Mouse PI for Hire preview: Retro cartoon FPS is an odd hybrid of cute and gruesome

Cartoons bend the rules of death, so the end of all things becomes something amusing, un-scary, unpermanent. After playing a demo version of Mouse: PI for Hire, the upcoming first-person shooter with a black-and white, retro animation aesthetic, I think developer Fumi Games took issue with that. Death is ugly in Mouse: PI, as rats occasionally gurgle and choke on their own blood (or is it ink?), assuming you haven’t shot their heads clean off or burned them to death. These dramatic deaths form a weirdly gruesome contrast to the cutesy vibes of everything else in the game. But if the demo is anything to go by, contrasts are what define Mouse: PI.