The following summary of Chicago's highlights was compiled by a writer in our community, who lived many years in Chicago and still resisdes in the area. It helped make the case for Chicago as the game's location. As such, it is biased, but very helpful!

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The city of Chicago is situated on the shores of gorgeous Lake Michigan, and has such far reaching influences that even parts of other states identify as part of 'Chicagoland'. The local weather, while running the course of four seaasons, is practically possessed, seeming to have a mind of its own. There has been snow on the Easter holiday and weather suited for swimming in mid-November! The area DOES experience all four seasons - it just sometimes happens in the course of a single day!

Chicago is the heart of the Midwest. It's a huge metropolitan city that draws people from all walks of life. There is beautiful city center with the requisite skyscrapers encircled by the Chicago River, plus the El trains which operates as both elevated trains and subways. For the darker elements, the entire city is run beneath by a series of old freight access tunnels that were once used as an underground transport system for goods being delivered to the Loop buildings, but have long since been left abandoned. Like sewers, but not wet!

Chicago is NOT New York, nor does it want to be. New York is dirtier. More yuppies there. The people of Chicago have embraced supposed insults to the city – The Second City, The Windy City – and made them their own. There is a saying that no one in Chicago is a hypocrite – everyone is a bastard and damn proud of it! Incidentally? Only a very small population actually sound like the SNL Superfans, in case you were wondering. That means very little of 'Da Bears' and 'Da Bulls' and the Southside drawl that was exagerated for the SNL skits.

You may have seen this fair city in films such as Batman Begins, Wanted, Mercury Rising, While You Were Sleeping, Road to Perdition, Home Alone, Adventures in Babysitting, Only You, Blues Brothers, The Breakfast Club, Candyman, Class, Wildcats, I Love Trouble, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Wicker Park, and High Fidelity, to name just a few! So characters in the style of actors, etc, would not be far off the mark here! Loads of location shoots for films and television shows take place in the city.

Still looking for character ideas? How about a sports star? There are two major league baseball teams (the Cubs and the White Sox), two hockey teams (the Blackhawks and the Wolves), [American] football - both NFL and Arena (the Bears and the Rush), men’s and women’s basketball (the Bulls and the Sky) and soccer (the Fire).

Loads of people congregate in Chicagho, from all different locations. The city has districts such as Little Italy, Chinatown, Greektown, a Puerto Rican district, populations from Mexico, Turkey, India, etc. People from ALL walks of life, so no character would really seem out of place, no matter where they are from.

Some of the best architects were born and bred here. Frank Lloyd Wright, Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, leaving behind a gorgeous iconic city. The museum campus is really without an equal. Not to mention a multitude of universities, city colleges, commuter schools, two huge labs (Abbot and Baxter), many hospitals, etc.

What about cemeteries? The largest park in the city - Lincoln Park itself - is full of unmarked dead. Two really beautiful cemeteries are situated right downtown – Rose Hill and Graceland. Not only does Chicagoland harbor one of the earliest hitchhiking ghost stories – Resurrection Mary – but we also have one of the world’s few brunette hitchhiking ghosts, the flapper ghost of Jewish Waldheim cemetery. And those are just the ones in the city center. There’s Bohemian National with a renowned statute of death, Mount Olive, All Saints, St Luke, St Matthews, and MANY more. PLUS Bachelor's Grove Cemetery, on the list of the ten most haunted places in the country.

Criminal elements? Can't forget the long, long history of organized crime in this city. The local mafia has gone quiet, but it is still there. Plus, there is also the plot point of local gangs. Not to mention the political and police corruption and long-standing history of violence in the labor unions.

The storied past of the city is ripe with events that can be used for group plots. The Great Fire. The Iroquois Theater Fire. HH Holmes and his murder house. Starved Rock. The Fort Dearborn Massacre. A man actually ground his wife into sausage. The Our Lady of the Angels Fire. More recent darkness? Three words: John Wayne Gacey. Not exactly something to be proud of, but it happened there.

Chicago is on one of the Great Lakes. These bodies of water have a long history with sunken ships, haunted ships and monsters. Those who have been out on Lake Michicagn, facing away from the shore late at night can tell you - it is pitch blackness, one of the eeriest things you can ever experienced. Not to mention the Chicago River, which spawned the actual haunting of – wait for it – yes, Harpo Studios, home of Oprah. Seriously.

Theme parks!Just outside of the city sits Six Flags Great America, ripe for creepy amusement parks after dark scenage! PLUS the closed and abandoned Santa’s Village, an amusement park that has been shuttered and left to rot for a few years now.

Miss the gambling in Vegas? Several racetracks and riverboat casinos for the gamblers – a great tie-in for mafia figures!

And remember, Chicago is not just the city proper. It is Chicagoland. Part of Indiana and Wisconsin identify themselves with us. This means that you have a big city center spread out to quieter neighborhoods and then into reclusive farmlands. And swamps! We have actual honest to god swamps and bogs upstate, maybe an hour outside of the city.

We get all kinds of natural disasters. Blizzards, tornados, earthquakes. There have been monster waves at the lakefront as well.

The Chicagoland area harbors a multitude of forest preserves. For those unfamiliar with the concept, it's pretty much a great big bunch of nature smack dab in the middle of a metro area, as well as larger preserves spread out across the entire state. Along with Lake Michigan and the Chicago River, there are several more local waterways, including but not limited to the Des Plaines River, the Kankakee River and the Fox River, plus many smaller lakes and ponds in areas like Chain o'Lakes state park.

While Chicago itself is a major city, there are other large cities within driving distance for longer storylines and outside influences. This includes Milwaukee, Gary, and many more. For more desolate areas, there are loads of small towns with potential for the weird and wacky, including Pontiac (home to a maximum security prison), Sleepy Hollow and Alton (which is a town pretty much built on top of so many cemeteries that to this day, locals find bodies when digging in their gardens).

Take it to the streets with an array of outdoor festivals. Free movies shown in public parks, the Taste of Chicago (which spawned many similar events in all of Chicagoland), music festivals, huge concerts (Lollapalooza, anyone?), ice skating on State street in the winter, a huge holiday outdoor marketplace at Daley Plaza in the winter season, pumpkin farms all over, pick-your-own fruit and veggie stands all over.

Creepy locations? Hospitals left to rot, Prairie Street mansions in such great disrepair that trees are growing out of the room, the Cook County Poor Farm and Potter's Field - half of which now houses haunted condos and one creepy city college, the other half left vacant, the old Reed Center mental hospital.

Spread some of that corruption we love to the church: The Chicago Archdiocese is one of the largest in the country, and our very own Hull House spawned the legend that became Rosemary's Baby!

Unique locations? Rolling Stone, an independent record store. Super Dawg, a Chicago hot dog stand (whatever you do, do not ask for ketchup). Hala Kahiki Hawaiian Lounge, a nifty TROPICAL bar just outside of the city limits.