Spoiler-free section

MOUSE: P.I. is a Boomer Shooter. The best comparison would be to DOOM. Except this game is done in a rubberhose cartoon style, and it looks amazing. You might think that there is some Cuphead inspiration here, but I don’t care about that. Cuphead wasn’t the first rubberhose video game, and it won’t be the last. MOUSE: P.I. isn’t a detective simulator, and that works to its benefit because of the way the story develops. 

You’ll ask other mice for clues and continue through your investigation, but it’s never anything too in-depth. Which I was fine with because the game was advertised as being a first-person shooter primarily, and it nails that. 

You take on the role of Jack Pepper, who is a private investigator. As the game progresses, you’ll find yourself peeling back layers of deep-seated corruption in Mouseburg. Everything is hand-drawn, so Mouseburg is magnificently brought to life. The whole city oozes with charm, and don’t get it twisted, though, MOUSE: P.I. is not carried by its art style alone. The weapons, characters, and set design made MOUSE: P.I. a standout game that I’ll be replaying as soon as I can. 

The game consists of 20 different levels, each with its own theme. The themes in general are pretty good. A few levels stood out to me, though, which I cover in more depth further into the review. I’ll say that 20 levels were a bit much, considering how the story starts to meander. The flow of the narrative in general could’ve used some tightening up. 

The gunplay is really fun. Keep in mind, this is my first Boomer Shooter, and in general, I haven’t been playing FPS campaigns much. I had a lot of fun adapting to the movement, especially as I continued to unlock the movement upgrades.

MOUSE: P.I. For Hire is a fast, fun, and fluid game. The story doesn’t flow too well and sometimes stumbles upon itself, which makes progressing through the different stages a bit slow. It earns an 80/100 and a Golden Token.

A city that lives and breathes

I wasn’t expecting MOUSE: P.I. For Hire to have so much life. I was expecting the game to lean in heavily to the art style and nothing more. I was wrong, and the game proves it to me within the first three levels. 

Right away, the game shows you that there is more at the store here than even the trailers let you see. Which is good; it’s something that I like, and it makes the game more engaging. 

Welcome to Mouseburg 

Mouseburg has a lot of charm, and a major part of that is because of the plethora of NPCs walking around and seemingly existing around you. These NPCs aren’t advanced; they’re not doing anything major, but they help set the tone of the environment in a way that I thoroughly enjoyed. 

Make no mistake, if you try to dive into the unnamed NPCs around you, you’ll find that they’re mostly shallow. You can’t talk to them, and they don’t have interesting cycles. But they do actions that are in line with the world, and they do add something to the character of the environment. 

Mouseburg has a lot of key locations, and I don’t cover them all in this review. But there are some named locations that I have to talk about. See, these named locations are gorgeous when they have a lot of effort put into them. 

The Little & Big bar 

This is one of the locations that you’ll be coming back to often. There is a mini-game version of baseball played here, which I am obsessed with. You’ll also be able to speak with the bar owner, John Brown. He’s a shrew and has been around for a long time.

Wanda is another mouse who tends to hang out in this area and is one of the few characters I just couldn’t get into. She’s the character who gets Jack to look into a missing magician named Steve. The reason I bring this up is that the bar becomes a mostly explorable social hub that I thoroughly enjoy hanging out in.

The many shops of Mouseburg 

A big issue this game has is with the shop. You’ll be able to go here and buy newspapers, ammo, and baseball cards, and that’s fine. Where I take issue is that each one of these shops is repeated throughout the map. 

I feel like the reason they were repeated was so that you can just stop around the map without having to go back to the main shop. But from what I could tell, every shop is the same as the one in the main hub area. I find this to be a complete waste of development time and effort.

With all of that being said, this is where you’ll be spending your gold. I feel like the shop could’ve been completely expanded. If the game had New Game Plus or any kind of level replay, I’d say that this is where the shop expansion could’ve happened. 

Back to Mouseburg 

You’ll get to see a lot of different sets while you explore Mouseburg. The earliest being the Oprah House, but there is also a film set lot, which is my favorite location in the whole game. As you go through the game, the locations become more and more interconnected to the point where you start having to open doors to create shortcuts. 

There is a gradual progression in location, which MOUSE: P.I. For Hire did extremely well. Sadly, I strongly believe that this game didn’t need 20 levels; they could’ve condensed things to make the story flow better. Better yet! The main story levels could’ve been condensed, and we could’ve gotten better side quests. 

Mouseburg has a lot of character and history, which I briefly touch on in the story section. The history is given to you through a few different methods. First would be the dialogue used throughout the game, which is the best way to get the history without diving too deep. The newspapers are another source that helps flesh out the history from the past to the present. I am obsessed with these. But also! Be sure to read the baseball cards because they also have lore and history attached to them.

What I’m getting at is that Mouseburg is a fun setting to play in because of all the work that went into making it feel as alive as possible.

Sponsor Break 

This article is sponsored by my friend Ron over on GamingTrend. Today, we feature one of his 3D printer videos. This video brings us an unboxing of the Creality SparkX i7 3D printer. This unboxing is thorough and extremely informative. 

Game Mechanics 

MOUSE: P.I. For Hire features a few different movement abilities and a lot of different weapons. You’re not going to be doing any hardcore detective work. Once you’re done getting clues, they’re put together for you, and you can continue on your way.

I won’t go over every upgrade here; I’d like to keep some of the game a mystery. But there is one where you can use his tail as a whip to swing from various hooks, and it’s so much fun. There is a really good sense of weight and speed when you swing, which makes it one of my favorite movement upgrades.

Weapons and Weapon Upgrades 

MOUSE: P.I. For Hire never leaves you wanting more weapons. In this review, I won’t cover all of them, but I love them so much. The weapons and shooting in general are easily the best part of this game. 

To kick things off, you can technically just punch things with your mitts, which is just fine. The melee upgrade that you get temporarily from time to time makes using your mitts a lot better. Basically, you swallow a can of what I think is spinach, and it lets you one-shot opponents. 

The Micer is a pistol, and your starting weapon. It will seem very weak until you upgrade it. I upgraded it fully, and it’s honestly one of my favorite weapons in the game. I’m also a sucker for its sound effects.

There is a shotgun that you get early in the game, which is just fun to use. But it didn’t feel fun until I upgraded it fully. To me, it just wasn’t doing as much damage as it should’ve been doing. With that being said, I love the POP sound that happens when you shoot it. 

Finally, my favorite of the early game weapons is the Devarnisher. This gun will coat enemies in a substance and normally kill them in one shot with damage over time, depending on the enemy type. 

I like the other guns just fine, but this is where I have more problems with MOUSE: P.I. For Hire. It never felt like I got enough time to use each of the weapons because of the span of time you unlock them. This game could’ve benefited greatly from a new game plus mode or a way to replay levels. 

With that said, each of the weapons has a cool interaction and a final upgrade that changes the way that the weapon performs.

You upgrade weapons by using the blueprints you find as you play. At first, searching for these blueprints and other secrets was fun, but as the game progressed, it became a bit too tedious for my taste. What I do like is that there is a noticeable difference in how each weapon performs once it’s upgraded.

Final Thoughts 

MOUSE: P.I. For Hire was a blast and is a game that I’ll be returning to in the near future to try and finish my collectable…collection. While I feel like the narrative could’ve been done smoother and the side quest system was a bit of a letdown, that didn’t stop me from having fun with this title.

Score

MOUSE: P.I. For Hire is getting an 80/100, which is a Golden Token.