Like Cuphead before it, I am pleased to report that, as it turns out, Mouse: P.I. for Hire isn’t just all sizzle. There is plenty of steak there too. Just as Cuphead built an incredibly good bullet-hell, boss-rush shooter underneath its hand-drawn, hand-animated exterior, so too – at least, based on what I’ve played so far – is Mouse underpinning its 1930’s-era, black-and-white, rubberhose-animated facade with a mechanically sound first-person shooter. In fact, while its own developers have referred to it in conversations and interviews with me as a boomer shooter, I’d argue they might be selling their creation a little short: there’s a lot more going on in its campaign than I thought. The end result is an action game that seems like it’ll have the gameplay to match its sublime looks.
The Look
By now you’ve probably seen at least a bit of gameplay from Mouse, and thus you know, at its core, what it is: a first-person shooter with a deep commitment to looking and sounding like a Steamboat Willie-era cartoon. I’ve already taken one test drive with Mouse last summer, and I was impressed with it then. I’m even more excited for it now after playing a chunk of a case – meaning, a mission – from an advanced build ahead of its April 16 release date for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X and S, and Nintendo Switch and Switch 2.
Mouse starts out in a rather unexciting way, if I’m being honest. The intro level acts as a tutorial, introducing you to its uniquely animated but ultimately familiar weapons: a pistol, shotgun, Tommy gun (called a James gun here, which is either a clever way to sidestep a potential Tommy gun trademark, a nod to the Guardians of the Galaxy director and head of DC Studios, or both), and sticks of dynamite. It doesn’t take too long before you get your hands on the Turpentine gun, which melts the skin off your animated enemies’ bodies like The Dip from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
The Sound
It also doesn’t take long before you see how developer Fumi Games leans all the way into its 1930’s cartoon setting. See, it’s not just the look that screams “hyperviolent Steamboat Willie,” it’s the sound. The ubiquitous and ultra-talented Troy Baker lends his voice to the player character, the titular P.I. for hire named Jack Pepper. This isn’t a role that Baker completely disappears into, like Joel or Indiana Jones. But what he delivers as a stereotypical hard-boiled detective is perfect for the self-aware tone that Mouse proudly flaunts.
The sound design also follows the visual aesthetic, with a jazzy soundtrack that, again, fits like a glove. But I even love the little things about its audio, like the way Jack Pepper slurps and gives an over-the-top “Ahh” when popping the cork and guzzling down a bottle of health-replenishing tonic. Or the “ding” of the bell on the typewriter that you save your game at. Everything that hits your eardrums seems to perfectly fit what your eyes are seeing on the screen, and it added to how much fun I was having with the game.
The Play’s the Thing
But let’s talk about gameplay, because the depth there is what really surprised me about Mouse. And before I get to the nuts and bolts of it, I want to talk about the structure. Mouse is split into cases. And no, that’s not just a synonym for “missions” here. Instead, again (are you sensing a theme yet?), Mouse leans all the way into its choices. Between levels you’ll return to a noncombat hub area – a seedy corner of Mouseburg that’s home to Jack’s office, where you’ll piece together clues from your current case; the Little & Big Bar, where you’ll talk to various people in Mouseburg; and down a dark alley, Tammy’s Bearings, where you can upgrade your weapons, money for which is accumulated by scouring each level and collecting all the cash you can find.
I had a blast setting my weapons down and just walking around the Mouseburg hub talking to people (and by people, of course, I mean fellow anthropomorphic mice). It added a lot of life and character to Mouse that I think make the entire experience more appealing if I picture what it would be like just going from one combat-focused mission to another, with no break in-between. It’s not that it would’ve been bad, necessarily, but I do like that these literal inter-missions give you a chance to let your guard down and enjoy the worldbuilding that Fumi Games has done here. And there are even secrets to discover, which is a nice little bonus. I do have one minor complaint that did particularly annoy me, though: having to button through every single line of dialogue. It’s all fully voiced, which is great, but my goodness did I get tired of clicking through every last one of them. I’d love an option to get rid of that for the final game, please.
Getting back to the combat: the early mission I played was clearly not showing off every trick in Mouse’s arsenal. Most of the fights were fairly simple, against no more than two or three foes, but I nevertheless had a good time with them for a couple of reasons: first, the full-on cartooniness of this world. Remember how I said earlier that Mouse leans into everything it’s trying to do? That even applies to the kill animations. If you headshot an enemy mouse robot, their head will simply pop in over-the-top cartoon style, with drops of oil spewing out of the pencil-thin neck stump. (Side note: there’s a sentence I’ve probably never typed in my entire career or life before.) There’s even lockpicking, in which you cleverly use your mouse tail to maneuver inside the lock and hit the pins correctly.
Rubberhose Guns
And second, it’s the weapons. I simply love using them. I’d wager that there are more first-person shooters in history that have used a pistol, shotgun, and machinegun of some variety than ones that haven’t, so I recognize that it’s not exactly novel. But the weapons all have an appropriately over-the-top feel and sound to them. My favorite so far is the shotgun, which has a nice kick to it, and I’d be remiss not to mention the satisfying reload animation of the James gun, which sees Jack Pepper click a new drum of ammo into the bottom of the weapon.
That’s not to say there aren’t original ideas in Mouse’s arsenal, however. The Turpentine gun, as I mentioned earlier, fires blobs of ink-dissolving solvent that melts these cartoon bad guys, leaving their bones on display before they too dissolve into a pile of dust. It is one of my favorite first-person shooter weapons in a good little while now – maybe since Doom: The Dark Ages’ Skullcrusher gun from last year.
Also, not only do I really enjoy using Mouse’s weapons, I get a kick out of just watching them in action. The rubberhose animation makes your guns look like they’re constantly wiggling, and the firing and reload animations are equally satisfying. I can’t wait to see what other squirmy firearms are waiting for me in the rest of this single-player-only campaign.
Robo-Boss
Mouse is also promising plenty of boss fights, and though I only got to experience one of them over three separate stages, it definitely made me up my game a little bit. I wouldn’t say I felt particularly threatened – I didn’t die at all – but this was also an early mission on Normal difficulty. Anyway, I faced off against a robo-mouse called the Watchamacallit (whose identity will be properly revealed when you played the game for yourself). I had to jump to avoid bolts of electricity spinning around the floor and take cover behind glass panels that would pop up when she moved to another phase of her attack. The encounter definitely kept me on my toes, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the challenge ramps up in later boss fights.
As I mentioned at the top, I’d already had the privilege of playing Mouse last summer, so I came into this new hands-on session with some earned optimism. But when I was done with this newest preview build, I was left even more impressed than I’d expected to be. Mouse: P.I. for Hire, based on what I’ve played so far, is far more than its distinct 1930’s rubberhose-animated look. It sure seems to have legitimate gameplay depth and mechanics to it as well, and it’s moved up my list of anticipated games in a year that’s already packed with some serious potential. Here’s hoping that Mouse can sustain this over its entire campaign when it drops next month.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of both IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our semi-retired interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
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