Write a comment
Whenever a game finally comes out after what feels like years of delays, the fear of it not living up to the hype it generated is warranted. While some games are able to live up to the hype and others take a bit before achieving said status, some just end up not being able to and either crash and burn or end up remaining as vaporware. Thankfully, that isn’t the case with Mouse: P.I. For Hire; a game originally announced back in 2024 and had multiple delays before finally being released this year. Does it live up to the hype? Heck yes! Will I be doing a lot of cheese puns in this review that may or may nacho cheese everyone? Yep and hopefully I don’t swiss any and they’ll be very gouda puns!
The City That Never Sleeps
In order to avoid spoilers, this review will only be focused on the gameplay itself and any screenshots in this review will be from the opening few levels and what’s already been shown in trailers. What I will say is that you play as Detective Jack Pepper: A mouse living in the city of Mouseberg taking on any case he can, both big and small. Each of the three main cases you take on are very well thought out, with enough twists and turns that keep me interested and wondering just where the story was going right up to the end, which took a while to get to as this is not a game you can or should speedrun. Personally, I feel that a great story is usually tricky to pull off in a FPS game, so I have to give Mouse: P.I. For Hire props for being able to make one this engaging to where I really didn’t want the story to end. I’ll admit there were a few small moments where I did roll my eyes at an event that happened, mostly because it was one of those cliches you usually see in these types of noir stories, but they weren’t enough to really hurt it in any way. What I feel really helps both the story stand out and the world itself is the artstyle. Taking heavy inspiration from the 1930’s style of animation - the rubber hose style - this really feels and looks like a lost cartoon from that era. In fact, it reminds me a lot of the shorts from Fleischer Studios, with how they use animation on top of live-action sets, as many of the locations have this ‘live action’ look to them while everything else is animated. Even the in-game HUD has these neat little touches, like the various rounds for guns having unique faces to even your heart having Doomguy-like facial animations and changing whenever it’s damaged. I also really liked how every character has unique designs to them, making them easy to distinguish from one another, and there are some legitimately cute designs here like, for example, this babushka shrew I saw in a few areas carrying a sack of potatoes. I think my favorite characters were this small mouse hocking newspapers on the corner and Tammy, your mechanic friend who upgrades your weapons and is just a joy to listen to when you chat with her. Speaking of which, the voice acting on the whole really surprised me as it’s some of the best I’ve heard in a long while. It doesn’t feel like anyone is just reading a script here but, rather, everyone just feels natural in their deliveries. You really believe, for instance, that Jack Pepper (voiced by Troy Baker) is this hard boiled noir detective who’s been through a lot in his life, but still has time to make a quick quip or two, of which there are PLENTY of quippy one-liners, with many referencing classic movies or a serving of cheese-related puns. Ah, yes, the puns. While some of the puns are slightly cheesy and may nacho cheese for everyone, the vast majority of them were very gouda and I had to stop and laugh at many of the sharp cheddar puns, with none of them being a swing and a swiss. Even the references to popular media of both the era and modern times got a laugh out of me, including one for a horror game that caught me by complete surprise that I daren’t spoil.
I also must praise the music here as it’s some of the best I’ve heard in an FPS in a while. Now, let me just say this first: I’m a full born and bred metal head, thanks to my mother introducing me to many classic 80’s metal bands like Cinderella and Poison. Whenever I’m in the mood, I’m always listening to tracks from Judas Priest, Helloween, Legend, Powerwolf, AC/DC (including the Dave Evans era), and Saxon. The same goes to video game soundtracks as I tend to prefer the ones with a rocking soundtrack like Brutal Legend, Metal: Hellsinger, and Doom: The Dark Ages. But that doesn’t mean I listen to just metal. No, in fact, I listen to a lot of non-metal bands as well, like Yes, Frank Zappa, Meat Loaf, as well as orchestral pieces like The Planets and Jeff Wayne’s War Of The Worlds, along with soundtracks for games like Starship Titanic and Genesis Noir. I mention this as Mouse: P.I. For Hire’s jazz-infused soundtrack is downright incredible and ranks up there as one of my favorite gaming soundtracks. It’s peaceful when the scene calls for it, ramps up in speed when the action heats up, and also gives a nice ending sound when the action dies down, letting you know you can now sit back and just breathe. It’s also one of those soundtracks I find myself wanting a physical copy of to listen to whenever I want, it’s just that good. While it’s on my mind and before we get to the gameplay, I got something funny I want to mention. For the longest time, I thought the game was called “Mouse P.I: For Hire”, with the colon going after the ‘P.I.’. I didn’t realize the colon was after ‘Mouse’ until this review. It's a bit embarrassing, but I thought I should mention it here.
“I released my finger from the trigger. And then it was over.”
If you enter this game thinking this is going to be like every other Indie shooter on the market, then prepare to be in for a shock. While this may look like a typical FPS, it doesn’t play like, say, most FPS games on the market. This means you won’t be bunny hopping or sliding all around the place like you just injected fifty gallons of G-Fuel into your veins and are now more hyper than Daffy Duck on a normal day. While you do have a dash move of sorts, which is useful in some situations, and you do end up killing your fair share of mooks, this isn’t a fast-paced movement shooter or ‘boomer shooter’. No, I equate it more to something like the first Bioshock sprinkled with just a bit of Portal in regards to puzzles. That is that, while you do get these open arenas to fight in at times, you’ll mostly be relying on your wits and the environment itself to get the leg up on your opponents. I gotta say after playing nothing but zombies in Black Ops 7 where I’m constantly moving, sliding, and jumping like a crazed chaos-controlling hedgehog with guns, it felt nice being able to take things slow and easy. Yes, there are still moments where you do have to bunny hop around, but these only came up during specific boss encounters or doing the occasional puzzle, of which there are some in the game but they won’t break your brain or anything. Though, in my case, and this is a pretty funny story, it did make me realize my definition of a phrase was different from what the game intended. What happened was, during one case in Tinsel Town (the Mouseberg version of Hollywood), I had a side objective to check out a family set (Don’t worry, this isn’t a spoiler as this mission is very early in the game). Now, I assumed that ‘family’ meant something like a kids show or something akin to shows like The Waltons or Leave It To Beaver, but no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find any family set. As it turns out? When they said ‘family set’, they meant the mouse version of the show The Honeymooners, meaning a show ‘about a family’ and not what I was thinking. Then again, I never watched the Honeymooners, so I’m giving myself a small pass on that one.
On that note, that does lead me to the mission structure of the game. Alongside the base objectives for the main cases you’re on, you’re occasionally given small side objectives to complete from certain NPCs in the main hub and, while they don’t really seem to amount to anything (outside of some more dialogue and fun moments during a mission), they are a nice change of pace. Like, the side objective I mentioned earlier had me looking for a letter on the set of the family show. At the same time, while you’re doing these objectives, you are also gathering evidence and pinning them to your board in your office to help resolve the three main cases. These can range from photos you have to take to items you find to just clues given by NPCs or stuff you overhear. Once you get a good amount, you can ‘resolve’ a lead and unlock a new section of the map, which I gotta praise this map as this is the coolest map system I’ve ever seen. Instead of a usual map system or automatically going to a location via a loading screen, you actually drive there in a top-down perspective on the map itself. I may, admittedly, have spent far too long just driving around for fun and doing donuts on the map then heading to my next destination. This is going to be a weird comparison, but it reminded me of the map system from the Who Framed Roger Rabbit NES game, but done exponentially better. Each of the locations you visit in the game are also lovingly detailed and each one feels different and unique from each other. From the bright lights of TinselTown to the grungy sewer system to even the swamps, which was a legitimately creepy area and had a few sections that broke my brain a bit with how trippy they got, every area was a joy to explore. I do wish the main hub had a few extra areas to explore outside of the bar and Tammy’s workshop. Yes, there is a store where you can stock up on ammo, buy cards (more on that later), newspapers and collectable comic strips, there really isn’t much to do in the main hub.
Going back to the actual gameplay, as I said earlier, this is very much less a boomer shooter and more of a slower paced Bioshock-style shooter. That doesn’t mean it’s a tactical shooter by any means, but more in the sense that you just need to take your time and actually think during encounters. Thankfully, your arsenal is up for the challenge and you’re given a nice selection of firearms with fun names to choose from, as well as a useful kick move. You start the game with your trusty pistol which is surprisingly very effective for a starter gun, especially in the later levels, but you’ll soon upgrade to an absolute beast of a pump action shotgun, which gets my award for having the best reload animation I’ve seen in any game. This is followed by the trusty Tommy Gun, here called a James Gun (which I can only assume is a reference to the Slither director), along with many other firearms, both familiar and fitting for its cartoon world. One stand out weapon is the Devarnisher, which you get very early in the game and is probably the most unique weapon I’ve used in any game ever. Instead of firing normal ammunition, it actually fires a special acid that straight up melts enemies and does quick work of certain bosses. You can also upgrade all your firearms in a very Bioshock-like way by visiting Tammy in-between missions after locating blueprints in either secret areas or in safes you unlock and I love how the upgrades actually physically change them, which is a neat touch. These upgrades also unlock alternate fire modes for your guns, like a very Blood-esque spray n’ pray move with the James Gun and firing both barrels from the double barrel shotgun lovingly called the Kiss Kiss. I also like how the character upgrades you get as you progress throughout the game are actual items you’d see in these types of cartoons, including springy shoes that allow you to double jump and the ability to use your tail as either a rudimentary helicopter or an Indiana Jones approved whip. If I had to nitpick anything, it’s that I wish the game included some sort of revolver. I mean it is the 1930’s and semi-automatics were slowly replacing the older guns, but it still would’ve been nice to have a .38 special, you know? I mean, there are technically a few in the game, but two are used by two bosses and the other is just a cylinder being loaded whenever you want to skip a cutscene (OK, that is actually pretty cool). Lack of a revolver aside, the weapons on offer here are fun to use and I really don’t have much in the way of actual real complaints. Again, every weapon in your arsenal is useful throughout the entire game in some way, shape, or form, be it straight up decimating enemies to puzzle solving.
Now, before you freak out, the puzzles here are just simple environmental puzzles and nothing that will really make you question your sanity or wonder why you couldn’t just simply swipe the belt from the fishmonger instead of putting an octopus in an outhouse and lacing said fishmonger’s caviar with prunes, just so he can use the bathroom in order to be grabbed by said octopus and run out, allowing you to grab their belt. No, thankfully, these puzzles are as simple as hit this switch or press this button to progress. I think the only puzzles I did have a bit of a time with were the ones involving numbers to unlock cages in one level, but those were few and far between. The only one, I will admit, that took me far too long to complete was one near the end and that was because the item I was looking for was straight up camouflaged on the books and in an area I subconsciously told myself I didn’t have to go back to as it was part of a previous puzzle. There’s also locks to pick and these are very easy to do, though there are some that put you on a timer or give you limited moves to unlock them. The puzzle elements also ties in with the enemies as there’s sorta a small puzzle element with them as well. For instance, if you see shielded enemies, you can kick them to daze them and get some good shots off of them. But if you see a big fat mouse getting ready to charge you and take off half your life? You can hit them with a weapon to daze them OR you can line them up with other enemies to damage them OR you can also move out of the way as he’s charging and let him hit a wall, giving you the opportunity to lay the smackdown on them. Yeah, this is typical FPS fair in other games - Big ones deal more damage, small ones annoying, etc. - but here they felt more like a small puzzle than your typical combat encounter. The only slightly annoying enemies that I found were the ones taking potshots at you from far away and vanish when you even get slightly close to them and the smaller mice who can pull out massive bombs, though the later I found to be a nice alternative to the dynamite you collect as kicking them into a group is always satisfying. I also got a laugh out of the fact that some of the death animations for them are surprisingly violent; from being able to straight-up remove an enemy’s head to a few instances of one’s insides hanging out after a shot, I was surprised with how brutal they got. Not to the level of Mortal Kombat (though that would be pretty funny to see in this animation style), but they got brutal.
If you can’t tell by now, I love this game and I do think this is an example of one of those rare ‘perfect’ games, but I do have a few small qualms with the game. Nothing that really hurts the game, just a few nitpicks. I guess my biggest issues with the game are the baseball minigame and a few technical issues I had. I’ll start with the technical stuff first and these aren’t gamebreaking in any way, but were just some small stuff I noticed. I had a few moments where an enemy would suddenly poof into existence right in front of me and I had one boss randomly get stuck in the environment, resulting in an easy victory for me. I also had moments where a piece of the environment would be missing until I got a certain distance close, but that one got patched very quickly and I haven’t had any further instances of that happening. My only other issue is the baseball card game. While a cool idea and feels at home within this world, I personally never found it to be too much fun and I really didn’t play it outside of the first time I came across it. Essentially, the way it works is that you play either a Batter or Pitcher and can play a player card alongside a Tactics card, which gives you an extra boost, and your goal is just to win. In order to win, your card, most of the time, needs to have a higher number than your opponent and if both are the same number, a coin is tossed to determine a winner. It’s honestly simple to understand - it reminded me a lot of the card game War - but, I don’t know, something about it just didn’t really grab me and I never really played it outside of the first game. Maybe it gets better as it goes on but, for me, I just personally couldn’t get into it. Still, the fact that the only real issues I had were the few technical problems and the baseball card game not being my cup of tea is just incredible. Normally, I can find problems with games but this is one of those rare cases where I couldn’t find any faults with the game.
“Here’s looking at you, kid”
I swear 2026 is turning out to be an amazing year for great releases and Mouse: P.I. For Hire is no exception. From its beautiful hand-drawn animation and world to its lovable cast of characters to just the overall polish and love put into this game, the long wait we all had to endure to play this title was well worth it. I’d even go as far as to say this scratches that Bioshock itch I’ve had since Bioshock 2. Yeah, I did have issues with it, but they weren’t enough to hurt my enjoyment of the game in even the slightest amount. It’s rare a game comes along that I am able to praise like this but when one does? You better believe I’m gonna praise it! Mouse: P.I For Hire is definitely a gouda game and one you neufchâtel swiss…Ok, that pun was a bit of a stretch...
