Mouse: P.I. For Hire Review: A Competent Shooter Oozing With Cartoon Charm
Like any foolishly hopeful gamer, I sat in the darkness of my home, booting up a game I prayed would shine bright enough to live up to its promise. A black-and-white shooter set in a city full of mice? A classic cartoon animation style? A gumshoe noir plot? The idiosyncrasies stacked like Jenga blocks, and one faulty element could send the whole tower tumbling. But isn’t that always the way in Gamer Town, where promising pitches are a dime a dozen, and few successfully pull off their daring dreams. Mouse: P.I. For Hire, the long-awaited indie first-person shooter spawned from a post on X, is finally coming out on Thursday after years of trailers and teasers, and at a modest $30 price to boot. Though its creators from Polish studio Fumi Games insist that the game’s look is more broadly inspired by the 1930s “rubber hose” style of animation popularized by Betty Boop and Fleischer cartoons, it’s not hard to see visual similarities with Steamboat Willie, the black-and-white character that preceded Mickey Mouse. A lot …
