I Am Bread (PlayStation 4) Review

The first level to this bizarre creation is introduced with a note sheet to a therapy session being attended by the owner of the house that the bread resides in. Humorously, the gentleman is attending these sessions because he believes his house is being burgled whilst he is out. Little does he know that all disruptive activity is down to a slice of untoasted bread… A slice on a mission, perhaps?

The primary objective behind this complicated and frustrating game is to see each day through as this slice of bread, with the end goal being that it fulfils its destiny of becoming toasted. Starting at the dinner table, the slice must make it to the toaster at the other end of the room, whilst dodging contaminants found on worktops, and, at all costs, avoid falling on the floor, thus maintaining the integrity of the bread and its edibility, which is tracked as a health bar found in the top left of the screen.

At first, all seems straightforward and very simple, until the imminent realisation that the control system slows any progression of making it to the toaster and completing the level. Each corner of the bread can be simultaneously controlled with the shoulder buttons of the controller - which takes some getting used to - to scale a wall, grip a nearby bottle or spoon, or jump off a platform onto a skateboard, allowing quicker progression across the room. Despite I Am Bread having a tutorial mission to help understand the control system and physics, it still proves challenging to master for even the most avid of players.

Showing itself as basic cartoon-based game (looking similar to that of Toy Story 3 on the PSP) with limited items in each room, I Am Bread oddly struggles to play smoothly and shows constant drops in frame rate. Simple actions, such as breaking a small jam jar, result in horrific frame rate loss, leaving the question as to why. The soundtrack is repetitive, unmemorable and damn right annoying, leaving the player hoping they don't need to restart or replay the level just to avoid the theme restarting from the beginning.

There are instances depending on the game mode where the "character" changes to a bagel or baguette, to list a few, but these only alter the characteristics of movement across the level. This change doesn't add to the fun factor, and could only be considered as a difference in difficultly, requiring more skill to manoeuvre them around the graphics-hogging jam jar.