Ocean Software was one of the biggest game developers within Europe during the 1980's and 1990's. Based in Manchester, England, Ocean were formed by David Ward and Jon Woods.

They became one of the biggest players in the 8-bit game market developing lots of titles for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and the Amstrad CPC range. Towards the end of the 1980's and into the 1990's they went on to develop titles for the Commodore Amiga and the Atari ST.

Ocean are well remembered for developing many licensed games such as arcade conversions and for also capturing a lot of TV and movie licenses which became popular during the mid-eighties.

Ocean started off developing games 'in-house' during 1984. Their early games included Hunchback, Gilligan's Gold, Moon Alert and Hunchback II - all of which were reasonable hits on the ZX Spectrum and the Commodore 64.

Towards the end of 1984 Ocean aquired the recently defunct Imagine software (who had been a software rival) and went about publishing software rather than developing it.

Ocean struck a deal with arcade gaming giants Konami allowing them to convert Konami games to home computers. Consequently popular games such as Gryzor made their way to the likes of the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad and Commodore 64 computers.

Not only did Ocean grab the license for Konami, they also won tie-in deals with a number of television shows and movies. Ocean then released games such as:

• Cobra (an action platform game loosley based on the movie)
• Highlander (a beat em up game featuring sword play)
• Rambo (an eight way scrolling shooter based on the movie)
• Robocop 3 (released on 16-bit machines and based on the movie)

 In 1987 Ocean decided to publish 'original' games again and moved away from the license tie-in's. Some of the tie-in games had been met with little enthusiasm - and Ocean went for a change of tack.

This ended up being a good move as Ocean then released games such as Match Day II (the excellent football game and sequel to Match Day), Head over Heels (the seminal isometric arcade puzzle adventure) and the well known Wizball. All of these games are considered to be classics and are still talked about in the old school gaming community. Wizball in particular is remembered as being a truly innovative game.

Another truly original game, Wizball was a smash hit on the C64 and also on the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST and the Commodore Amiga.

Wizball was a horizontally scrolling game which involved navigating around a landscape and shooting at the various nasties. The aim of the game was to collect droplets of coloured paint with which to colour the level you were currently in. Each level began in three shades of grey, and required three colours to be collected to allow the player to complete it.

Controlling your wizard (a little ball type fellow) you had to move around the levels, aquiring the paint and collecting pearls. These pearls would give your little ball more powers such as greater movement, stronger firepower and so on.

The concept of the game was unique and is widely regarded as one of the greatest ever games to grace the C64. Ocean had done it again and Wizball is a true classic retro game.

One of the most remember games from Ocean (and indeed the 8-bit era) has to be Head over Heels. On each 8-bit machine that it was released on, Head over Heels was a big hit.

Taking the isometric view from their previous game Batman (the isometric 'filmation' engine had originally been pioneered by Ultimate), Head over Heels was a brilliant mix of puzzle solving and adventure.

Jon Ritman and Bernie Drummond really came up with an original twist to the particular gaming genre: the player actually controls two characters, namely head and heels. Each character began the game seperately, with each one having different abilities. Eventually the player would put the two together - opening the game up.

With roughly three hundred rooms to explore and a planet to save, Head over Heels was a fantastic game that made it onto the C64, Amiga and the Atari ST. A classic retro game.

 Ocean were generally regarded as publishers of good software - and the 'Ocean Loader' that they put out with some of their cassette based games was quite unique.

On the Commodore 64 (not on the Spectrum or Amstrad machines) the game would display a loading picture and play a tune whilst the game was loading up (which could take a few minutes to load from tape). The excellent sports game Hyper Sports was the first game to use this feature. The Ocean loader was quite a technical feat at the time and still remembered fondly today.

 One of the most famous games from Ocean was Daley Thompson's Decathlon. The game was based on the popular arcade game Track and Field and attached world famous decathlete Daley Thompson to it. The result was a smash hit game that also invented the phrase 'joystick waggler' due to the nature of the intensive gameplay.

Daley Thompson's decathlon goes down in history as the game that wrecked many a joystick (and keyboard!) but kept you coming back for more. It sold very well on each 8-bit machine it was released on and two sequels were developed featuring Daley.

Ocean continued to release quality titles in the 1990's as the 16-bit machines such as the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST took over.

One classic game was another tie-in license: Robocop 3.

The game was really top notch and oozed atmosphere with superb in game music and sound effects. There were excellent cut scenes featuring characters from the movie which linked each portion of the game nicely. The 3D graphics were amongst the best you could get (at the time) and the developers got the mix of action and atmosphere just right.

Robocop 3 was another impressive title released by Ocean - and the game was probably better than the movie! A classic 3D retro game.

F-29 Retaliator was a flight simulation released towards the end of the cold war.

The game was released in 1990 on the Commodore Amiga (and also on PC format - if you had a high-end PC it would run fine).

The graphics were very detailed (at the time), with cities, bridges, roads, mountains, islands and moving vehicles on the roads. The cockpit had 3 displays available to set up in a number of configurations.

F-29 was a very good flight simulator with a variety of missions, cutting edge graphics and fast gameplay. Ocean (and Digital Image Design) had come up with a top-notch game.

F-29 is remembered by many Amiga gamers as a classic retro flight simulator.