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 and
Green
Beret.
- 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.
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
Hypersports. 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.
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
Well
received titles
Where Time Stood Still - 1987 Magazine advert
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.
*
Titles marked with asterisk are arcade conversions
