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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 in Manchester. Ocean manufactured dozens of games for a variety of systems such as the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Atari ST, Amiga, PC, and video game consoles such as the NES and SNES.

Brief 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 classics by many oldskool 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 were famous for often buying the rights to make video games from different movie and television franchises. Among these are

The Addams Family (in The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt)
Jurassic Park
Cool World
Hook
Rambo
RoboCop
The Simpsons
The Terminator
Transformers
Total Recall
Batman
Animal
Waterworld
The Untouchables

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.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Ocean Software ]

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