So that's the castle, huh? At least we can rule out Dracula being the perpetrator- there's no inverted castle in sight.



This stage is actually pretty short in terms of exciting things happening, and a bit of a step down from the amazing first stage. This time, we're kickin' it Lethal Enforcers style, so we're fighting against a whole army of mad roadsters as we drive along. Obviously, being 1918, the cars that keep appearing alongside us are hardly top-of-the-range, but they're fast enough to give chase. You ought to know the drill here- cars keep appearing with an invincible driver, and a whole load of enemies somehow manage to fit inside and take pot-shots at you. Naturally, you can also blow up the individual sections of the car, take the tyres out... It doesn't seem to make much difference, however.



Fortunately, the game knows that this sort of stage gets really old, really fast, and keeps mixing things up every couple of cars or so. There's a section where Edward stares up into the sky again, to be greeting by the obese flying bats again- this time, they'll actually attack you with phlegm, so don't let them! Other things that happen include the car flying off a hill and bouncing on to the road below, complete with hilariously overdone screen movement (Charles' car must have some rad suspension), the road splitting in two so that more cars can attack you at once, and an assortment of crates littering the background- smash them open for some extra items.



You'll know you're on the home stretch when you enter this tunnel, populated by werewolves. Eventually, you'll get to the gate on the right, and there's two very odd things about it. For starters, there's that odd demon statue with those three coloured crystals... What could it possibly mean? (WARNING: FORESHADOWING DETECTED!) The other thing is that you'd expect that you've got to blow up this gate as well, but you hear the cry of "I'll take this one!" and...



Haha, good show! You're a right mad bastard, Charles. I'm glad you've come along for the ride.

(Oh, and I guess this is Inexplicable Explosion #4 for those keeping score.)



Well, uh, after you.

And with that awkward moment, Stage 2 is over and done with. Short and sweet.



So Stage 3 starts out in the courtyard of the castle, and to greet us is a new enemy type, which I've affectionately dubbed 'Frankie'. Ol' Frankie is part of the waiting staff here at Chateau de Mort, and he's more than happy to give us a nice big axe to the shoulder as a way of saying 'hello' in his own special way. Unfortunately, Frankie also takes a full round to kill when he pops up on screen, and if you're not fast enough, he'll hit you and there's not a thing you can do about it. If you can react quickly enough, though, he's not a problem. Frankie's also unique in that he's the only enemy type that attacks you close to the screen every time he appears- he's never in the background with the 'lesser' characters.

So as you cut a swathe through the graverobbing hordes, a bunch of zombies appear, but don't worry...



Charles is gonna take this one for us. What a trooper.



After another onslaught of zombies that Charles lets you have (how considerate), you hear this awful laughter, and Edward enquires, "Where are you?!" as if he knows exactly who would laugh in such a deranged manner. As such, the view moves up to the windows of the castle, with a couple of cheap shots at you- enemies will attack from the window, but before you can shoot them, you need to take the window out. That sounds fair until you realise that they can attack you whether the window's there or not! Obviously, this is remedied by shooting twice really fast, but comes off as a tad unfair... This sections very short, though, so let's not dwell on it.



Hey, it's the guy from the intro! This must be the big boss, then. What's he got to say for himself?



Welcome to my dinner party, pal.
Today I'm serving a special dish.

Hey, maybe this guy isn't so bad after all. He's serving us dinner! I'll have the lobster please, mate.



It's YOU!!

Well now, that's just rude, but you can't get your own back, as you're not allowed to shoot him. Just like that bloody dog from Duck Hunt.



After that, we move back down to the ground, as we stare at this door, and a whole mess of enemies appear, intent on not letting us through. Interestingly, it seems that you absolutely must kill these guys, otherwise the game won't progress. Usually (if you're cheating like a bitch like I had to in order to get back here and find the upcoming secret area) the game's pretty lenient in this regard, and if you had enough money, you can pretty much credit feed through the entire thing and not fire a single shot, with the exception of bosses. Funny, that...



So when we get inside, we're actually confronted with another door, to which Charles chirps, "Let's go through the door!"



Ah, but just before we go through the door, my good man Charlie, there's another secret room here! When you enter this room, Edward will look left, then look right, then face the door again. When he's looking left, you've got a few seconds to shoot the middle portion of the wall- it's pictured here for you. Shoot it enough times and another secret entrance appears. What are the goodies this time, you ask? Well, they're probably more useful than the last set we found, and unlike the other items, these will last until you die rather than until you get hit.


Scope
Useless for emulators, but handy for the real deal, the Scope lets you see where you're shooting.


Bomb
A cracking little item, the Bomb will sit itself under your life bar when you get it. Shoot it at any time, and everything on-screen dies.

With that out of the way, we shall, indeed, go through the door now, Cha-

"Watch out!"



Edward, unobservant as he is, simply didn't notice the trap door in front of his destination, and falls down, while Charles somehow dodges it.



"Where am I?
I have to find Charles..."



Edward finds himself in what I can only describe as the castle's dungeon. Amid the scattered corpses and graverobbers, we encounter yet another new enemy, and possibly the most annoying one in the game- the mummy. At least they make a pretty cool entrance, as they pop out of coffins that slide out of the wall. Anyway, their sole attack is to throw their wrappings at you, and while they can be stopped, they're lightning-quick, there's almost always about 3 mummies on screen at any given time down here, and they attack every couple of seconds, unlike most enemies which attack once and then lay off. If you picked up the bomb, use it on these assholes. It may not be terribly efficient bomb usage, but it'll certainly make you feel better.

Incidentally, the mummy is one of three enemy types that never gets up-close to attack you. The pansy much prefers to sit at the back and wail on you with his wrappings while you desperately feed the machine another coin and curse God's beautiful creation and the very air you breathe.

... Sorry about that. Did I mention that I really, really hate these guys?

Anyway, there's obviously going to be some grisly sights in here, seeing as we're in a dungeon, but even I wasn't prepared for this...



AW, DUDE! SICK!



Not only does this horrible corpse come out of nowhere, but it sticks around and you can shoot the maggots off.

Of all the sick and twisted things in Zombie Raid, this is probably the vilest moment. Just... Just look at it!!!



In addition to horribly mutilated cadavers, the dungeon sports a wide range of actual, real-life hostages. Some of them are chained to the wall, so you can free them by shooting the chains from their hands (just be careful not to kill them by mistake) and they'll leave behind items for you. The ones behind the bars aren't nearly as lucky, as they're obviously just there for you to shoot by accident. By this point, the werewolves have rejoined the fight, this time with a new lick of paint, and mercifully, the mummies have taken their leave. The stage is nearly over now...



... But just one more look around Chateau de Mort's Chamber of Horrors, eh?



At the very end, Edward stops in front of this elevator, to be greeted by a small army of zombies. It's pretty difficult to shoot all of them before they march off screen, although that seems rather pointless, as none of them even bother to get up close and personal. It's doable though. Why you would want to is another question entirely. Seeing as there's no boss fight here, though... What could it possibly mean? (WARNING: FORESHADOWING DETECTED!)



In any case, Edward gets in the lift, ready to tussle with Stage 4.

Is Charles on the next page? I certainly hope so!