SPY mouse

Summary

Agent Mouse is braving it in the lion's den, or rather, erm, the cat's flat. Dangerous doubtless, but there's simply too much cheese lying about to just be ignored. What's a mouse to do? Perhaps the mouse can-do after all—with a little help from its friends. Find out out in our review of SPY mouse.

Test device: Samsung Galaxy S3
Android version: 4.0.4
Root: Yes
Modifications: None

The app's size is approximately 125 MB so best to download it when you're connected via WLAN.

I don't play very many games on my smartphone. First of all, I don't have endless amounts of time, but more importantly I often find game apps for smartphones to be too complicated or else lacking in quality. The ever-popular 3D shooter genre is one I've never been able to wrap my head around, despite the awesome graphics. When it comes to shooter games I find that the controls are usually not as intuitive as I'd like them to be.

SPY mouse is whole other story: this game got me hooked. Go to the main menu to select the first level. As is often the case, levels start off easy enough and become progressively harder. The main objective is to guide the mouse through the cat's apartment to help it collect its cheese. There's usually more than one cat making the rounds in a given flat, so plan the mouse's itinerary carefully and make use of the mouse loopholes, some of which turn out to be secret passages to help you sneak past the vigilant felines.

More fun elements include gadgets which can help counteract mousetraps so that you can sneak the cheese without getting caught, televisions that will hypnotise the cats and more fun gimmicks to help you scamper through the levels.

Bonus points are awarded for what I like to call “mouse elegance”: when you manage to creep past the cats without them noticing you at all, or you get to where you need to be using the simplest route possible, or you manage to get there within a brief amount of time. You'll find out whether you've been awarded such points at the end of each level.

A small bone of contention: whenever you successfully complete a level you are automatically brought back to the main menu, rather than simply moving on to the next level. 'Tis a bit annoying, but we can live with it.

There are six worlds and 70 levels in total and making through them calls for a bit of finesse and good timing.

The sound effects and in-game music have a cartoon-like note to them but are also reminiscent of James Bond movies, adding a nice effect to the game's fun suspense factor.

Bottom line:

SPY mouse is a simple and intuitive game that takes no time at all to learn how to play and is visually and acoustically fun.
The game calls for quick reflexes but it's not one of those super hectic games that leave you gasping for breath.

As mentioned, controls are intuitive and learning how to play takes no time at all. That's what we like to see in a game.

The graphics are excellent and have typical cartoon aesthetics. The overall look is playful yet very nicely crafted. Well done, SPY mouse!

SPY mouse takes no time to load, but the game did crash once during our test runs (i.e. once in the course of several hours). This seems to be have been an isolated incident, however, as we weren't able to reproduce it.

SPY mouse is available for a very fair price of EUR 0.79 from Google Play. It's a great game and comes without ads and that at a very decent price.