Physics based games where you play as something you’ve never played as before seem to be a new trend. Thankfully, so far they’ve been pretty good, and I Am Bread is no different. It’s nice to see a game with a sense of humor, as well. I remember back in the PlayStation 2 era when games were funny; they just had this wit about them that you don’t really see in mainstream titles anymore. I’m glad that Bossa Studios pumped some humor into a game about being a piece of bread.
After finally getting the game to download and starting it up, I was greeted with a funny load screen. The screen was all black, and text in the lower right corner said “I Am Loading…” I found that hilarious and was immediately excited to play the game. Once the game loads, you are greeted with a refrigerator which acts as the main menu. Once you pick “Play Game,” you’re taken to the side of the fridge to see what the game has in store.
Surprisingly, there are many modes to this game — more than I bargained for. I’ll begin with “Story Mode,” due to the fact that you should start with that; I didn’t, and I had a rough time with the other modes as a result. The “Story Mode,” while being very shallow, is humorous. When you begin story mode, you’re met with a Doctor’s file. After reading it, you discover that you are in this Mr. Morton’s house, and the doctor seems to think that he’s having a mental breakdown. In reality, the bread has come to life and is messing up Mr. Morton’s kitchen and various other rooms. As you progress, you are given another look into Mr. Morton’s file and his so called descent into madness.
You obviously play as a piece of bread, and your goal – like all pieces of bread out there – is to become toast. The first level takes place in the kitchen, and you are tasked with journeying across the kitchen to the toaster. I began fumbling with the controls and found out the hard way that you cannot land on the floor. I noticed the “Edibility” bar on the upper left corner of the screen but had no idea that was your life bar. I hit the floor and that bar immediately began to diminish, so I failed my first outing as a piece of bread.
The reason I say to start in “Story Mode” is the fact that it slowly introduces you to the game’s control scheme. If you try another mode first, you’ll have no idea what to do and waste your time. After beating the first level, you will have a pretty good grasp on how to be a piece of bread: the L1, L2, R1, and R2 triggers control the four corners of the bread. You can also somewhat shuffle with the left thumb-stick, but to really get moving, you need to hold two triggers that face the direction you want to go and push the thumb-stick forward.
Should you do this properly, the bread will flip over itself, possibly knocking stuff off a table or getting jam on itself. This is the best way to travel if there’s nothing rideable in the environment. The right thumb-stick moves the camera, so you can properly line up your bread to make it to the toaster, and finally, the four face buttons grip onto objects. You’ll need to grip objects to throw them and smash things, control items, and stick to walls in order to maneuver. Once you get this down, you’ll be able to easily frolic and play as a piece of whole bread.
The other modes are quite fun but can get old very fast. In “Bagel Race,” you get to be a tasty bagel, zipping around the map of your choice, hitting checkpoints to keep your time low. The better the time, the easier it is for you to unlock the next map in the mode and continue your journey racing around the house. The controls are similar to story mode — the only huge change is that you only use two trigger buttons since the bagel doesn’t have any corners. If you can get the bagel to stay standing up, you have the best chance of beating the unlock requirements.
“Rampage” mode is pretty fun; you play as a Baguette that obviously has some anger issues. The goal is to destroy as many objects as possible within the time limit to unlock the next map. The grip ability makes this easier because you can pull down entire stacks of plates with your rampaging Baguette. “Cheese Hunt” is another mode you can play around in. In this mode, you play as Crackerbread that seeks to find cheese. Controls are the same here, but you must find five pieces of cheese in the map, and the better the time you get, the faster you unlock the next map.
The next mode is “Zero G.” In this mode, you are a piece of bread with a jetpack, but the jetpack is hard to control. You have to maneuver the bread into a toaster in a zero gravity environment, performing barrel rolls to dodge obstacles and reach your goal. The final mode is “Free Roam,” which is pretty self explanatory. You can roam around the map and do whatever you like as any of the breads, and with this I found that life as a piece of bread is even more boring than my own life.
I Am Bread is a refreshing game with a good sense of humor and some interesting ideas; however, it gets old pretty fast. I can’t see myself sitting in front of my PS4 for an entire evening playing as a piece of bread. It is very fun in short doses, but it drags on the more you play. There also isn’t as much content as I first believed. Sure, there are lots of modes, but they all take place on the same maps, and those maps get pretty dreary after awhile.
It would have been nice to see the studio add a map maker so that you could make your own kitchen in the game and so on. That doesn’t detract from the overall game though. It’s fun, intuitive, and fresh — aspects most games are lacking nowadays. So, if you have some “dough” (get it?) in your PS4 wallet, this game is worth picking up and looking into.