MOUSE: P.I. For Hire

📜𝗪𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐝 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧
It's no secret that a project that began as a simple concept from one developer "what if we copied a Disney cartoon?" has achieved incredible, and perhaps the greatest, success an indie game can achieve. It boasts Steam pre-orders from a no-name publisher, a deluxe edition with future DLC, Game Pass day-one releasewith free PR at the Xbox presentation, professional actors, including Troy Baker, and a full 8-15 hour campaign, like a AAA game! Which a small team put together in literally three years. But I think that, despite the fact that you get what you pay for - the dopamine rush from seeing your enemies' heads explode frame by frame🤯 - all this hype-driven pursuit loses what makes the indie segment of video games so valuable: the unusual gameplay solutions that surprise you as you play. Despite the truly high-quality symbiosis of cartoonishness and brutal shooter action, the developers completely neglect the gameplay component, forcing us to "fight sleep" from literally the first hour. And how symbolic that the game lacks "color" - just as it lacks the need to engage your brain at all while playing.

In short, if you haven't figured it out yet, "Mouse Private Investigator" is a pure 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗿, and although the developers tried to experiment with Metroidvania elements, such as the ability to open doors, "backtracking" and collect additional evidence for additional tasks - The locations still represent a set of classic linear tight arenas, with modern frantic dynamics like Doom or Ultrakill, of course, due to the full set of platforming: double jump, running on walls, "parachute" descent, and, of course, a grappling hook; The only difference in the local arenas is that you literally see enemy spawns, as they always come out of "doors with skulls"🚪 (not counting the flying ones).. That is, enemies always come in waves from specific positions, and you can even stand and farm kills under the door.. It's pretty weird and makes the gameplay even more trivial, but at least the developers didn't have to come up with "spawn points" in dark corners somewhere outside the map.
🗺️That is, the levels here are a little more "labyrinthine" than in a typical shooter - they don't force you to look for keys of a certain color, and the game will definitely mark all the key "levers", So all that's left is to search for ammo/secrets in the nooks and crannies yourself, and it's quite interesting and relaxed. There are even urban locations that simulate the bustling life "behind the fence," but the local platforming still feels cramped in the "boxes" of this drawn world, very Often, when trying to climb somewhere, I just ran into an invisible wall, you see... You can find a key and open an interesting secret door, but you can jump somewhere only along a clearly scripted path in fairly small spaces, and definitely don't expect a jumping challenge here (although you can die falling from a height here).
🖱️And look how much more unnecessary stuff there is here: after completing every level you have to 1 button-ride with n the mini-map to the "hub", , then you are forced to stick clues on the board with 1 button (in automatic mode), then you have to click 1 button to ski[ dialogues with the characters🧀.. with the most "watery" conversations, where the word booze is replaced with the word "cheese", and people with "mice", and some hard "political intrigues stories" - in fact, there is no particularly interesting satire in the game, and no special plot twists, just "get from point A to B, to defeat the villain", with the brutal monotonous answers of the Detective, at least somehow diluting the gameplay routine; 🐍 And then there are these constant, absolutely identical puzzles.. There is exactly 1 puzzle in the game - "snake", the difficulty level is for kindergarteners, it is impossible to lose even once in the entire game i`m serious; also, with 1 button, you can play a mini-game with cards with pictures of "baseball", where you just need to choose a higher level of the card, and the victory gives you money to buy more cards, or comics - and that's all you need money for here; And also with 1 button, without even thinking, the upgrade system works here, if you found a sufficient number of blueprints, you need to upgrade the weapon - literally just 1 2 3 levels, well, the model will change a little, some additional plate will appear, or, conversely, holes will appear in the shotgun.. Overall, the game seems to have everything, but it's all very conditional, only slightly diluting the not-so-engaging shooting:
🔫There's not much to say about gunplay, all weapons are about equally effective, but they all have limited ammo, so you're just randomly flicking through your arsenal We have a pistol, a shotgun, everything has an alternate fire option that's simply a "boosted single-shot charge." We have a rather inaccurate tommy gun (like a Kalashnikov from a CS, but crouching doesn't improve accuracy), and other types of rifles that are visually cooler, like the one that melts enemies, or the psi-influence rifle, well, yeah there's also a cannonball that produces a "bricks flying apart" effect with each shot; And the same dull mouse "bestiary" here: yes, there are visually interesting cultists, bootleggers, corrupt policemen, but it's all the same, there are just ordinary enemies who need to be given simple headshots hundreds of times, there are slightly faster ones like "dogs", there are the same ordinary ones only fat, there are flying ones, and there are teleporting snipers, which you will aim first, well, that's all.. And the developers relied on "Bioshock".. come on, this is not even the level of "Atomic Heart", the maximum immersion here is - you can freeze flying enemies with an 𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗴𝘂𝗻 - causing them to fall, also the ice gun opens the only use of a kick by pressing the F button🦵, freeze - break, freeze - break.. ✂️The levels always have fire and ice barrels, there are all sorts of anvils hanging from the ceiling and "pianos" that can be chopped off And they'll deal damage over a large radius, but they're all so randomly placed that they barely impact the gameplay, where you're basically just mindlessly jumping or running in circles, taking the same headshots.

🐲But there's one thing that keeps me from disliking the game - the arenas with 𝗯𝗼𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀. That's where the gameplay really comes into its own, there are always some interesting situations there: flying on a crop duster, or a ghost you have to shine a flashlight on, or a mad scientist with his turrets. There are quite a lot bosses in the game, and they're often mixed in with regular enemies, which is always a blast. Consequently, the bosses also add variety to the game's locations: a yacht, a cemetery, a construction site.
And if you cut out 50% of the dull arenas with regular enemies, leaving only the gameplay, where there is a full-fledged boss, or a mini-boss, or some cool scripted cutscenes, usually a sudden fall somewhere into the abyss, then the game would become much more fun.. Why the authors stretched out the campaign time so much when they did not really have a "gameplay core" I do not understand.. Yes, sometimes there are cool animations with weapons or characters, just like a cartoon, yeah! wow! But think about it, these are literally only 2 frames always, which are scrolled one after the other, you can cut out funny GIFs from the game, but there are no full-fledged cutscenes, also static frames like in a novel, and accordingly, the game doesn`t create any intrigue in terms of plot and doesn`t end with anything.. Personally, just "that very" animation is not enough to spend 20 hours playing the same thing, sorry.

😊 𝗦𝘂𝗯 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝘆 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺`𝘀 𝗖𝘂𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿`𝘀 𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗲: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41977550/