MOUSE: P.I. For Hire Review: It's a Real Hoot, See?

1 week ago 7

Published Apr 14, 2026, 11:00 AM EDT

Daniel has been playing games for entirely too many years, with his Steam library currently numbering nearly 750 games and counting. When he's not working or watching anime, he's either playing or thinking about games, constantly on the lookout for fascinating new gameplay styles and stories to experience. Daniel has previously written lists for TheGamer, as well as guides for GamerJournalist, and he currently covers tech topics on SlashGear.

If there are two things in this world that I love with all my heart, they're pulp noir detective stories, and wacky rubber-hose cartoons. These two kinds of media paint a fascinating dichotomy of 1920s and '30s-era America, with the former being grim, gritty and jaded, and the latter being whimsical and nonsensical.

I adore any attempt in the modern day to represent either format, which is a big reason I won’t stop bothering my family about Cuphead. But besides something like that, at least to my recollection, I’d never seen an earnest attempt to represent both. You could imagine, then, how easily MOUSE: P.I. For Hire ended up on my radar.

10 Most Legendary Cartoon Network Shows

From Ed, Edd n' Eddy to Dexter's Laboratory, here are some of the greatest shows Cartoon Network has ever made.

From the game’s first trailer, I had a feeling the mad folks at Fumi Games were cooking up something spectacular, a classic crime thriller through the lens of wiggly-limbed, anthropomorphic animal people. Not only does this game represent both of its component genres with some serious expertise, it’s also a pretty excellent arcade-style shooter to boot.

“This City is Sick, and the Only Cure is More Cheese”

MOUSE: P.I. For Hire tells the tale (or “tail,” I suppose) of Jack Pepper, a gritty gumshoe and former war hero in the city of Mouseburg, which is populated primarily by mice and mice-adjacent critter folk like shrews. On a seemingly ordinary evening, Jack is called in by his journalist associate Wanda to investigate the disappearance of a local stage magician and, as is typical for this kind of story, finds himself embroiled in a massive web of crime, conspiracy, intrigue, violence, and cheese. A lot of cheese.

Something I enjoy about both pulp and classic cartoon storytelling is that neither cares much for ironic self-referential humor. There is obviously some inherent absurdity to a mouse detective stopping crimes in a city full of other mouse people, but the game plays the whole premise straight.

This is helped in large part by Troy Baker’s performance as Jack, one of the silliest roles he’s had in a while. He delivers noir monologues, metaphors, and one-liners with a period-appropriate straight-faced sincerity, which still manages to sound cool despite the fact that he’s frequently talking about various kinds of cheese.

Speaking of being period-appropriate, while the cartoony vibes help keep everything approachable, MOUSE also has a distinct undercurrent of darkness. There’s a rather worrying political party on the rise, the aforementioned shrew population is severely marginalized, and Mouseburg’s government and lawkeeping forces are nakedly corrupt, forcing Jack to take the law into his own hands.

Pulp detective stories often had very similar themes, which is partly why pulp detective characters like Jack are so jaded and hard-boiled. I applaud the commitment to the format, while all the cheese stuff and cartoony shenanigans keep the story from getting dark to the point of being a bummer.

“I Got Two Slugs with Me: A Slug in my Gun, and a Slug of Fondue”

MOUSE: P.I. For Hire is a fast-paced FPS, with the closest obvious analog being the 2016 DOOM. When departing from Jack’s office and visiting a crime scene (or crime scene-to-be), you go about a linear progression of levels made up of squared off arenas and corridors. Said arenas are full of assorted goons and baddies for Jack to plug with his assorted weaponry, gradually making his way toward a place of interest and tracking down clues for his current case.

While the cartoony vibes help keep everything approachable, MOUSE also has a distinct undercurrent of darkness.

MOUSE isn’t just old-school thematically, it’s also a firm adherent of what I like to call the “pants arsenal” approach to FPS gameplay. This classic approach allows you to freely flip between numerous weapons on a large weapon wheel, using whichever weapon best suits the situation or makes you laugh the hardest.

You start with a simple pistol and Jack’s own fists, which are specifically named his “mitts” in an excellent choice, but as the game goes on, your arsenal only gets wackier, with implements such as the paint-thinner-dispensing Devarnisher and the massive shoulder-mounted Loose Cannon.

MOUSE’s combat is also focused heavily on movement and evasion. There’s no cover or regenerating health here; a real gumshoe gets right into the thick of things, with a dash burst that allows you to nimbly dip in and out of the fray, occasionally guzzling generic health tonics or scarfing a block of runny cheese when your health gets low. It’s a simple, satisfying core gameplay loop that’s easy to wrap your head around, bolstered by several unlockable movement abilities like double-jumping and using your tail as a helicopter to hover.

“Good, Bad; Everyone’s the Same with an Anvil on their Head”

In another similarity to DOOM, environmental design plays a big role in MOUSE’s secret cheese sauce. In combat, you can get a little fancy on your foes, shooting or kicking barrels full of combustible, corrosive chemicals to eliminate large swaths of them, or shooting hanging hazards like anvils and pianos to fall on enemy heads, the result of which is always hilarious.

Some areas give you special power-ups, like a hot pepper that makes all of your shots set foes on fire, or a can of spinach that makes your arms beefy and gigantic, all of which helps to break up the regular gunfighting a bit.

As the game goes on, your arsenal only gets wackier.

battlefield 6 borderlands 2 and bioshock cover art

MOUSE also possesses DOOM’s affinity for exploration and secrets. You can always find the critical path through a level using Jack’s detective brush, which means you’re free to explore any other path you come across. The game also helps in this by clearly signaling when a punch-up has started and ended with corresponding boxing ring bells, so you know when it’s time to throw hands and when it’s time to go looking for stuff.

Thoroughly exploring the levels yields all kinds of collectable resources and goodies, from blueprints to upgrade your guns to Mouseburg newspapers and comic strips, not to mention large piles of cash. Some secrets are locked behind doors and safes, which you’ll need to open by playing a brief mini-game in which Jack snakes in his prehensile tail as a lockpick.

These mini-games aren’t too difficult, though I did have a couple of instances where I accidentally took too long and beefed it, which can lock you out of some secret areas. Luckily, the game gives you a consolation prize in such a circumstance.

“A Good Gumshoe Wears More than a Few Hats”

If you visit the little store located next to Jack’s office, or in one of the many roadhouses scattered around the map, you can use your accumulated cash to purchase any newspapers and comics you’ve missed, so even if you blow a lockpick, you’re not locked off from getting the collectables if you want them.

Both level secrets and the shop also tie into the game’s most prominent piece of side content, baseball cards. There’s a little mini-game you can play in any tavern with these cards, with every victory netting you prize tokens that can be put toward a special reward. You don’t have to engage with this aspect of the game if you’re not into card games, which I’m usually not, but the baseball card game is thankfully more or less idiot-proof, so I still had enough fun to warrant going the distance with it.

If you chat up the various NPCs around Jack’s office, besides some entertaining dialogue and sobering anecdotes, you’ll also pick up an occasional side quest to go looking for something in one of the levels, usually one you’re about to visit. These can yield cash, prize tokens, and other resources, and aren’t too hard to track down in the levels, thanks in part to the UI compass pointing out nearby interactables.

“You Meet a Lot of Interesting People in this Line of Work”

I mentioned Troy Baker’s performance as Jack before, but I should also highlight the entire voice cast’s excellent performance. There is a lot of unique dialogue for this game, both the aforementioned incidental NPC chats and Jack’s various quips while exploring levels. The many mooks do have a few generic lines, but their individual volumes are low enough that you don’t really notice them repeating themselves much. Really, the only time I ever noticed any overtly repeated lines was during the game’s boss fights, which would have a few mildly repetitive quips from the bosses in question. The fights themselves are lots of fun, though, so it balances out, I’d say.

Speaking of audio, something cool that the game does the first time you boot it up is allow you to set up a visual and audio profile. Using specific graphical and audio settings, you can add heavier film grain to the visuals and an old-timey effect to the sounds and dialogue, as though it were all playing off a vinyl record or wax cylinder. Again, this is an optional feature, and you don’t have to use it if you’re sensitive to those kinds of visual and audible sensations, but just the fact that the devs bothered to include it at all, and in such minute detail, shows their commitment to capturing those quintessential retro vibes.

Honestly, I’m hard-pressed to nitpick anything in particular about MOUSE. The only really critical thing I could say is that the normal difficulty setting is maybe a little too easy, but you can always crank it up a level if you’re so inclined, so that’s an extremely minor gripe at best.

Closing Thoughts

MOUSE: P.I. For Hire embodies a magnificent triple-threat of retro stylings, managing a careful balancing act between noir theming, cartoony visuals, and vintage FPS gameplay. The gameplay is fast, responsive, and above all else, fun as all get out, while the story and characters manage to be intriguing in that classic pulp novel fashion while also being entertaining to watch and talk to. It draws you in like a detective magazine, getting you invested in the state of the city, while keeping you merrily chugging along with good ol’ cartoony violence. It’s not a revolutionary game as far as the FPS genre goes, but considering its adherence to multiple kinds of retro aesthetics, I don’t think being revolutionary was the mission statement here.