Mouse P.I. for Hire | PS5 Review

Those who know me are very aware that I have a love for all things 80s and 90s. But would it surprise you to learn that I also have a soft spot for Hollywood’s Golden Age? Before Terminator, before Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and definitely before James Bond, my early years were dominated by old Looney Tunes cartoons, Felix the Cat shorts, but especially films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Rocketeer. I’d watch them on repeat until I damn near wore out the tape. Those early influences planted my love for 1930s and 1940s Americana pulp adventure, and old school animation that still sticks with me today. So when Mouse P.I. For Hire started making the rounds online in 2023, when it was little more than an early concept known simply as “Mouse,” it immediately got my attention. 

Developed by Fumi Games and published by PlaySide Studios, Mouse P.I. For Hire was a game I absolutely HAD TO PLAY. It’s a game that perfectly blends ingredients one would think shouldn’t go together, yet it turns into an amazing dish. It perfectly captures the hand-drawn rubber-hose animation aesthetic, with a noir setting straight out of a Raymond Chandler novel, and plays like a first-person shooter of yesteryear emphasizing fast paced run-and-gun combat.

Cutting the Cheese

The story leans heavily into that classic noir fiction. You play as Jack Pepper, a former police officer turned private investigator in the crime ridden city of Mouseburg. What starts out as a straightforward missing persons case, soon spirals into a web of political corruption, organized crime, secret experiments and intricate conspiracies. The game’s tone draws heavily from the hardboiled works of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, with enough double crosses to keep players guessing that would make Chinatown or The Departed blush. At the same time, the developers weren’t afraid to embrace the absurdity of its cartoon world. 

For a game that’s presented as a zany cartoon on par with the likes of Felix the Cat or Cuphead, there’s a surprising amount of weight in the story. The game isn’t afraid to tackle tough themes such as police corruption, systemic abuse of power, social division, racism and political intrigue. It wants to be playful and absurd on the surface, but it’s not afraid to let its world feel a little uncomfortable once you start paying attention to what’s actually going on underneath all the animation and noir dressing. That juxtaposition is what makes Mouse P.I. for Hire such a fascinating experience.

Toon Town After Dark

Mouse P.I. For Hire isn’t just all style and no substance. The moment you’re dropped into the streets and back alleys of Mouseburg with a gun in your hand, it becomes clear it’s not trying to be a realistic or modern FPS. It’s faster, looser, and more interested in keeping you moving instead of slowing you down or handholding. It assumes you’ve played a video game before.

The combat leans into old school first-person shooter design philosophy. There’s no aiming down sights, or tactical pacing, favoring constant momentum instead. What makes it work is how committed it is to the old school shooter feel. While the aesthetic is ENTIRELY different, it has the same feeling of fast and frenetic energy as another retro style FPS I reviewed Turbo Overkill. While Mouse PI isn’t as insanely fast, the level design follows the same school of thought. You’ll spend a few minutes blasting your way through linear corridors before being dropped into large battle arenas where enemies pour in from every direction, forcing you to clear the room before moving on.

The weapon selection does a fantastic job of reinforcing the game’s unique identity. Players have access to period-era firearms like revolvers, shotguns, and Tommy guns that perfectly fits the noir setting, but Mouse isn’t afraid to embrace its cartoon roots with increasingly bizarre weapons and gadgets. My personal favorite is the Devarnisher, a splatter gun that melts enemies into puddles of ink in a way that immediately brings back memories of The Dip from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It’s the kind of absurd weapon that shouldn’t work in a hardboiled detective story, yet somehow feels perfectly at home in Mouseburg. Much like visual presentation, the weapon roster constantly walks the line between noir crime drama and cartoon absurdity, and it works beautifully.

If I had one nitpick, it’s that there were a few moments where the game wasn’t always clear about where I needed to go next. I also encountered the occasional bug where the next event failed to trigger, leaving me wandering around until I eventually restarted the level. Thankfully, these issues were few and far between and never amounted to more than a minor annoyance.

Ink, Brass and Gunpowder

The presentation of Mouse: PI for Hire is perhaps its biggest reason for it existing. It’s the game’s entire pitch brought to life, and Fumi Games absolutely nails it. The black and white rubber-hose aesthetic isn’t just a gimmick, it’s the foundation of everything the game is built on, from its story and characters, to its sound effects and level design. The environments themselves are fully 3D rendered with a cel-shading look to mimic the feel of a period cartoon, while the characters are 2D hand drawn animations layered into that space. 

The contrast works surprisingly well, selling the idea that you’re stepping into an animated film instead of a standard game world. Characters each have their own mannerisms and personality in motion, with their death animations leaning heavily into that cartoon logic. Enemies don’t just fall over. If you hit them with the Devarnisher, they melt before your eyes and turn into a pile of bones. If you burn them they turn into a pile of ash with lingering, unsettling cartoon eyes.

Even the weapons themselves carry that same animated logic. Reloading animations are deliberately exaggerated, with magazines stretching and bending like rubber before snapping back into place, accompanied by those classic squelching, elastic sound effects that sell the whole rubber-hose identity. The real test is whether that style holds up beyond the initial novelty. In practice, it does a lot of heavy lifting throughout the entire experience. Even after hours of play, it never really stops being striking, and crucially, it stays readable when things get chaotic on screen.

Audio design works in lockstep with the visuals. The soundtrack leans heavily into noir-era jazz and brass, reinforcing the detective fiction vibe without ever feeling forced, while the sound effects bounce between grounded gunfire and more exaggerated cartoon flourishes. It all feeds into the same illusion, that you’re playing inside a lost 1930s animated crime serial. And say what you want about Troy Baker being in everything, the dude’s got talent. He nails the gruff, “I’ve-seen-it-all” cynicism and the inner-monologue of famous characters of the era like Philip Marlowe.

Here’s the Skinny

All said, Mouse: P.I. For Hire is a fantastic game. The idea of combining Cuphead, L.A. Noire, and a fast-paced shooter sounds insane on paper, but Fumi Games really pulls it off. One minute it’s a gritty detective noir thriller with more twists and turns than a neglected garden hose, and the next it fully embraces the zany, chaotic energy of a Daffy Duck cartoon.

The voice acting, particularly Troy Baker’s performance, is strong, backed by a colorful cast of supporting characters. The combat also deserves credit for how fluid and responsive it feels, never stiff or uninviting even in the chaos of larger encounters.

Beyond the occasional technical glitch I mentioned earlier, where progression sometimes failed to trigger and required a level restart, that’s really the only notable criticism I came away with. Mouse: P.I. For Hire is a truly memorable game, and I’ll say it right now: it’s firmly in my list of favorite games of the year.

To hear me talk more about Mouse P.I. for Hire, be sure to listen to the April 22nd, 2026 episode of The Gaming Outsider Podcast around the 1:11:32 time stamp.

This review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy of Mouse P.I. For Hire provided by Vicarious PR for coverage purposes. It is also available on Xbox Series S/X, Switch 2, and PC.