Mouse: P.I. For Hire - Before You Buy

Welcome to another episode of Before You Buy, where we offer straightforward gameplay and initial impressions of new game releases. I'm Jake, and we've been busy, particularly this week, with two distinct double-A indie games featuring unique art styles. While Replaced was covered by Falcon and the Gang, I'm here to talk about Mouse PI for Hire. This game stands out with its hand-drawn 1930s-style animation presented in a classic old-school first-person shooter package. Mouse PI for Hire was first revealed years ago as a viral proof-of-concept, and it’s now a full-fledged game. While I wish it were stronger in certain areas, fans of the genre, its animation style, and simple first-person shooter adventures might find it worth exploring. I’ve been playing a review copy, and all the footage you see is captured on PC and is completely spoiler-free. Surprisingly, this is a story-based game. You play as Jack Pepper, a private investigator in Mouseberg, a 1930s cartoon mouse-world city. Your mission is to unravel a rapidly unfolding mystery with personal stakes and the fate of Mouseberg hanging in the balance. This journey takes you across the city to various unusual locations where you confront and shoot antagonists. The visuals are a major highlight, serving as the "price of admission" for me. The game employs a 1930s "rubber hose" style cartoon animation, with many hand-drawn characters and animations that are incredibly impressive. Upon starting the game, you're presented with numerous customization options for the visual and auditory experience. Beyond standard accessibility and graphical settings, you can adjust the filter intensity, ranging from crisp black and white to a super fuzzy, grainy 1920s/1930s look. Similarly, sound options include modern, vinyl warmth, or an old crackly radio effect. I opted for a middle-ground visual filter and kept modern sound settings, appreciating the quality of the music, which features big swing and jazz by a real band. The overall presentation, especially the visuals, is the game's strongest asset. As you navigate levels and defeat enemies, you witness fantastic cartoon effects: enemies turning into skeletons, piles of dust with eyeballs, or getting zapped with their skeletons popping out. Even your character's weapons are tightly hand-animated, squishy, and expressive, adding to the charm. The game also features an overworld map where Jack can drive his car around Mouseberg and its surrounding areas from a top-down view. This map includes optional locked areas and main story zones, offering a surprisingly dense, old-school feel. Between these map segments, you explore areas filled with NPCs like mice, rats, and shrews, all reminiscent of classic animated characters. Seeing these individually hand-drawn figures in city blocks or subways truly conveys a sense of dedication and labor of love. Gameplay-wise, it’s a simple, fast-paced first-person shooter, almost akin to a "boomer shooter." You don't aim down sights; instead, you zip around, kick enemies, swap weapons, and shoot. Throwables are part of the weapon wheel, requiring manual equipping, which can be a bit frustrating. However, the main weapons are quite creative. After a couple of hours, you unlock an upgrade system. By exploring environments for currency and blueprints, you can enhance weapons at a shop, improving recoil, ammo capacity, damage, and unlocking alternative firing modes for each gun via the left trigger. Jack Pepper also has a fast dash and a double jump, contributing to the game's zippy feel. While hit detection and feedback aren't super satisfying, the cool animations compensate. Enemies' heads explode, and they evaporate into dust, which aligns perfectly with the cartoon style. Environments are generally large, multi-layered, and offer alternate routes, encouraging exploration for currency, ammo, and health. However, many levels, outside of major set-piece rooms, lack distinct flavor, often feeling like generic corridors. Occasional puzzles can be tricky, with one even stumping me for a while. The game's difficulty also ramps up significantly. With easy, normal, and hard modes available, normal mode starts manageable but quickly becomes challenging. Despite playing with a controller, the enemy patterns and movement suggest it might be better suited for keyboard and mouse. Boss fights are frequent, often confining you to small arenas, requiring strategic strafing and hopping. You'll collect blueprints, secrets, and baseball cards, returning to your private investigator office to piece together clues on a board, which then sets up your next mission. In this hub, you can buy ammo and collectibles, upgrade weapons, and engage with characters through static on-screen figures and textboxes. The game features extensive dialogue, much of which, unfortunately, didn't land with me. While it aims for a tongue-in-cheek noir style, the humor doesn't always hit hard. Some voice acting is solid, though, with Troy Baker as the main character delivering a fitting noir detective accent. Despite the commitment to story, I often found myself wanting to skip dialogue and get back to the first-person shooting action, as the narrative didn't fully captivate me. After a few days, my first impressions are that it's a straightforward, simple game. The first-person shooting is adequate, but I feel it could be stronger with more vibrant environments, creative weapons, and increased humor. Still, there are moments I won't spoil that some players will appreciate. I recommend this game primarily to those who love the specific art style, simple old-school first-person shooters, noir themes, and the music genre. While it doesn't reach the "every single thing hand-drawn" level of a Cuphead, it does a decent job. I think it’s a good outing and would love to see a sequel that improves on creativity in shooting and weapons, and develops a more compelling story in this fun world, as most of the pieces are already there. If these aspects interest you, consider checking out other reviews or picking it up later when your backlog clears. Mouse PI for Hire is a simple game, but many will find it enjoyable, even if I personally wished for more strength in certain elements. Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Hopefully, this video helped inform your decision. Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you next time.