Ocean Software, founded in 1982 by David Ward and Jon Woods, was one of the biggest European games developers across all home computing platforms.
As well as an impressive back catalogue of CPC games, Ocean's has left a legacy touching every major gaming platform of the 1980s including the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Atari ST, Amiga, PC, NES, SNES, Master System and Mega Drive
Although they developed and supported a number of original games and ideas, they will be forever associated in the mind of the casual game with their TV & Movie licence games and ports of the latest arcade hits from Konami and Taito, the latest of which Ocean always seemed to be advertising up to six months in advance of release in the magazines of the day!
By the time the CPC had arrived on the scene, Ocean had already beaten their North-East rivals Imagine who had overreached themselves in the battle for supremacy. Ocean took on the brand name for themselves and made a number of key releases on the label in the following years. Simply put, however, every release on the Imagine label for the CPC was in fact made by Ocean.
As well as Imagine, Ocean developed the Hit Squad label as a budget house to re-release their old titles (along with a number of other titles by third parties).
Their position as one of the key CPC developers is secured thanks to their involvement with the Plus range. Chosen by Amstrad as an ideal partner to provide launch software, it was Ocean who developed and produced Burnin' Rubber, the game included with the GX4000 and the Plus range of machines.
A short-lived serious software arm, Ocean IQ, published the Laser Basic, Laser Genius and Laser Compiler titles.
As with all games developers, and particularly true of a group with the huge output of Ocean, the quality can vary wildly from game to game but thanks to their savvy maketing and more than a few classic games, Ocean will always tend to be remembered favourably.
In 1998 the Ocean name finally disappeared when the group, who had been unable to move with the times into the 32-bit era was bought out by Infogrames.
Releases for CPC
- Battle Command
- Beach Volley
- Burning Rubber (Cartridge ) (1990)
- Cabal
- Chase HQ
- Combat School
- Darkman
- Donkey Kong
- Frankie goes to Hollywood
- Galvan
- Ghengis Khan
- Gilligan's Gold
- The Great Escape
- Gryzor Known as Contra too on other systems.
- Head Over Heels
- Hunchback
- Hunchback II - Quasimodo's Revenge
- Hunchback the Adventure
- It's a Knockout
- Knight Bride
- Kong Strikes Back
- Madballs
- Mario Bros.
- Midnight Resistance
- Mutants
- Narc
- The New Zealand Story
- Nomad
- Phantom Club
- Platoon
- Plotting
- Puzznic
- Rainbow Islands
- Renegade
- Run for Gold
- Run the Gauntlet
- Super Wondeboy in Monsterland
- Tai-Pan
- Tank
- Target Renegade
- Top Gun
- Track & Field
- Typhoon
- The Vindicator
- Where Time Stoods Still
- Wizball
Movies or TV Licenses :
- The Addams Family (1991)
- Cobra Stallone
- Highlander
- Hudson Hawk
- Knight Rider
- Miami Vice
- Navy Seals (Cartridge)
- Never Ending Story
- Night Breed
- Red Heat
- Rambo - First Blood 2
- Rambo 3
- Robocop (1987)
- Robocop 2 (Cartridge)
- Robocop 3 Unreleased.
- Terminator 2
- The Untouchables
- V - The Visitors
- Top Gun
- Total Recall
- Short Circuit
- Short Circuit 2
- Simpsons: Bart vs. The Space Mutants
- Street Hawk
Arcade Licenses :
- Operation Thunderbolt
- Operation Wolf
- Pang
- Rastan
- Shadow Warriors
- Smash TV
- Space Gun
- Toki (Cartridge) unreleased VaporWare.
- Sly Spy
Sport Licenses
- Adidas Championship Football
- Adidas Championship Tie Break
- Daley Thompson's Decathlon
- Daley Thompson's Olympic Challenge
- Daley Thompson's Supertest
- Match Day
- Matchday 2
- Super Test Decathlon
- Superbowl
- World Cup Carnival 86
- WWF Wrestlemania Challenge
