Mouse: P.I. For Hire Review

In 1928, Steamboat Willie was shown to audiences five times a day in theaters, run as a black and white short preceding the now lost film “Gang War.” The nearly eight minute debut of Mickey Mouse featured “rubber hose” sight gags synchronized to an orchestral soundtrack and twangy sound effects. Mouse: P.I. For Hire lifts the stylings of Steamboat Willie and other cartoons of the era with slickly looped, hand drawn black and white inky art, but where Disney Cartoons succeeded in melding disparate elements to elicit joy, Mouse: P.I. For Hire fails to get its pieces in step.

Developed by Fumi Games, Mouse: P.I. For Hire brings a Doom style 2D shooter experience to a detective film noir story about anthropomorphic mice. As hard boiled private investigator Jack Pepper (yes, lots of cheese puns), Mouse has players spraying bullets across a Depression-era city ravaged by mobsters, crooked cops, and a mousey facsimile of armed Nazis, all of whom are complicit in a scheme centered on kidnapping Shrews.

The writers at Fumi Games almost seem cornered by what they’ve made; the game reads like a retelling of the forced relocation of Jews to the Warsaw ghetto during World War II, recast with mice and shrews. These atrocities are reimagined as perpetrated by mice in armbands and mustaches, all while the script peppers in cheese puns. The team seems to have its heart in the right place, lampooning fascism and taking swings at oppressors, but the resulting story feels tone deaf and clumsy - It clashes with a concept that feels better suited to a full satire.

The love for Doom and Wolfenstein is obvious, and the gameplay carries all the trappings of a 90s boomer shooter, including a berserker punch mode triggered by a spinach slurp animation. Jack Pepper’s arsenal includes a “Micer” pistol, a “Jack Gun” tommy gun, and around ten other weapons. Platforming elements, including a grappling tail and wall running, offer a welcome respite from the hordes of samey enemies, but these mechanics are never fully brought together into thoughtfully challenging level design.

I delighted in the tiny details sprinkled throughout, particularly in Tinsel Town. Jack Pepper tears through back lots and stages of mouse-made productions of real world films, including a strange rework of Beauty and the Beast with a cactus in place of a rose. Enemy deaths, environmental effects, and gun upgrade animations are all lovingly drawn and inked, adding a thick layer of handcrafted charm to the game’s strongest visual elements.

There are some frustrating gameplay decisions here: Mandatory enemy clearing gates progression, with no clear indication of where stragglers are hiding. Doors slam shut behind you and never reopen, locking off missed secrets and side content. The inability to replay missions to recover those missed goodies is particularly grating.

It’s not all spoiled milk, though. Some set pieces are genuinely inspired, and the variety of locations deserves credit. I spent time on a Hollywood film lot, a haunted house, an old opera theater, and a handful of fitting aerial and nautical levels.

Mouse: P.I. For Hire shows a deep love for animation of the era, but the gameplay and script lack the same level of care. A Gouda attempt, but nothing bleu me away. Cheesy in all the wrong ways.