Ocean Software
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Ocean Software (or Ocean Software Ltd. and sometimes Ocean of America, Inc. but generally only referred to as Ocean) was one of the biggest European video game developers ever. The company was founded by David Ward and Jon Woods and were based at 6, Central Street, Manchester. Ocean manufactured dozens of games for a variety of systems such as the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Amiga, PC, and video game consoles such as the NES and SNES.
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[edit] History
The first projects in 1984 (High Noon and Gilligan's Gold) were also developed in-house. Later in 1984 Ocean acquired its former Liverpool rival, the defunct software developer Imagine, and focus shifted from development to publication of games. Also in 1984, Ocean struck a deal with Konami to publish their arcade games for home computers.
- In 1985, Ocean managed to secure the first movie licenses, such as Rambo, Short Circuit, Cobra and Miami Vice.
- In 1986, a deal was signed with Taito for home versions of their arcade games such as Arkanoid, Renegade and Bubble Bobble.
- In 1987, Ocean published original games again, after a marginal season filled with licenses, resulting in Head over Heels and Wizball, both which are considered to be classics by many old school gamers.
- The last game released by Ocean was GT 64: Championship Edition in 1998, for Nintendo 64.
- Ocean acquired Digital Image Design in 1998.
- Ocean was acquired by Infogrames in 1998 for £100,000,000 and renamed to Infogrames UK.
[edit] Ocean Loader
One of the most recognisable features of Ocean games during the 8-bit era was the Ocean Loader. Since most 8-bit computers used cassettes as storage, loading a game could take minutes. Ocean used a special loading system that displayed a picture and played music (Commodore 64 only) while the game was loading. The Ocean loader music is still popular by fans of chiptunes. Five versions of the tune exist; 1 and 2 were composed by Martin Galway, 3 by Peter Clarke, 4 and 5 by Jonathan Dunn. The Ocean Loader was first used in the game Hyper Sports. Up to 1987 the Ocean Loader was written by the in house Ocean programmer Bill Barna, from 1987 to the end of the Commodore 64's commercial life the loader was replaced by "Freeload" written by in house programmer Paul Hughes.
[edit] License games
Ocean were famous for often buying the rights to make video games from different movie and television franchises. Many license games combined several styles for example featuring platform action and car driving. Perhaps the most well received licence games by Ocean were Batman The Movie (1989) and Robocop 3 (1992) which featured 3d graphics in 16-bit versions. Also the adventure game, Hook (1992) got positive reviews. Among Ocean's license games are
- The Addams Family (in The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt)
- Animal
- Batman
- Cool World
- Darkman
- Hook
- Jurassic Park
- Knight Rider
- Lethal Weapon
- Rambo
- RoboCop
- Salamander
- The Simpsons
- The Terminator
- Total Recall
- Transformers
- The Untouchables
- Waterworld
[edit] Well received titles
Though Ocean had a reputation of the company that publishes average license games, also many of their titles were well received among public and computer game magazines.
- Addams Family (1992)
- Batman the Movie (1989)
- Beach Volley (1992)
- Eco (1987)
- Cabal* (1989)
- Head Over Heels (1987)
- Hook (1992)
- Midnight Resistance* (1990)
- Mr. Nutz (1994)
- New Zealand Story* (1989)
- Operation Wolf* (1989)
- Lost Patrol (1990)
- Operation Thunderbolt* (1990)
- Pang* (1990)
- Parasol Stars (1992, computer conversion of PC Engine game)
- Platoon (1988)
- Pushover (1992)
- Rainbow Islands* (1990)
- Robocop 3 (1992)
- The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants (1991)
- Sleepwalker (1993)
- Toki* (1991)
- Where Time Stood Still (1987)
- Wizball (1988)
- Wizkid (1992)
- Worms (1994)
* Titles marked with asterisk are arcade conversions
