Blood Wake is a naval combat video game that was released in 2001 on the Xbox as part of Microsoft's initial wave of Xbox launch titles. The game was developed by Stormfront Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios.
Lieutenant Shao Kai is a former officer of the Northern League fleet. His brother, Admiral Shao Lung, betrayed him and left him for dead. Fortunately, Shao Kai is rescued and joins up with the Shadow Clan, led by Ped Zeng. There is a third faction called the Jade Kingdom, a mercantile power led by Lord Sri Brana, and the Shadow Clan targets them primarily.
This Video Game contains examples of:
- Adipose Rex: A very common trait among Jade Kingdom elites. Ahnam Pok in particular looks like a Chinese Jabba the Hutt.
- Ped Zeng is more burly than tubby, but he's still got a respectable paunch.
- Ambition Is Evil: Shao Lung intends to create an Iron Empire. He creates a monstrous warship named the Dragon and a powerful magic amulet to achieve this. Clearly, the Shadow Clan and the Jade Kingdom will have to deal with this.
- Bottomless Magazines: The rotary 'chain guns' and autocannons have unlimited ammunition when firing.
- Cain and Abel: Shao Kai is Abel, and Shao Lung is Cain. Kai was almost killed, but now he intends to return the favour.
- The Coup: Shao Lung overthrew the Northern League in order to establish his Iron Empire.
- The Dreaded Dreadnought: The Dragon, the flagship of the Iron Empire. She is armed with the eponymous Dragon's Claw, a weapon which can destroy most ships in one hit.
- The Empire: The subtly named Iron Empire.
- The Federation: The Northern League, given what little we know about it.
- Fragile Speedster: Speedboats, naturally.
- Gatling Good: The misnamed 'chain guns' are actually rotary cannons capable of firing unlimited ammunition.
- The Goomba: Jade Kingdom sampans are the most basic ship in the game: lightly armed and armored, but not particularly fast, they exist mostly to give players something to kill between larger, harder targets.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Ped Zeng gave his life holding off the Dragon during the assault on Kun Bay.
- Jack of All Stats: Shadow Clan catamarans, as depicted on the cover, are an almost perfect balance of speed, armor and raw firepower.
- Jerkass: Gamahl the Knife. Achmed's description of him as a pit bull fits both his personality and occupation within the Shadow Clan.
- Lovable Rogue: Achmed, Kai's Number Two, is very light fingered around ships and hardware. Most of your new equipment is stuff he "borrows" from Shadow Clan warehouses, rightly believing their comrades will forget all about the theft by using the gear to accomplish daring and heroic deeds.
- Mighty Glacier: Devil Boats, which are about as close to a capital ship as this game gets, are immense, lumbering fortress-like warships that hit and steer like a freight train.
- Military Brat: Implied for the Shao brothers, as Kai was given command of an entire squadron immediately upon joining the Navy. Lung was in a high enough position at a relatively young age to convince most of the Northern League fleet to defect and form his Iron Empire.
- More Dakka: Comes in rapid-fire chainguns and punchier but slower firing autocannons.
- Ocean Punk: An absolutely stunning example, courtesy of its incredibly unique South China Sea-style setting.
- Pirate King: Ped Zeng, lord and master of the Shadow Clan. Harsh, but fair, and quickly warms to Kai as he proves himself an able pirate.
- Ramming Always Works: Favored tactic of the Iron Empire, using the immense weight and armored prows of their ships to cleave through their foes. Fully realized in The Basilisk, which basically has a sword for a prow.
- The Jade Kingdom also packed some of their vessels with explosives for use as hellburners.
- Recycled In Space: Much of the core gameplay is similar to Twisted Metal IN A DIESELPUNK SOUTH CHINA SEA.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: The Iron Fleet has a penchant for using black and red paint-jobs for its vessels.
- Schizo Tech: Ancient Chinese sampans and semi-modern catamarans with chainguns, homing rockets and wave generators? Yessir.
- Reaches truly ridiculous heights with the sight of Shadow Clan speedboats trying to liberate trading junks that wouldn't look out of place in Romance of the Three Kingdoms from Jade Kingdom privateers, manning the aforementioned motorized sampans.
- In addition, the Iron Fleet is the closest this game has to a modern navy.
- Token Minority: A very interesting case, as Achmed is the only Arabic character of significance in the story. Everyone else is either Chinese or Malaysian, or their world's equivalent of them. A non-white cast like this is remarkable today, and utterly unheard of back in 2000 when the game was released.
- Lady Helen is ironically the only named character of European origin.
- Ped Zeng: "You want to live, boy? Impress me."
