns can blow the heads clean off these aggressive cheeseleggers, and guns like the Devarnisher can poison enemies with acid until the flesh and skin quite literally melt off their bones. But much like its inspirations, all of that violence is less disturbing and more hilarious, giving further credence to the notion that when it comes to old-school cartoons, Fumi Games have done their homework.

The arsenal you'll get to play with in Mouse is significant and allows you to switch between several different weapons on the fly. I used every weapon to some degree, though I couldn't help but notice that the machine gun, here called the James Gunn, was my most used by a mile, feeling significantly overpowered compared to everything else in my arsenal. The weapons are generally fun to use, and the core shooting feels great, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a balance patch or two after launch to make the rest of your arsenal feel more useful.

Not that you need it on the default “Detective” difficulty, though. Listen, I'm not great at shooters. Many folks have less-than-gingerly pointed this out in prior FPS reviews. And I don't mind, I'm not upset—do I seem upset? But my point is that you can believe me when I tell you Detective difficulty in Mouse PI is little more than a casual stroll in the park, with so many healing items available that I rarely even dipped below half health for large chunks of the game. It ramps up later on, but in general required bumping up to “Supersleuth” difficulty, ostensibly the game’s “Hard” mode, to feel anything approaching a challenge for the vast majority of the campaign. If you're coming from a game like Doom or online multiplayer shooters, you're probably going to want to bump that difficulty up right away, lest you get bored with the game's relatively gentle challenges.

In addition to your weapons arsenal, you'll get a handful of fun movement abilities that let you double jump, grapple, glide, wall run, and more. I didn’t feel like movement here had the same importance as something like Doom Eternal, but the added platforming involved, especially in later sequences and in the game's numerous and high-quality boss fights, helped infuse some variety into the level design.

Also adding some variety is the couple of minigames included, one of which involves using Jack’s tail to pick locks by manipulating their pins from the inside. Unfortunately, the lockpicking is almost always laughably easy and has you solving and resolving the same lockpicking puzzles without adding much complexity beyond an overly generous timer or limited number of moves. It's a shame because I really enjoyed lockpicking at the start, but it quickly became a repetitive 10-second task that I would do as fast as possible to move on.

The other minigame is a baseball-themed deck builder which can be played in any of the game's bars, but unfortunately, it is also too half-baked to care much about. It was fun to play for a game or two and collecting additional cards throughout the campaign was a nice idea, but it felt overly simplistic, and the way its tutorial pops up literally every time I started the game would grind my gears before long. Hopefully, that part is at least patched out soon.

I don't want these small negatives to minimize the experience of playing Mouse or make it sound like a disappointment though - far from it. If anything, the game only ever lacks in minor areas where its ambitions burst beyond its seams. Overwhelmingly, it lands as one of the best FPS campaigns I've played in years. The stunning variety on display, great story, fantastic presentation, high-quality writing, huge variety of locales to explore, respectably large arsenal of upgradable weapons each with alternate fire modes, and consistent drive to exceed the player's expectations at every turn add up to a game that feels like far more than the sum of its parts. And there is a LOT here, as my run-through of Mouse PI with some side missions sprinkled throughout took 15 hours and rarely skipped a beat.

Viewed purely as a shooter, Mouse: P.I. For Hire is a very good game that manages to be consistently fun from beginning to end. But add in all that other stuff I just rambled on about, and you have what I'd consider to be a modern classic. 

ESSENTIAL