Excuse me while I go pinch a loaf.
Maybe I am missing something. Maybe I just don’t have the control or patience. Or just maybe I am not very good at games. Either way, I Am Bread is definitely not for me.
I Am Bread is riding on the coattails of Octodad, Surgeon Simulator, and to some extent Goat Simulator. It’s a physics based puzzle game that requires way too much when it comes to the controls.
MRSP: $12.99
Price I’d Pay: $2.99
Platforms: PC, Playstation 4
Multiplayer: No
The aim of the game is as simple as it gets – turn the slice of bread in to a slice of toast by getting it from one side of a room to another. It’s a shame actually achieving this isn’t so straight forward. I was forever fighting the controls, which may appear simple, but have a wildly unpredictable nature. Of course, this is the whole point of the game, but it turns into a lesson in patience and anger. There is a handy tutorial to get things going, but no matter how much practice I got, I never got any better. Each corner of the bread is represented by the four shoulder buttons. Hold any combination of them to move the bread across the level.
The use of objects in the environment can also be employed to make life easier. For example, there is a skateboard in the Kitchen level which can be used to travel the length of the room. These things are handy, as contact with a dirty floor means that the bread becomes inedible and thus ends the game. But if moving along the terrain wasn’t bad enough, getting in to the toaster was even worse. It’s like trying to climb Everest.
If getting toasted isn’t your thing, then there are plenty of other modes to try. The game comes packed with race, rampage, free roam and zero gravity modes. There’s even a find the cheese mode, which is essentially the same as the main mode, just with a cracker instead of bread. However, each of the game modes relies on similar control schemes, so don’t expect a huge departure from the main mode. The one mode that does stand out is the zero gravity mode, but for all the wrong reasons. Imagine trying to control bread with rocket thrusters and you’ll get the idea.
I Am Bread seems to have been developed for crazy people, or for those that hate themselves. Sure, there is a challenge to be found here, but the rewards don’t justify the means. It simply doesn’t compare to its peers. It has none of Octodad’s humour and none of Surgeon Simulator’s irony. It’s just a joke that seems to have gone stale.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
