If You Can’t Wait For Bradley the Badger, Revisit This Nearly 20-Year-Old 4th Wall Breaker

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Announced at the Game Awards, Bradley the Badger is a playful and self-aware game that celebrates video games while putting a unique spin on the classic mascot platformer. A key part of its charm is how it playfully mocks common gaming tropes and genres. The game follows Bradley on a journey through an incomplete version of his own world, allowing for fun parodies of popular titles. Players will experience levels inspired by games like The Last of Us, Bloodborne, and Cyberpunk 2077, each offering a distinct platforming challenge.

Many games playfully reference older titles and gaming history, using humor and nods to classic games. Bradley the Badger seems to be a charming example of this, and looks like a lot of fun. If you’re looking forward to Bradley’s adventure, it’s worth checking out a similarly funny game from almost twenty years ago that also poked fun at popular 2000s game genres.

The Simpsons Game Broke The 4th Wall Repeatedly

Launched in 2007, The Simpsons Game is a funny and playful take on the beloved cartoon series. The game’s story, penned by Simpsons writers Tim Long and Matt Warburton, begins like a typical adventure game similar to The Simpsons: Hit and Run. But things take a turn when the Simpsons find a game manual that somehow connects to their real lives, leading them to realize they’re actually characters inside a video game. After battling Sideshow Bob and the alien pair Kang and Kodos, the family finds a way into the game’s code itself, where they come face-to-face with Will Wright, a well-known game designer who was working at EA at the time.

As the story progresses, the game becomes self-aware, and the family must travel through parodies of other popular games—like EverQuest, Medal of Honor, and Grand Theft Auto—all given a humorous Simpsons twist. These levels still play like the platforming game Bradley the Badger, emphasizing precise jumping, exploration, and using special abilities to manipulate and even break the game’s rules.

The game culminates in a showdown where the Simpsons family challenges God to a game of Dance Dance Revolution. While it’s enjoyable, the controls and camera aren’t always smooth. What truly makes The Simpsons Game stand out, similar to Bradley the Badgerm, is its understanding of the characters’ inner lives, which gives the story a surprisingly thoughtful and existential depth.

Bradley And The Simpsons Tackle The Same Questions About Life And Gaming

Both Bradley the Badger and The Simpsons Game explore what it means to be a character in a game, which leads to bigger questions about existence itself. In Bradley the Badger, the main character meets others from games made by the same creator and finds a way to change his world. The game gets really interesting when Bradley discovers the limits of his code, seemingly stepping out of the game and meeting the developer who created everything.

The game shares a playful spirit with The Simpsons Game, where the family encounters both God and their creator, Matt Groening. They question Groening about his creative process, and he jokingly admits the game is partly about making money – essentially putting a price on their experiences. The Simpsons also discover they aren’t the only iteration of their family, and more versions will likely appear in the future, but they’re still determined to fight for their own reality to survive.

Wow, the ending of this game series really blew my mind! The family actually confronts God, wondering if He thinks He’s just a character in a game, and it turns out He is! The final shot of Ralph Wiggum playing the whole thing, then looking right at us the player… it’s just incredible. It’s not just about making funny, self-aware jokes about video games; it feels like the creators are really thinking about how art, money, and what it means to even exist all connect. I’m really curious to see where Bradley’s story goes, but these games already feel linked by how much they play with the idea of what’s real and what isn’t.

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2025-12-29 00:13