Portal and Nonviolence

Portal is almost unique among action games in that it involves no violence whatsoever against living creatures. The turrets and malevolent  artificial intelligence that vie against you are, while characterized, clearly artificial creatures. The color scheme is harshly bright, but recognizable to the daily experience of most people. It's a blending of the fantastic and the common that makes Portal so intensely appealing despite its avoidance of the most common action game gameplay elements and cliches.

In most action games, the player is plunked into a hostile environment full of violent animals, monsters and people that are all trying to kill him. There's a contrived plot that supposedly justifies all of the violence that the player is pushed to enact due to the circumstances of the game. In Portal, the primary dangers come from the environment. You have to evade dangerous toxic waste bubbling up from the bottom of the "test chambers" as an acerbic artificial intelligence makes fun of you for your predicament. The turrets chirp up about doing their job in a cheery manner, and you get past them by figuring out ways to tip them over or avoid them.

As such, playing Portal is a far less stressful experience than most other action games. In most situations, you're allowed to spend a fair amount of time contemplating your next move. You can generally a lot of mistakes without being punished for them with the exception of bumping into an energy ball. It's a great game for people who want to get into the hobby without dealing with a lot of the oppressively dark themes that infest the genre.