There are shooter games of many stripes in the videogaming world, but MOUSE: P.I. For Hire stands apart from the rat pack.
This action/adventure title takes its inspiration from classic animations of the 1930s—featuring hand-drawn, “rubber hose” artwork and a fully voiced, noir detective narrative. But as much as this game might remind players of a vintage cartoon, à la Disney’s Steamboat Willie, its splattering, black-and-white action and winking humor isn’t always kid-friendly.
MOUSE: P.I. For Hire drops players into the seedy city of Mouseburg. This anthropomorphic, mousey municipality is packed with murders, secretive shrew-trafficking, crooked cops and slippery politicians. It’s a place that desperately needs a hard-as-nails private eye like Jack Pepper to dig into the hardboiled underbelly of things and unravel the city’s tangled cheese strings.
Fortunately, you’re there to slip into Jack’s gumshoe shoes. You have enigmatic characters—such as the tenacious reporter Wanda Fuller and the stuttering politician Cornelius Stilton—to help set you on the Limburger scent of truly foul situations.
In no time at all, you’re tracking cases involving a missing magician, a murdered actress and a bunch of kidnapped shrews. In fact, those curd-fueled cases and Jack’s other malodorous missions might all be stirred together in the same rancid fondue pot of Gouda, greed and power.
Gameplay wise, it’s Jack’s job to scamper and slip through a rodent opera house, dank sewers, Hollywood-like production studios and more in pursuit of clues he can slap up on a corkboard crime wall. As the detective grits a cigarette between his teeth and slowly pieces the big story together, the game helps guide Jack to the right bartender, a slightly tarnished debutant or a squinting, back-alley thug to keep him sniffing in the right directions.
Along the way, there are many, many baddies to kick, punch and obliterate. There are some environmental puzzles to solve. But generally, the majority of action involves kicking open the right doors; sleuthing through quests; seeking out cash, ammunition and collectables; besting bosses and heedlessly shooting down everyone who stands in the way of solving Jack’s cases.
This is a single-player game that doesn’t offer multiplayer interaction and does not require an online connection, other than for download.
Gamers play as a gritty mouse detective who wants to save the city from the corrupt and sometimes deadly machinations of the power-hungry. He goes out of his way to help his friends and rescue those in need.
The black-and-white game world—and it’s hand-drawn, rubber hose art work—is incredibly appealing. The game is also a fully voiced mystery adventure that features excellent voice work and a compelling story packed with humor.
That said, MOUSE: P.I. For Hire is still very much a shooter. Jack wields eight distinct cartoon pistols, shotguns, rifles, acid-blasters, machine-guns, dynamite and bazookas. And he blasts, melts and decimates hundreds of foes. There are some 89 collectable blueprints that can be used to upgrade those blasters into more powerful versions. Like many old cartoons, Jack grabs fistfuls of ammo and jams it into his weapon of choice.
Those trigger-pulling attacks cause large black-and-white splashes of “blood.” The defeated foes fall over spouting goop. Sometimes, they’re left standing in skeleton form. And occasionally, they’re even reduced to a pile of goop with cartoon eyeballs. With time, the fallen remains disappear. (The black-and-white coloring and broad cartoony presentation of it all diminishes the bloodiness, but there’s still a whole lot of death in the game mix.)
MOUSE also features lots of tongue-in-cheek and winking detective-story humor. Some of it is just silly mouse-world and P.I. banter, but some giggles have light sexual connotations that aren’t difficult to decipher.
Perhaps the most unexpected inclusion here is quite a bit of foul language, including many repeated uses of the words “b–tard,” “h—,” “crap” and “d–n,” along with crude references to body parts and “the devil’s bunghole.” God’s name is combined with “d–n” in a couple instances. And Jack also tosses around lots of violence-focused quips, such as, “You’re in cuffs or on the ground—either way, you’re spilling your guts.”
There are references to drinking booze and beer, Jack gets a mug of brew on occasion while talking to a bartender. There are references made to a fictional mouse-world drug. And the detective fights against a loosely defined group of “cultists.” Characters smoke cigarettes and cigars.
MOUSE: P.I. For Hire has a great 1930s, black-and-white style and look about it. And that rubber hose artwork makes it stand out. But parents should note that the game comes with messy problems you won’t find in old Mickey Mouse fare.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
