“The jaw-dropping rubber-hose art direction earns every headline it gets, but the gunplay beneath it is the real surprise — competent, fast, and satisfying. The detective story doesn't keep up, and the ending stumbles, but this is a debut that demands attention.”
The first thing you notice is that it looks like a cartoon. A real one — not a game with cel-shading or outlines that approximate hand-drawn art, but something that genuinely, convincingly looks like it was projected off a film reel in 1932. Characters move with that bouncy, rubbery, slightly wrong fluidity of 1930s animation. The world is black and white with graduated greys. Bullets are thick ink strokes. Explosions are abstracted splashes. Backgrounds are painted. It is, frame by frame, one of the most spectacular visual achievements in any game released this year.
The second thing you notice is that there's a really good shooter underneath it.
Setting and Story
Mouseburg is a city on the brink. Corruption runs through every institution, vice drives every back-alley deal, and the mayor has some explaining to do. Jack Pepper, private detective, three days behind on rent, stumbles into something far bigger than a missing persons file when a client walks through his office door with a story that doesn't quite add up.
Voiced with tremendous energy by Troy Baker, Jack Pepper is the kind of noir protagonist who makes a pun in every other sentence and means every word of it. Baker commits fully to the role — the dry delivery, the exasperated one-liners when enemies catch him off guard, the occasional moment of genuine weariness that breaks through the comedy. The surrounding cast is equally strong.
The story is enjoyable. It's a competent noir mystery delivered with genuine affection for the genre and real skill for comic timing. What it isn't is deep. The investigation sections — which punctuate the combat arenas with clue-gathering and dialogue — are mechanically thin. The deduction element that should make the detective framing feel earned is essentially decorative.
This creates a consistent tension throughout the campaign between the game it announces itself as and the game it actually is. Mouse: P.I. For Hire calls itself a detective story and delivers a shooter. The shooter is excellent. The detective story is a pleasant veneer.
Combat
Strip away the art direction and what's left is a fast, movement-driven first-person shooter that wears its boomer shooter influences proudly while adding just enough of its own flavour to avoid feeling derivative.
The arsenal at Jack's disposal is small but well-differentiated. The revolver is reliable for single targets, satisfying to fire, and has the best sound design in the game. The tommy gun is chaotic and fun against groups but burns through ammunition. The Carcano is slow and punishing at range with a damage output that rewards patience. Dynamite clears rooms but requires positioning and commitment.
The Fantastic-o-Matic is the system that elevates the combat from functional to interesting. Vending machines placed throughout each level dispense randomised power-up modifiers — the selection you encounter in any given level is random, meaning no two playthroughs of the same section feel identical. Movement is fast and responsive. The dodge is generous without being exploitable.
Presentation
Let's give it its full due. The rubber-hose animation Fumi Games built for this game is painstakingly crafted. Every enemy type has its own squash-and-stretch movement signature. Death animations are slapstick. Boss designs are inventive and fully realised in the visual language. The music complements the visuals perfectly — big band jazz and noir brass build tension and release it in sync with combat pacing. The sound design throughout is exceptional.
The Problems
The final third. The campaign builds beautifully through its first five or six hours — new environments, new enemy types, escalating complexity. Then, in the final act, the creativity plateaus. The last section has fewer new ideas, a more conventional layout, and less visual invention than what came before it. It arrives when the game's best assets are depleted rather than in reserve.
The detective elements. If the investigation sections were either cut entirely or developed into something with mechanical depth, Mouse: P.I. For Hire would be a better game. As they stand, they're pacing tools that set up the next combat arena.
Length. Nine hours is short. DLC has been teased by Fumi Games — if they use it to develop the narrative side, the full package could be genuinely special. As shipped, it leaves you wanting more in a way that's partly satisfying and partly incomplete.
The Verdict
Mouse: P.I. For Hire is not the game it announces itself as. It announces a detective noir mystery and delivers a boomer shooter with detective aesthetics. That shouldn't work. It absolutely works.
Because the shooter is excellent. Because the art direction is genuinely one of a kind. Because Troy Baker sounds like he's having the best day of his career. Because Mouseburg is a world worth spending time in. Because Fumi Games, on their first attempt, made something that will stick in your memory long after bigger and more expensive games have faded.
At $39.99 from a studio that clearly gave this everything they had, the risk-to-reward ratio is overwhelmingly in your favour.
Mouse: P.I. For Hire — 8.4 / 10
The Good: Art direction is jaw-dropping and completely unique · Gunplay is fast, responsive, and satisfying · Troy Baker delivers one of his best voice performances · Fantastic-o-Matic system adds genuine replayability · Strong music and sound design throughout
The Not So Good: Detective/investigation elements are mechanically thin · Final section loses the creativity of earlier chapters · Campaign is short (~9 hours) with no post-game content at launch
Reviewed on PC. Review code provided by Fumi Games. Also tested on PS5.
