Douglas Adams's fantastic Hitchhiker's Guide Infocom adventure), transformed into point-and-click comedies (such as Monkey Island), and then largely went away for a while, as the gaming industry focused on gung-ho shooters aimed at teenage boys. The size, scope, and sheer self-assurance of LA Noire marks a major comeback for adventure games -- for interactive fiction -- and, potentially, a huge leap forward for wider acceptance of the medium as a whole. And both these games -- both of these entirely different, utterly unique creations -- are a huge commercial success. In cinematic terms, it's the equivalent of films of the intelligence and quality of 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Maltese Falcon not just being released to great fanfare in 2011, but actually going on to smash box office records. Somehow Portal 2 and LA Noire manage to be more cinematic than a great deal of contemporary cinema -- while being something entirely different, something with the phrase "I LOVE VIDEO GAMES" embedded in their DNA like a cheerful slogan through a stick of rock. These are not replacements for films, but something thrillingly different. Gaming's ongoing push into the mainstream consciousness has entered a bold new phase -- by appealing to the players' intelligence and imagination, it's starting to make Hollywood look embarrassing. The potential growth of gaming is fearsome, with Online and mobile gaming predicted to go from $19B in 2011 to 44B in 2014 based on current growth curves and access to platforms. That is a 200%