Action tends to take center stage. For hours at a time, it gives us something to prod, explore, and hopefully conquer as we settle into comfortable gameplay rhythms which aren't disrupted by peaks and valleys in the mayhem. Aside from the occasional jump-scare or ridiculous moment of ultra-violence, action rarely leads us to feel much beyond a compulsion to place holes in the enemy before they can return the favor.
Oddly enough, when games let up on the madness and place us in situations with little to no danger, we sometimes discover far more intense moments than what's found in the biggest set piece battles.
Rage
Walk into one of Rage's bars. You can't miss them; they're like T.G.I. Fridays, only all the street signs and oars adorning the walls have been replaced with scrap metal and mutant heads.
A grizzled man nods silently, inviting you to wager on a parlor game involving an impractically big knife and several small obstacles -- namely, your fingers. If you've seen Aliens, you know the drill: one of your palms is placed on the table, fingers splayed. You drive the point of the knife into the table between two fingers, move on to the next gap between fingers, then repeat the process at a faster rate.
Mess up your timing and the blade slams down on a finger. No health is taken away from your character. There is only the thunk of the impact, the visual of your hand pulling away quickly, and the sudden intake of breath through clenched teeth. For many, this is the most absorbing part of the entire game, where an imaginary wound causes them to recoil as if they have experienced it themselves.
You play as Vault Guy, mind you, shooter of mutants and driver of nitrous-burning apocalypse-mobiles. A million bandits assault you with all manner of nasty weaponry. Rusty machetes are buried in your face at every turn. Your buggy is blown up with rockets more often than you'd like to admit. Bladed boomerangs fill the air, their volume so great they might outnumber the amount of games set in the post-apocalypse. You get punched in the face by a bad guy that's large enough to carry a T-Rex around in the crook of his arm as a fashion statement.
Throughout all of this, the strongest emotion you're likely to feel in combat is the frustration of a gun that won't reload quickly enough or the sudden rush of facing overwhelming odds. Amid a pile of mutant corpses and spent ammo, the quiet suspense of the knife game stands out.
BioShock
Much of BioShock can be described as unsettling. Splashing through the dark ruins of a once-hopeful community, encountering crazed revelers whose costumes hide unknown features, constantly aware of the immense pressure of the ocean bearing down on an increasingly unstable environment -- this is not the sort of outing you'd plan to cheer up a gloomy friend.
These elements instill a sense of unease throughout the duration of your journey, creating the impression that you are small and powerless in this strange place. The most disturbing sequence, however, might just come when you decide to harvest a Little Sister.
Yanked off her feet, the Little Sister struggles and wails as you absorb her very essence. The act itself isn't graphic. It doesn't need to be -- placing a defenseless character in that position is unsettling enough. You aren't in any danger. In fact, you are directly benefiting, finally in control for a few terrible moments after being in the dark for so much of the game.
