“Man fighting in the middle of town” may not be the Grand Theft Auto VI we’ve been waiting for, but it’s the one 2017 deserves.
The iOS game, which launched its 1.0 version yesterday initially piqued my attention through its perhaps-not-quite fair use of Grand Theft Auto V screenshots as the app icon and description photos. My hopes that someone had snuck a free port of GTA V into the App Store were quickly dashed against the stones after downloading this title, which from its description I understood was “a game that tells a great fight inside the city for power in the city.”
“Man fighting in the middle of town” is a game all of its own, that much like Apple’s own design principles, distills an experience down to its most essential ethos. There are no menus, no maps, no health meters, simply you and your fists and a purple Hulk and the Tumbler Batmobile and ads for audible.com
Much like Grand Theft Auto V, you can move and also see things.
I also appreciated the radar, which unfortunately does not actually work. After following the radar towards one of the free Unity assets I hoped to punch in the face with my man fists, I walked off the map and fell into an abyss that forced me to close and reopen the app. I wasn’t mad, just disappointed.
I was a bit frustrated by the graphics, which the description made out to be much more ground-breaking than they actually were. “This game has a great picture because of its 3D image quality.”
Perhaps my mistake is seeing “Man fighting in the middle of town,” as a game when it is, in fact, a metaphor. For what I am not so sure, perhaps for the plight of the individual against the cult of celebrity, perhaps the poor urban planning of major city centers or, more likely, the declining standards of App Store submission vetting.
“Man fighting in the middle of town,” available now for iOS.
Update: it’s already gone :(