MOUSE: P.I. For Hire – PC Review

Kyle McGrath

4 days ago

The entire image is black and white. On the left side of the image are a bunch of rubber hose cartoon style anthropomorphic animals. (From bottom to top;) Two cars with mice drivers and mice shooting guns out of the window. A robotic mouse, an alligator with a gatlin gun, and a robotic female mouse and a muscular mouse with a bloody bandage wrapped around his hand. Then a female mouse wearing lipstick smoking a cigarette and a detective looking mouse with a cigarette in his teeth and holding a gun. The text on the write in white reads 'MOUSE P.I. For Hire'.

MOUSE: P.I. For Hire, has been on my radar for a good while, and that is mainly due to my love for both Rubber Hose animation and classic 90s style FPS games. The game is out now on Steam for £24.99, with some extra goodies like, the soundtrack and comic being available.

Only cheese taste better when you leave it, not crime.

Gameplay

Time to hit the streets as Mousebergs very on Jack Pepper, a P.I. whose only fun comes from cracking heads or cracking cases. MOUSE: P.I. For Hire, drops us straight into a case, and quickly gives us the rundown of the controls through a mid-case mission. Afterwards we move onto Jack’s next case. Players will go through several cases, but the game itself will have an over arching story as well. For the game-play, it is heavily inspired by classic shooters of the 90s, with its health and armor pick-ups. And also the large amount of weaponry, with each also get some great animations. A little into MOUSE: P.I. For Hire, Jack will be able to upgrade his arsenal for better performance, such as damage, ammo capacity, and weapon spread. But upgrading these will require schematics that are found in levels, but are not tied to a specific gun.

Throughout MOUSE: P.I. For Hire’s missions, you can uncover secrets just like in classic FPS. Some stuff you may find consist of ammo, schematics, figurines, and baseball cards, with those being used for a mini-game found in some bars. Side tasks will be given to Jack from NPC located near his office building, they will usually ask for an item found within a mission. And when given, he will be rewarded some cheddar. There isn’t particularly much we can spend the money one, but the shop Soup for Nuts, sells ammo, and collectables. Mainly the baseball cards used for the aforementioned baseball mini-game, but I also think any collectables that you may have missed in levels.

Graphics & Audio

Where do I begin? Honestly, there’s barely a thing I don’t enjoy in MOUSE: P.I. For Hire. Jazzy doesn’t just describe the fantastic, classic style music, it describes much of the vibe. The idle animations are, ironically, nowhere near idle. While characters have that classic rubber hose bob, many other usually inanimate things (and even his such as healthy and ammo) have a little dancing bob, quite literally bringing the world to life. I was also surprised that Caravan Palace created some music for the game, and boy, they picked the perfect electro-swing band.

Nothing worse than a dark depressing place, and I ain’t talking about the village.

There’s plenty that will tickle your funny bone too, with the enemy death animations coming to mind; having an enemy melt into a skeleton which shortly collapses, or an explosion reducing the enemy to a pile of ash with naught, but a sad pair of eyes sat atop. One of the funniest little details I noticed was the skull on the Devarnisher gun winking at you on occasion. I also love the art and design for the overworld map.

There are a lot of fun cheese puns.

The voice acting is also spot on, with plenty of hard-boiled city voices that belong both in the world of rubber hose cartoons and old-fashioned detective flicks. As cheesy (you’ll hear that a lot in-game too) as it is, I love the continuous witty, dry remarks and one-liners from Jack Pepper himself. This coupled with the fast-paced jazz music, you really feel the fun, flair and speed of a firefight with ease once bullets start flying. Just like the animations, there’s a sound effect for almost every little thing imaginable. All the attention to detail, both for the eyes and ears, really knits the entire experience together nicely. The use of rubber hose doesn’t just feel like a lure to garner attention, MOUSE: P.I. For Hire centers everything around it, taking care that every detail is both thought of, and absolute fun.

This is why I become a Detective, everyone wants to be a cop, it’s infectious.

Longevity

Total playtime for me was about 13 hours from what my save for Mouse P.I. For Hire says. And an hour of that was just having fun with the baseball mini-game. For anyone looking to 100% the game, you will have to unlock all the weapons with all but one being through the story. And one being obtained from the locker in the Little & Big bar. Which should not be too hard if you keep replaying the baseball min-game. Another go around of the game might be in order to collect all secrets in one run, as you are not able to replay levels.

Final Thoughts

As a shooter, Mouse P.I. For Hire, fits well with its decent arsenal of weapons for you to use. The level design is amazing with Tinsel Avenue probably being my favourite location, and driving around the overworld looks so damn good. Enemy variety keeps you engaged even if they don’t really require you to switch up for strategy, with the Devarnisher, literally melting most of them. There are plenty of Easter eggs, nods and references everywhere the player looks, showing just how much detail this game offers in the environments alone.

Boss fights are fun and some offer a better challenge than just running around gunning. Although The final boss felt a little long but was still enjoyable in the end. And with all my cases closed, I would say that Mouse P.I. For Hire deserves the Thumb Culture Gold Award. I do wish that we could have replayed the levels, and maybe a beige and black art colouration was available in the settings.

Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.