Reverend Ray
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| Reverend Ray | |
|---|---|
| First game | Call of Juarez |
| Voice actor(s) | Marc Alaimo |
Reverend Ray is a video game character of Call of Juarez. On beginning the game he's a preacher, but with hints of a darker past, who wants nothing more than to bring purity and the word of the Lord to the people of the small town where he now resides. It's only toward the end of the game when we find out Ray's story.
[edit] Character History
Ray is one of three brothers (the others being Thomas and William.) In his younger years he was a renowned gun-fighter, as famous for his cuirass -which is bullet-proof- as he is for his ability with a gun. Although William was a good man, described as "The best of us" by Ray, Ray and Thomas had their minds on fame and riches in those days. One day he and his brother Thomas met a young woman called Marisa, mother of the game's other protagonist Billy Candle, and both he and Thomas were smitten with her, but unfortunately for Ray she chose Thomas and the two went away to escape his anger. Ray tracked them with William in tow, trying to make Ray see that his anger wouldn't do him any good. Ray didn't relent however, and eventually tracked Thomas and his new love to a set of caves and caverns that housed the gold of Juarez - real father of Billy Candle. Ray admits to his unadulterated greed, he wanted Marisa and he wanted Juarez's gold. William got between Thomas and Ray before a fight could ensue, and he reached into his inside pocket. Ray, his instincts taking over and believing William must have been drawing a gun, drew his own and shot William. As his brother fell Ray saw that it wasn't a gun he was pulling, but a bible. Realising what he's done, Ray renounced his evil past and decided to embrace religion. He and Thomas left the gold there, thinking it was nothing but a curse, and neither would return until Ray was drawn back to it later.
As we join his story at the start of the game, Ray is preparing for mass for another typically low attendance at the small ramshackle church that serves this parish in the town of Hope. Before it can get fully underway, the sermon is interrupted by Clyde, owner of the local saloon, who is voicing his discontent. But he in turn is interrupted as a woman enters the church and tells Ray that there's shooting at Ray's brother Thomas' farm. Rushing there as fast as he can, Ray turns up to see Billy standing amongst a scene of utter carnage. Thomas and Marisa are dead, the barn is on fire and words about the Call of Juarez are smeared on the door in what looks like blood. Upon seeing Ray, Billy makes off through the barn and Ray gives chase. Billy crosses a bridge and then breaks it down, leaving Ray no choice but to turn back and go to the sheriff of the town. As he reaches the farm en route, he sees looters, two of whom flee when Ray lectures them, horrified at their actions. Two run, but another challenges Ray who beats him in a fist fight before calling upon the Lord for guidance.
He decides that this is a sign of God wanting him to cleanse the town, the residents of which he describes as being little better than animals. After fetching his weapons he locked away twenty years ago from the church, he is confronted by the sheriff. Just as he's telling Ray that he will be the one to uphold the law, a hoodlum shoots him and incites rioting in the town. Ray makes his way through, killing all who standing in his way with fury and -so he believes- the vengeance of God in every gunshot. After he cuts a swathe through the settlement and burns down the saloon which he sees as being the hub of evil in the town, he defets Clyde in a duel before vowing to track down his step-nephew, Billy, whom he believes to have killed Thomas and Marisa.
It takes Ray time to track Billy, with Billy having headed towards the mines and the railway instead of for the border. After days of chasing him he reaches the mine and encounters bandits planning a raid on the train. He blasts his way through them as he had through Hope, believing himself to be the sword of God. He reaches the train track and takes down a few bandits who appear to be shooting across the tracks. After killing them in short order, the train passes by and Ray looks across the gap to see Billy standing on the other side, and watches him jump onto the moving train and be carried away. Jumping down onto the tracks and prepared to doggedly follow the train on foot until he can find faster transport, he's confronted by the leader of the bandits, Ned "The Plague". After being gunned down, Ned confesses his sins so Ray can absolve him.
Ray has a chance to catch up with the train sooner than he thinks as the bandits have brought the train to a halt by destroying the bridge ahead of it. Ray is forced to draw upon his gun skills of old more than ever as bandits besiege the train and fill the surrounding area, but eventually Ray manages to fight his way through them and reaches the train's engineer, who he's glad is still alive. After interrogating the engineer regarding Billy, he finds out the engineer did see somebody on top of the train and informs the Reverand of the direction he headed in. After offing one last bandit in another duel, Ray follows the directions provided by the engineer.
He encounters native Americans who he refers to as angels of death, and as they're rogue and defending a downed cargo cart, they begin to fire assuming he is hostile. They hold Ray off for a little with their long range rifles, but he fights his way through them in the end as the trail of blood behind him continues. Before he can reach a farm Billy seems to have holed up in, he is intercepted by a group of Texas Rangers who are also after Billy, and offer to help Ray take him captive as he won't be able to take on the rustlers Billy is with on his own. The group enter the farm and shoot past the farm's guards. Chasing Billy through a farm building and across a field of corn, he emerges from the other side to see Billy making off on a horse he's stolen. Ray kills two men who confront him and takes the other horse so he can continue his pursuit once again. He finds Billy standing on a cliff and shoots him, watching as his nephew falls into the river before returning to the farm. Ray hears a scream and heads into the farmhouse to find out what's going on. The McLydes (two of the "Rangers" are there) and it turns out the "rusters" were actual ranchers. After taking down the McLydes, Ray mourns his mistakes while talking to the dying rancher, who asks him to save his daughter Molly. Ray mounts his horse and pursues the bandits until he reaches a pier in time to see them heading off down-river on a raft with Molly. Ray is distraught at his mistake, realising that he was wrong about the bandits and the ranchers, and Billy. He is determined to try and atone for his mistakes by saving Molly.
He follows the river and the bandits until he knows they have to come ashore, and continues to chase. After entering a farm-house, a barn door at the rear breaks open and a horse-drawn carriage moves out of it. After returning to his horse, Ray arrives at a ranch where they've been forced to stop by the river. He is confronted by another of the men, Ty Stewart, who is taken down by Ray's gun, and tells the Reverend as he dies that Molly was taken to Juarez.
Ray makes his way there and opens up a hatch in the floor of a house he knows to be above one of the outermost tunnels of the Juarez catacombs, and opens it to find Billy staring up at him shocked, and his fear renewed by the sight of Ray. Surprised to find him alive, but delighted, Ray apologies to Billy and tells him to leave and he'll take care of the men chasing him. Ray drops down into the gap and shoots a path through the same caves that Billy just escaped from, taking down any who cross his path and eventually finding himself in the gold chamber, face to face with a group of men led by Juarez. Killing the men and wounding Juarez, Juarez tells Ray to bring the gold to his fort or the girl (Molly) will die in a most unpleasant way.
Ray turns up at the fort and rolls a covered cart in, but informs Juarez and his men that he has other ideas and pulls the cover off to reveal a gatling gun, which he uses to dispose of the men guarding the mansion. Breaking into it and heading into the depths of it's basements, he eventually finds Molly. Before he can free her though, the door is locked from within and the cover to the prison is pulled open, and Juarez throws what would now be known as a Molotov Cocktail, setting fire to the floor of the cell. Just when Ray thinks he and Molly are going to be burned to death, water pours in to douse the flames and Billy appears at the edge of the opening. Ray tells Billy that the door is locked from the other side. He eventually turns gets it open and Ray tells Billy and Molly to follow him, that they need to get to safety. Juarez appears at the door though and shoots Ray, before being defeated by Billy in a long and brutal fist fight. Ray is near to death, and his dying wish is that although all of this is his fault, that God doesn't allow Billy and Molly to die because of him. He finds some last reserve of strength from somewhere and he sees Juarez getting from behind Billy and Molly, and he pulls out a blade with which he would surely kill them both. Ray takes up his gun and shoots Juarez, killing him, before finally dying, to be buried by Billy and Molly in a nearby graveyard.
[edit] Playing Style
Most of Ray's game is simple FPS gaming. Dual-handgun wielding, rifles, etc. The two things that set the gameplay apart slightly are the Max Payne-style "bullet time" sections, and the gun-duels.
