Ignoring the purpose of natural reactions

There is a way that games have of being non-intuitive that needs to be addressed. They find an interesting image or experience, and use it for a cheap effect without working it into the game's mechanics. I know that early games couldn't be very realistic, but modern games have no excuse. I'll give three examples that I think are particularly ugly.

The Silent Hill games use a really cool blood and rust theme in many of the level designs, complete with a gross squishing sound when your character walks on some surfaces. But as you play the game, you start to ignore the grossness because it's not important to the gameplay. Why is grossness worrying in real life? It gets you dirty, and bodies and stuff tend to have diseases that you should avoid. But in the game, your character has no possibility of getting dirty. Characters will often jump in freezing water, then be dry and warm the moment they jump out. If getting dirty really does become meaningful in the game... Even if your character could "look" dirty, or if your character sinks into certain surfaces... Any attempt to be true to the underlying reason grossness is "horrifying" will emphasize the horror and provide a better player experience.

The survival horror games tend to abuse this a lot. They use a very frightening or stressful image and ignore the real reason that image is stressfull. (sharp weapons- but they hurt you the same way blunt weapons do. Gigantic enemies-but they hurt you the same way small characters do. Even the knock-back animation ignores the size and mass of the characters involved. Creepy sounds all the time- but it's just the background music, no relationship with real things in the game)

Another natural reaction that is ignored is size and mass. Every fighting game pits tiny characters and huge ones together, and the tiny ones have just as much of a chance. They even fight with the same style as the large characters. A little girl can pick up and throw a 300 pound sumo wrestler. She can punch the sumo wrester and knock him backwards. It is natural to be frightened for a small fighter and be joyful when she overcomes the odds and wins, but these games abuse that natural reaction and ignore the real reason for it. The player's intuition becomes so dull that it doesn't seem unusual anymore.

(By the way, remember Trinity's jumping crane kick in the opening scenes of the Matrix? She jumps straight up and lands straight down, but the cop she kicks flys across the room into the wall... where did all that forward momentum come from?... I guess she was blurring the physics of the Matrix, but I have a sneaking suspicion the fight choreographers are used to getting away with too much.)

One last example that came to mind while slapping this blog entry down is Grand Theft Auto. Why is crime so shocking? Criminals tend to go to jail. Or die. (Live by the sword, die by the sword, and just about half the verses in Proverbs). But the cops in Liberty City seem to be too busy eating donuts to corroborate witnesses and figure out who's hijacking all these cars.

I know that games should give players a sense of freedom and power, but I would argue that acknowledging the natural laws that govern players' reactions will give the players a more satisfying experience. Stretch the laws, don't just ignore them.