Mouse: PI For Hire is one of the best first-person shooters I’ve played in many years. A classic story of Nazi mice, a missing magician, and robots Mouse: PI For Hire,available on consoles and PC starting on April 16, stars anthropomorphic mouse Jack Pepper, a war vet and former cop turned privatedetective, who lives and operates in a city filled with many other talking and walking mice and shrews. When one of Jack’s old war buddies, now living life as a famous magician, goes missing, he’s pulled into a case that quickly grows into something much wilder and more deadly for those involved.

This is a case that’s connected to big-time mice, missing shrews, an evilpolitical party directly inspired by the Nazis, creepy monsters, robots, and much more. At times, Mouse: PI For Hire’s writing can feel very heavy-handed; there's literally a Nazi-like party of mice that seems involved in trying to round up shrews (*looks at the screen*). But, for the most part, Mouse’s noir tale kept me hooked as I wanted to find all the clues spread across levels, stick them on Jack’s corkboard, and connect all the dots to solve the biggest case of his career.

To put all those pieces together and solve the case, you’ll need to explore a dozen or so hand-crafted levels and do a lot of shooting. Thankully, the combat and level design in Mouse: PI For Hire are top-notch. A wonderfully animated world The big draw that will likely be what gets a lot of people to check out Mouse: PI For Hire in the first place is for sure going to be its distinctive visual style inspired by classic cartoons.

It looks cool, but I was concerned that this art style would lead to levels that all feel and look the same. Instead, Mouse’s devs and developers use its classic cartoon aesthetic to offer up a variety of experiences as tasty and diverse as a fancy cheese board. Sure, there are the setting you’d expect from a black-and- white noir-themed shooter, even one starring mice.

Theseinclude backalleys, crime scenes,shadyestablishments, and seaside docks. But Mouse also includes creepy swamps, weird labs, movie sets, and more that I don’t want to spoil in this review. Every one of these levels takes inspiration from classic cartoons and movies from the ‘30s and ‘40s to offer up a greatest hits–like spread of animation tropes and ideas.

Going through these levels was a joy, not just because they look properly authentic, but also because thedevs have built levels that never feel too linear or sprawling. There’s always a path forward, but also a few places to poke your mousey nose into before you move on. And if you do poke around, you’ll find all thetiny details buried in each level.

Plants with faces, spiders with shoes, dancing slugs, you name it. The team behind Mouse has clearly spent countless hours crafting levels and animations thatfeel like they came straight out of cinema history while still working as modern video game stages for shooting stuff. Shooting things ...

with lasers! Now, since this is a game about a mouse, you mightexpect traditional weapons like revolvers or shotguns. But Jack Pepper doesn’t carry any of those.

No, he fights with lasers—two guns that fire red shots and a rifle that fires three of them. And boy, do those lasers fly! Once you get past the fact that Jack is basically an oversized house cat with a hat, the whole shooter loop falls into place.

Lasers feel great to fire. Enemies go down fast, and nothing’s more satisfying than chaining kills in a room full of bad guys. Oh, and did I mention how much Gunner, Jack’s robot sidekick, looks like Wall-E?

He’s programmed to help Jack out in various ways, including reviving him when health gets low. But the best part of Gunner is that he can be told to scan the area for hidden goodies. Hiding in plain sight are bits of cheese and delicacies that restore health.

But those points also give Jack experience, which unlocks new skills like being able to walk on walls and slide under obstacles. Wouldn’t you know it? Sharp objects are useful against rodents.

So why not stab some mice with tridents and spears? Mouse really knows when to subvert expectations. Weapons aren’t found in boring chests either.

Rather, a simple interaction with an environment often reveals a weapon tucked away somewhere. And since Mouse wants you exploring every nook and cranny, getting new tools almost feels natural. Even boss battles rely on environments rather than boss designs.

You won’t see a giant Mouse King here. Instead, you’re solving puzzles and exploiting weaknesses to take down bigger enemies. All of these systems come together without feeling overwhelming.

Mouse never stops telling its story and keeps introducing new characters and plot threads. But none of that ever makes the core loop feel unbalanced. The pacing remains brisk, whether you’re investigating or killing mice.

A heartfelt, funny campaign Mouse: PI For Hire could easily have gone wrong in multiple ways. It could have focused so heavily on its nostalgic visual identity that everything else fell apart. Or it could have taken itself too seriously, forgetting that a game