MOUSE: P.I. For Hire - Review
What a cathartic cacophony of cartoon carnage!
It takes mere seconds for MOUSE: P.I. For Hire to win you over with its charm. A smile as long as a pull of some freshly baked mozzarella is guaranteed. MOUSE: P.I. For Hire doesn’t just invite you into its world, it encourages you to get your hands filthy with ink. I’ve played a lot of first person shooters in my time, and very few have left an impression strongly as Mouseberg’s least finest ex-cop. MOUSE is a diamond with a few rough edges, but a diamond nonetheless.
MOUSE has a goal and it sticks to its guns from start to finish (literally). This is a first person fever dream of a shooter, fully engrossed by the style of 1930s cartoons. The second you enter this world and step in the shoes of our hero, Jack Pepper, MOUSE’s presentation never loses its luster. From the environments, the weapons, the enemies, all corners of this game was hand crafted and it’s clear at every moment that this is a passionate project by some unbelievably talented people.
It’s not a secret that MOUSE’s cream cheese of the crop lies in its presentation. Every pull of the trigger, every health item consumed, every kill and reload, just opening a damn door feels imaginative due to how it looks. MOUSE is simply a spectacle from start to finish, and anyone can see its irrefutable appeal. However, MOUSE proves itself as more than its style. MOUSE gladly flaunts its vintage rubber hose elegance without compromising modern fast paced gameplay.
You are the aforementioned Jack Pepper, a grizzled ex-cop and war hero now turned private eye. It’s up to you to figure out just what in the blue cheese is happening around here. There’s talks of all this tomfoolery from the mob to crooked cops to cultists. You take the fight to any wrongful mouse who tries crossing paths with you, of which there will be plenty.
Jack Pepper is voiced by Troy Baker, you know, the guy who’s been in half the games you’ve played in the seventh generation onward. There’s a reason for it, Troy just always does a damn good job. Now with Jack being no exception. His lively albeit monotone commentary helps elevate the player to embody the character, allowing you to easily encapsulate the grizzled veteran. In fact, the whole cast is just charming to listen to. Every character feels distinct despite having the same color palette in appearance.
What lends to such fun performances is equally fun writing. Given the game’s detective noir tone, and the absurdity of Mouseberg itself, it leads to some vastly amusing conversations. Every character, whether it’s someone you speak to or shoot, have such pompous personalities. Hell, even the most basic mobster enemies do. When I gunned a mobster down and he screamed “GABAGOOL” as he died, I knew I was gonna love this game.
I must remind you that MOUSE is a first person shooter. 90% of your playtime will be spent with combat, and thank cheddar for it. MOUSE’s combat is a carefully curated charcuterie of cartoon calamity. Every firefight feels exciting solely due to how engaging they are. I’ll put it this way, it’s as satisfying to play as it is to watch.
MOUSE takes a lot of inspiration from shooters that came before it in terms of design. Jack has a weapon wheel which will be filled with wacky armaments as you progress. Jack also possesses special traversal abilities, most of which will unlock as the game goes on. You do have one right from the get go, and that’s in the form of a dash. A necessity for dodging attacks on the ground. However, you cannot dash while in the air. It’s a weird choice considering how fluid the movement is otherwise.
Initially I was getting DOOM vibes of being fast and constantly switching my weapons. However, the lack of air dashing gave me plenty of Wile E. Coyote-esque epiphanies. While also on the topic of switching weapons, I did feel that the weapon wheel itself was rather finicky. More often than not when using the weapon wheel I would not equip the weapon I wanted to use. This would not be so bad if I hadn’t kept introducing myself and the enemies to front and back blasts from the rocket launcher.
However, those are the only gripes I really had as far as combat goes. Every gun has vigorous sound effects, with hitmarkers and ink effects exaggerating every landed shot. There are different enemy types from your small fry, foot soldiers, shotgunners, brute variations, and they vary based on the preceding enemy coalitions. No matter who you are fighting, the combat never gets old simply because it’s too much fun to engage with.
After a firefight, you can look around the room to admire your handiwork while also being on the hunt for secrets. For example, you will find hidden safes that contain money for shops among other goodies. However, these safes are locked. To unlock them, Jack has to use his tail to guide it through the lock and push the picks out of the way. Easily, the most fun lockpicking system I’ve engaged with in a long time.
The game will notify you if you’ve discovered a secret. Believe me when I say there are plenty you will not find on your first go around. This is where a crack of MOUSE’s biggest flaw starts to creep in. During the levels there are no maps available. Not that they’re difficult to navigate, it’s more so the fact that there’s no way to track secrets. There’s no indication as to what’s been discovered and what’s left. Even worse, there is no going back to a level once you’ve completed it.
If you find a safe hidden away in a secret area and you mess up the puzzle, the safe is then jammed and there’s no way to open it after that. It’s strange for the game to encourage exploration yet revoke the reward over a potentially silly mistake.
You may have noticed that I am rather skimpy on the details when it comes to the guns themselves as well as the story. Well given the game’s detective tone, I think those are best left fully discovered via the player. Hell, in fact that’s part of the game’s charm. Along with searching for those secrets, you’ll come across clues that will help. Jack has not one, not two, but three big cases to unravel. By finding these clues, you inch ever so closely to the root of all corruption. You take these clues to pin them on your bulletin board back home to track all your cases, finding where things intersect with the goal of resolving a lead.
Alongside clues, you can look for weapon schematics used to upgrade your guns. Finally, you have three sets of collectibles to look out for: newspaper clippings, comic strips, and baseball cards. Baseball cards in particular aren’t just there for the sake of being there, they exist for you to engage with the baseball mini game where you use these cards to form a team. It’s such a neat little addition that’s worthy of your time (wink).
It took me 12 hours on Detective (normal) difficulty to finish MOUSE: P.I. For Hire. Throughout that time I was happily hopping from level to level, taking in every inch of Mouseberg. Never did I think the game was getting stale, or that I was just fighting the same battles over and over again. However, it wasn’t until I finished the game when the credits rolled that something dawned on me.
Previously, I mentioned that you could not travel back to any completed level. After the credits rolled it fully revealed MOUSE’s biggest flaw: its lack of replayability. Once I completed the game, I loaded my last save file which puts me right at the end of the game. The amount of collectibles I was missing I could count on two hands. In order for me to go back and earn those achievements, I would have to play a new game from scratch, and know where everything is prior.
While I happily see myself replaying MOUSE, it does need to be said that having your 100% completion locked due to circumstances out of your control isn’t a great feeling. Not having any way to track your collectibles per level combined with zero possibility for backtracking, and a lack of a New Game Plus, that’s MOUSE’s biggest fault. However, that criticism could also be taken as “oh no, you have to play the really fun shooter again.”
Don’t let any numerical value dictate your decision in terms of whether or not MOUSE: P.I. For Hire is worth it, because it simply is. I may not give it that coveted 10/10 as I am a silly games journalist and I have to think ‘critically’. Scores aside and personally speaking, this is one of my favorite shooters to come out in a long time.
In terms of a game just being fun just trying to put a smile on your face, while also being an absolute joy to look at, MOUSE truly exceeds on pure entertainment value. This is a project that deserves every ounce of your attention, and every cent. If MOUSE: P.I. For Hire looks even remotely interesting to you, I simply cannot recommend it enough.
MOUSE: P.I. For Hire
MOUSE: P.I. For Hire is a shooter that fans of it's style or genre should not miss. While lacking some replay value, MOUSE is one of the most imaginative shooters out there and deserves a buy.
