Ratings and Reviews by Mostly Useless

Our nameless detective strikes again, this time stalking the stinking alleys of Chicago - with gangsters! An inventively foul-mouthed cabbie serves to string the locations together and provide comic relief. As with the prequels, the game is not hard, though there are points where death can be sudden, so regular saving is encouraged.

Glancing over the other reviews here, I find myself agreeing with some of the points raised - the game is rather short, and rather easy, and free with use of 'bad' language - but for me these points count in it's favour. I don't need every game I play to be sprawling and require hours of exploring and a constant effort to remember everything that is said. I don't always need to deeply invest in characters and storyline. I certainly don't need an author to censor themselves, particularly when the insults and swears are clearly intentionally ridiculous and played purely for laughs. What I do need is to be entertained, and in this respect Ill Wind didn't let me down. It's a bit of fun - nothing more, nothing less - and for me that's enough.

Marshal Tenner Winter's second IF outing places you firmly in the shoes of a private eye thrown into a mysterious case, and (without spoiling anything the game's tags won't tell you) successfully explores Lovecraftian horror themes from the tongue-in-cheek perspective of the lead character. It's nice to play a game where one moment you're laughing at the dialogue and the next squirming at a grisly description.

There's not much in the way of puzzles, this one's more about the story. My only real criticism would be that there isn't quite enough of it, and there's a few non-interactable items. A bit more work would add a lot of polish, so roll on version 2!