Ray's The Dead

Review

It is always bliss to have a good night’s sleep! Occasionally, you might wake up suddenly, from a nightmare, from a loud sound that erupts close by (such as thunder) or simply from being startled by your partner for fun (I must say, I thoroughly enjoy the last one, although not as the recipient. Mind you, after having had a laugh, I may well suffer as a consequence for quite some time!) So, imagine being in the eternal sleep of your final resting place inside your tiny 60cmx200cm residence (coffin) when suddenly someone tries to suck all remaining moisture from your body. After managing to crawl out of your small, sweet home, you are then confused by the complexion of your skin, which is  surprisingly green, and find yourself feeling overwhelmingly hungry, with an irresistible urge to jump on everything that moves, mouth wide open, constantly feeling hungry. And you can’t even talk!  I guess you’d feel pretty peeved!  Well, in the case of Ray La Morte, in addition to this rude awakening, he has also been scalped, and has a lightbulb sticking out of the top of his head! Why, oh Why, did we Ray’s The Dead?

Ray’s The Dead is an action/adventure game developed and self-published by Ragtag Studio on the 23th of October 2020 on the Steam platform.

You’ll be playing two different periods of Ray’s life: the present (which is when Ray finds himself as a zombie after being awakened from the dead), and the past (where you will find out the cause of his death).

You’ll start the game in the present or after Ray crawls out of his tomb and finds himself in the town cemetery, right in the middle of Halloween festivities (which is probably the only good news he’s had so far!) Here you’ll learn how to revive and use one of the four types of zombie under Ray’s control: the normal zombies, and then as you progress through the game, the dogs, assassins and heavy zombies. I must say, I had a ball playing Ray’s present, as you encounter plenty of fights throughout each of the levels and the bosses fights are quite fun too.

Ray’s past or memory flash-backs are more or less the basis of the story, where you find out who Ray was hanging out with while alive, and the friction that his group of friends had with another group led by a guy named Chaz. The character-building is excellent, and the dialogues are fun all the way through. But the gameplay during these sequences is pretty much just to avoid Chaz’s goons in the early stages, try not to be seen by scouts in Ray’s camp recollection, and a few mini-games.

There are also one or two stages like that in Ray’s present, but the present is mostly fighting, which I personally thoroughly enjoyed, especially when Ray encounters a new type of enemy and discovers which one of his four zombie-types are more likely to inflict the most damage to these new foes.  More than once, a well-combined attack with a couple of specific groups of zombies is the way to go. In some cases, and with stronger enemies, the combo tactic will be useless, and Ray will need to find the enemy’s weaknesses in order to beat them. If you keep sending Ray’s zombies against a stronger opponent, they will keep getting knocked back and will freeze until you unfreeze them with a boost of your energy, which is the same energy Ray uses to revive the dead or run faster with his group for a short spell!  Bear in mind that all zombies, with the exception of Ray’s personal Zombie friends, can die again.  For example, they can die by being hit too many times by a stronger opponent and you don’t want to have Ray convicted for a double homicide.

Ray will also need to be careful of his own Zombie state of health. Every time he is hit by an enemy, his health will take a sharp decline which you’ll be able to see with the gauge located on the top right of your screen. Don’t freak out, Ray can gain his health back by jumping on the back of an enemy and eating his/her brain before they crash down onto the floor. You’ll have a few seconds to activate each of these moves, so be quick!

They are a couple of other things Ray will find in the levels: tombs and batteries. As most of the levels you’ll play in the past and the present will be in an outdoor setting, you’ll find tombs placed around each of the stages. These tombs will have a small yellow light in front of the headstone; you must read them, and to be honest, there are some amusing ones that will give you the giggles for a while.  It’s hard to miss them so you shouldn’t have any problems here. The batteries are usually in radios, and some are pretty difficult to find despite being large items.  Sometimes the batteries are inside boxes, for example, so make sure you smash anything everything and anything you can!  Yes, there are puzzles in this game, but they are extremely simple!

I enjoyed playing Ray’s The Dead; the graphics are excellent and the story is brilliantly put-together with plenty of humour. The Soundtrack is also very good. In terms of the controls, you can play the game with your mouse and keyboard, but I strongly recommend using a gamepad for this game. They are a couple of audio and visual options, and that’s about it. It also seems to be only available in English, which is a bit of a shame!

Review written by THE CPT FROGGY for Zeepond.com!