Mouse: P.I. for Hire Review - The most stylish game of the year, if only it went the distance

Mouse: P.I. for Hire makes one hell of a first impression. The noir themes, the miniature city setting, the slick movement, the snappy shooting, the voice acting, the music, the sound design - it all comes together in those opening hours in a way that genuinely surprised me. This is a game that knows exactly what it wants to be and wastes no time telling you. Polished, charming, and dripping with personality, it had me hooked from the moment I stepped into Jack Pepper's tiny, hard-boiled world.

It's just a shame that feeling didn't last quite as long as I'd have liked.

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Jack Pepper, the main protagonist is voiced by Troy Baker

A city worth investigating

Mouse: P.I. for Hire casts you as Jack Pepper, a mouse detective voiced by Troy Baker, who does a solid job carrying the game's central mystery. As you progress, Jack picks up several leads to investigate, each one feeling connected to the others, all slowly converging on something bigger. After each mission, you return to your hub town, head back to the office, and pin your newly discovered clues to the table. As the picture becomes clearer, new missions unlock. It's a simple loop but a satisfying one, and the writing and voice acting are strong enough to keep you invested throughout.

One of the game's most charming touches is its travel system. Every time you set off on a new mission, the camera zooms out to reveal a stunning illustrated map, Jack's car sitting in the middle of it, fully under your control as you drive to the next location. It's a small thing, but moments like these are scattered throughout Mouse: P.I. for Hire, and they add up. The game has a tremendous amount of personality and charm, and it earns every bit of it.

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A great little feature - You can ride around the world map in Jack's car

A boomer shooter in a tiny coat

On the gameplay side, Mouse: P.I. for Hire is a fast-paced shooter in the classic mould. Think Doom or Quake, scaled down and filtered through a noir lens. Wide arenas, grappling points, double jumping, explosive and poison barrels that beg to be shot, and enemies that keep coming at you in numbers. It doesn't have the depth of those genre giants, but what's here is designed with genuine care and feels tight and responsive. Anyone who has played a boomer shooter before will feel at home immediately.

The arsenal is a highlight. There's a tommy gun, shotguns, pistols, and a wonderfully ridiculous poison gun that melts enemies down to the bone in a genuinely hilarious animation that only this game could get away with. The double-barreled shotgun is in here too, and yes, I used it almost exclusively. I never got on with Doom Eternal's weapon-switching meta, and I'm not going to start apologising for it now. If I want to use a double-barrelled shotgun, I'm going to use a double-barrelled shotgun.

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The poison gun in action. Watching enemies melt to the bone is every bit as hilarious as it sounds.

The problem is that the more time you spend with the combat, the more you start to feel its limitations. Enemy variety is thin, and the level design doesn't change enough to compensate. There's a forest level, a city level, an underground level, and so on, but structurally they all follow similar patterns: corridors, arenas, move on. The game's black and white visual style is a huge part of its identity and undeniably striking, but it does limit how distinct each environment can feel. You can only create so much variety with two colours, and eventually that constraint starts to show.

The result is that the gameplay loop, which feels fresh and exciting at the start, gradually loses its pull the longer you play. It never becomes bad, but it stops surprising you, and for a game this short and this fast, that's a problem.

The story never picks up to keep things engaging, either. It's perhaps one of the weakest parts of the game, which started off strongly but eventually ended on a very generic and "already seen that" note.

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Combat is snappy, fast, and satisfying

Verdict

Mouse: P.I. for Hire is a game I wanted to love unreservedly and came close. The noir setting is brilliantly realised, the characters and voice acting are excellent, and the opening hours are some of the most fun I've had with a shooter this year. But the thin enemy variety and a level design that plays it too safe mean the initial excitement fades before the credits roll.

For anyone already drawn to detective fiction, noir aesthetics, and that gorgeous black and white image, this is close to a godsend. For everyone else, it's a very good game with a great premise that just needed a little more depth to go the distance. What's here is still well worth your time — I just wish it had kept me hooked for longer.