Just like jorts and puka shell necklaces, the classic rubber hose animation is comfortably back in vogue. The hard-as-nails Cuphead proved that there’s an appetite for the old school style within the gaming sphere, and titles like Bendy and the Ink Machine went on to prove that the run-and-gun platformer wasn’t a one-off. Now that we’re a few years into this retro renaissance, we’re getting to see the animation style get utilised across different genres and settings. Arguably, the most anticipated of the bunch over the last few years has been Mouse: P.I. For Hire, the noir first-person shooter that looks like a hyper-violent version of The Mickey Mouse Club.
With its April release fast approaching, I was recently invited to go hands-on with the black and white boomer shooter, spending around 30 minutes playing through one of the game’s early levels. With it being such a small slice of the overall experience, there are plenty of questions left unanswered, but my brief time spent causing cartoon carnage did show some promise.
In the monochromatic city of Mouseburg, former war hero Jack Pepper turns his hard-boiled skills towards a career as a private investigator. Taking on a seemingly simple missing persons case, the gruff rodent begins to unravel a conspiracy that’ll see him leaping down a shrew hole. My hands-on time was following a lead to a hidden laboratory concealed in a forest, the entry of which was masterfully disguised as an outhouse. Nice.
It won’t come as a surprise if you’ve watched even a second of gameplay from Mouse, but this game’s art and animation style are incredible. The black and white colour palette and ever-impressive hand-drawn rubber hose animation combine to make for a striking visual at every frame. The 2D models jump out of the 3D environments, and the various reactive animations give them a huge amount of character, even in death. Blasting an explosive barrel will turn nearby enemies into a pile of ash, but their little animated eyes will remain resting on top, sadly following you around as you take the fight to their friends.
Everything in the rubber hose style bounces to the game’s jazzy tunes, including the guns in your hand. Pistols, Tommy guns, shotguns, and even sticks of dynamite bobbed about as though they were alive, and that’s without mentioning the various reload animations that make full use of the cartoony logic of mashing a fistful of shells into the side of the firearm.
Those bouncing blasters in your mousy hands aren’t just there for show, either. The moment-to-moment gameplay fits neatly into the boomer shooter subgenre, with floaty movement that prioritises positioning and an itchy trigger finger. Monster closet doors spit out melee and ranged baddies that fill out rooms filled with obstacles you can manoeuvre around with a particularly useful double jump and dash. Gunplay is decent, if a little light. It’s far from a situation where weapons lack tactility, but I gravitated towards the shotgun above all other thanks to its heft.
While I only had access to a handful of options, including the mouse-melting Devarnisher that launches stackable acid blobs at anything in front of you, the weapon wheel promises an extensive arsenal. Switching guns didn’t feel like much of a necessity during my short time on the sticks, with a change-up usually coming when I ran out of ammo. There’s plenty of time for gameplay depth to appear and for the challenge to become more involved, but I can’t in good faith say I spotted any early signs here.
I did, however, get to drive around in the game’s overworld and hit the streets of Mouseburg, which seems to act as the game’s home hub. Here, I interacted with a handful of NPCs that wonderfully delivered fitting noir dialogue that hinted at the game’s central mystery. Plenty of tongue-in-cheek humour filled out these interactions in a positive way, avoiding the joke-a-minute fatigue that many games suffer from. I pinned evidence on a corkboard, upgraded my weapons using collectables, and shared in exposition-riddled conversations about megalomanic inventors, all of which hint at activities that will entertain when the bullets aren’t flying.
The aesthetic appeal of Mouse: P.I. For Hire was never in question, but getting to see it first-hand solidified just how charming the game is. Playing through a single level isn’t enough to get a proper understanding of the gameplay experience, as many components were only teased, but I came away whelmed by the moment-to-moment movements. That said, it felt like I was watching the opening moments of a movie, one that wouldn’t properly come together until all the players were introduced.
Mouse: P.I. For Hire is set to release on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2, and PC on April 16.
Previewed on Steam Deck // Preview code supplied by publisher
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