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Ocean (Ocean Software)
-incorporting Ocean France & Imagine

The Backstory
The Ocean story started with a small mail order company called 'Spectrum Games' which was run by David Ward.  After this became embroiled in a legal dispute over the name with Sir Clive Sinclair's research unit the company was forced to change its name.  David Ward would then set up what would become Ocean with Jon Woods (a former Mancunian wine bar owner) and Imagine's Paul Finnegan (who subsequently would head the development team at Special FX.), and they would begin their assault on the 8-bit computer market. 

The company's first ever release was 'Armageddon' for the Spectrum, however, they never really made any sort of impact until the arrival of its conversions of the cult arcade hit 'Hunchback' (which incidentily is also generally credited as being the first legitimate coin-op licence).  Other classic games would soon follow however, with some of their best known being Green Beret, Gryzor and MR Wimpy (which was the company's first licensed game).

In 1985, the company would add to the Ocean stable and resurrect the legendary software label 'Imagine' which had gone spectacularly out of business the previous year.  Ocean would thereafter primarily use the label for releasing their arcade conversions such as Arkanoid and Bad Dude Vs Ninja Dragon until they phased its use out at the end of the 1980s.

The Atari ST and the 16-bit era
Into the 16-bit era, and following on from their early successes, Ocean would continue to favour the licencing route, converting among other things classic Taito coin-ops such as The New Zealand story, Operation Wolf and Chase HQ to the Atari ST.  Other games of note they produced during this era included Peter Johnson's slick conversion of the 8-bit classic Wizball and the genre defying film-tie in Batman The Movie.  Perhaps their greatest triumph however, was reserved for Graftgold's exquisite conversion of the arcade smash Rainbow Islands.  Ironically, they only stepped in at the last minute and acquired the rights to publish the Graftgold conversion of this after a protracted legal wrangle had unfolded between Taito and the Telcomsoft label Firebird (which was complicated further by the sale of Firebird to Microprose).

However, despite continued success, and their position as THE largest software publisher on the 16-bit platform, Ocean stood accused of producing uninspired games which they would sell through a mixture of clever marketing and film tie-ins.  By 1990 though, Ocean had sought to rectify this situation and a breakdown of their productions at this time would reveal roughly 1/3 to be licensed games, 1/3 to be marketing influenced (film tie-ins such as the Untouchables) and 1/3 Original software. 

The Ocean Legacy
Whatever the criticism, looking back over Ocean's software catalogue it is certainly true that they played a major part in producing many of THE classic Atari ST titles.  More importantly perhaps, given their size and influence it is also clear that they single handedly played a major part in shaping the gaming legacy of the Atari ST!
Mini company details by : X3peri_MENTaL

[Guardians][See...]    
Addicted to Fun: The Rainbow Collection Addicted to Fun: The Rainbow Collection (Compilation) Preserved 0 or 1
Batman: The Movie Batman: The Movie (Release Name) Preserved 0 of 2
Chase H.Q. Chase H.Q. (Release Name) Preserved 0 of 1
Chase H.Q. 2 - Special Criminal Investigation Chase H.Q. 2 - Special Criminal Investigation (Release Name) Preserved 0 of 1
Hook Hook (Release Name) Preserved 0 of 2
New Zealand Story, The New Zealand Story, The (Release Name) Preserved 0 of 3
Parasol Stars: The Story Of Rainbow Islands II Parasol Stars: The Story Of Rainbow Islands II (Release Name) Preserved 0 of 2
Precious Metal Precious Metal (Compilation) Preserved 0 or 1
Rainbow Islands Rainbow Islands (Release Name) Preserved 0 of 3
Untouchables, The Untouchables, The (Release Name) Preserved 0 of 1
Where Time Stood Still Where Time Stood Still (Release Name) Preserved 0 of 1
Wizball Wizball (Release Name) Preserved 0 of 3

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