#DAY Z OCEAN OF GAME SOFTWARE#
Ocean was voted Best 8-bit Software House of the Year at the 1989 Golden Joystick Awards, along with awards for its 8-bit and 16-bit conversions of Operation Wolf. The game was used as the basis of the Commodore Amiga 500 "Batman Pack", : 58 which became one of the most successful hardware/software bundles of all time. : 58 The resulting game was another massive hit for the company and is now regarded as one of the greatest video game/film tie-ins. The success of Robocop established Ocean globally, : 52 and it would be Warner Brothers who suggested to Ocean that it produce a tie-in based on its forthcoming Batman movie. Meanwhile, the company was working on its next big film tie-in, which would be specifically aimed at the new graphically superior 16-bit computers, the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga. Their uniform style and numbering has led to them becoming highly collectable.
#DAY Z OCEAN OF GAME SERIES#
: 72 The entire series consisted of 122 titles over seven 8-bit formats. In 1989, The Hit Squad branding reappeared as the new budget re-release label for Ocean's 8-bit back catalogue.
#DAY Z OCEAN OF GAME MOVIE#
But it would be its 1988 game RoboCop, adapted from Data East's arcade game based on the film Robocop, that would go on to become the most successful movie licence in history by the end of the decade.
Success of film-licensed games ġ986 also produced titles based on the films Rambo, Short Circuit and Cobra, as well as the first licensed Batman game. The studio produced most of its 16-bit arcade conversions until 1991, when the company became Ocean's French marketing and sales department. Operation Wolf was the first title to be converted to 16-bit platforms by Ocean France, a company created by Ocean and Marc Djan in 1986. In 1986, a deal was signed with Taito and Data East for home versions of their arcade games such as Arkanoid, Renegade, The NewZealand Story and Operation Wolf. While initially focused on British licences, such as Hunchback from Manchester's Century Electronics, Liverpool's Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Olympic decathlete Daley Thompson, its attention soon shifted to film licences, with The NeverEnding Story becoming its first movie tie-in in 1985. Over half of Ocean's releases for 8-bit home computers were coin-op conversions and licensed games. The compilation went on to sell over a million copies itself as did the second and third instalments in the series. : 69 The first release featured Ocean's Daley Thompson's Decathlon, US Gold's Beach Head, Jet Set Willy from Software Projects and Sabre Wulf by Ultimate Play the Game - all titles which had sold over a million copies - which led to the title They Sold A Million.
In 1985 Ocean and US Gold collaborated again to launch a new label, The Hit Squad, for releasing compilation packages. Although originally intended to be a label exclusively for arcade conversions, the Imagine logo would also be used on a number of original titles, as well as on UK releases of games licensed from Spanish developers Dinamic. In October 1984 Ocean bought the name and branding of Imagine Software from the liquidators of the failed software house. US Gold had no developers to port the Commodore games for the UK's most popular home computer, the ZX Spectrum, so Ocean produced the conversions of titles such as Beach Head, Raid Over Moscow and Tapper through its external development team, Platinum Productions. US Gold was created by Geoff Brown, owner of Centresoft software distribution, and specialised in importing American Commodore 64 games for the UK market. : 16 The company was renamed Ocean Software leading to some of its games being re-released with different titles so the Berzerk clone Frenzy was reissued as Robotics and Missile Attack became Armageddon.īy September 1984 the success of Ocean allowed Woods and Ward to invest £50,000 in a new software house in return for a 50% stake in the company. While trying to sell their titles into high street stores it became clear that the company name was confusing to owners of machines other than the ZX Spectrum. : 13–14 Their initial catalogue was based around clones of arcade games like Frogger and Missile Command : 13 for various home computers including the ZX81, ZX Spectrum and VIC 20.
Jon Woods and David Ward created Spectrum Games as a mail-order business in 1983 after being inspired by the success of Liverpool based software houses Imagine Software, Bug Byte and Software Projects.
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