Is Mouse: P.I for Hire top cheddar or does it stink up the joint?
Mouse: P.I for Hire developed by Polish studio Fumi Games and published by PlaySide Studios is a first-person shooter alternatively a “Boomer Shooter”.
You’ll step behind the whiskers of Jack Pepper, voiced by the legendary Troy Baker. Jack is a hardboiled private detective straight out of a Noir thriller. Jacks beat is Mouseburg (Think New York), it’s 1934 and the world is in the aftermath of The Quite Big Affair..Oh and you’re a mouse.
Everyone in Mouseburg is an anthropomorphic rodent of some description and one tailed chap has gone missing. Steve Bandel, an old war buddy of Jacks, this disappearance kicks off a tale of murder, mystery, corruption, mad science and the extreme ends of politics.
If things seem to heavy, the animated old timey look of Mouse: P.I for Hire will help lighten the mood, that characters look brilliant, the weapons look like there straight out of an Acme factory. Initially you’ll only have a pistol, it’s clearly a Mauser pistol, but in this animated world it’s a Micer. I’m here for the mouse puns and zany humour and it’s a good thing to as Mouse: P.I for Hire is absolutely packed with them. Even the animations are in on the act, your health bar in what I took as an homage to the ultimate boomer shooter ‘Doom’ changes as you take damage. Reloading your ‘Boomstick’ (Shotgun) is ridiculous, rather than efficiently loading fresh shells, or breach loading a la John Wick, Jack Pepper just slaps a handful into the bottom and that’s that.
This cartoony theme continues into the death animations you’ll see time and time again as you despatch goons. The Devarnisher death animation is a favourite of mine, watching the ‘ink’ melt off a baddie and their skeleton rattle to the ground never gets old. The James gun (Tommy gun, or Thomposon submachine gun for the gun nerds reading) is the most fun to use, especially with it’s alt-fire mode as you just dump the drum mag in a satisfying spray and pray frenzy.
Now, charm, style and humour are all well and good, but first person shooters live and die on their gun play. The opening mission feels a tad flat given that you only have a semi automatic pistol, but once you have a few more guns it becomes considerably more enjoyable. As with most ‘Boomer Shooters’ movement is key. There’s no cover system, no regenerating health, you move, you shoot and you dodge. You’ll pick up armour and health drops that are generously dropped around the levels. Each mission ends with a classic bullet sponge of a boss and I can see them getting rather challenging on the games harder difficulties.
In between missions you’ll head back to your P.I office, pinning clues you’ve found to a board, the more clues you have, the more leads you uncover, the more you can progress through the game (although I don’t think it’s actually possible to miss the essential clues). Opposite you office is a saloon named “Little and Big”, in here you’ll meet a range of characters. Wanda Fuller, a report with a nose for a story. Cornelius Stilton, a big mouse and big cheese in the political world.
You’ll also find a mouse here with whom you can play cards, baseball cards. It’s mini game and it’s super simple, you’ll take it in turns to bat and pitch. You play a card, your player has a Batting stat and a movement stat. If your batting stat is higher than your opponents pitching stat you’ll hit the ball and your player will move an amount of bases equal to their movement stat. If the pitching score is higher, you fail to hit the ball. You can play bonus cards to boost your stats, and as you play the missions you can find more cards to make winning games easier.
The best part of Jacks little community is the adorable wrench jockey Tammy Tumbler. While running around missions you’ll find blueprints. Once Tammy opens here workshop you can use these blueprints to upgrade your weapons and unlock their Alt-fire modes and they are amazingly fun.
Mouse: P.I for Hire is by no means an open world game, but you do get to putter about in Jacks car between missions, this is essentially an interactive map but it adds a huge amount of charm and makes this ridiculous rodent world feel a little more real, which is odd thing to say given how much the narrative borrows from the real world history. At times the themes are a little heavy handed especially with the late 1930s allusions which can be a little odd given the comedic nature of the gameplay. In fairness Mouse: P.I for Hire is light where it needs to be and dark enough to live up to its noir inspirations at the same time, somewhere between Looney Tunes and Maus.
