Three Great Non-Violent Video Games

An overwhelming majority of video games have something to do with making some kind of adversary shuffle loose this mortal coil. While I personally have no moral objection to computerized depictions of violence, I'll admit that shootin' dudes and making things 'splode real good gets a little tiring after a while. That's why non-violent video games exist. Unfortunately, non-violent games tend to be less than action-packed. Most of them are sports titles, abstract puzzle games or building simulators. The following are three peaceful games that don't give up excitement in exchange for a low body count.

Lemmings

The good people at Psygnosis created a masterpiece in 1991 with a truly singular platform/puzzle game called Lemmings. For an entire generation this title is positively iconic. The premise is that players have to guide a large group of cartoonish creatures called Lemmings that are based (very) loosely on a small mammal of the same name through a hazardous environment. In an inverse of everything most games are about, the point is to save as many lives as possible. Sure, some sadistic gamers got just as much pleasure from creating elaborate traps for their intrepid charges, but there's only one way to win this game and a pile of expired lemmings ain't it. Lemmings was one of the first games to bring puzzle elements into an action-paced setting and is thus one of the most influential titles in history.

Crazy Taxi

An artifact of that heady period of experimentation that was the late 90's, Hitmaker's Sega-published title Crazy Taxi was always a big draw at the arcades and it ported rather well to consoles in subsequent years. Players take control of a wild taxi cab in a bright, sunny environment that is like the entire state of California condensed into a few urban blocks. Always racing with the clock, the cabbie has to get a series of passengers from one place to another as quickly as possible and with the least amount of damage along the way. Though there's plenty of reckless driving and property damage in Crazy Taxi, the pedestrian sprites are programmed to always be able to get out of the way. The intense speeds and unbelievable ramp jumps are exciting enough that violence doesn't even need to come into the equation.

Portal

When a group of students from the DigiPen Institute of Technology developed an independent title called Nerbacular Drop in 2005, they caught the attention of the physics-loving Valve Corporation. From there, the mother of all non-violent action games was born. Portal combines a wicked sense of humor with an ingenious but elegantly simple concept and absolutely nails the execution. It's a first-person shooter, but the only gun you get shoots nothing but portals. The only acts of destruction in the game (not including the finale) involve toppling some unusually courteous gun turrets, breaking the odd window and bringing fiery doom to an innocent companion cube. Proof that great, peaceful games can be made in an era obsessed with shooting aliens and taking chainsaws to zombies, Portal is one for the books.