Ocean Software, along with
US Gold and
Electronic Arts, dominated the
8-bit and early days of the
16-bit computer game scene.
The company established itself as a keen publisher of licensed games (games that were spin-offs from a movie, or TV programme). Although considered by many to be a waste of a programming budget, licenses have given us fantastic games such as Batman: The Movie and... er..
As well as churning out almost identical movie tie-ins, Ocean Software gave us classics such as:
Gryzor
Head Over Heels
Parallax
Rainbow Islands
Wizball
There are many more games, those are just some of my personal favourites.
They are the first company who seemed to make a decent loading tune for cassette users. Martin Galway's 'Ocean Loader' and later Jonothan Dunn's equally imaginatively named 'Ocean Loader v4' and 'Ocean Loader v5' (the same tune, just refined) kept thousands of impatient youths relaxed as the harsh synths flowed out of the TV speaker.
Ocean got bought out by Infogrammes in the 90s.
A 'softography' of Ocean releases for the Spectrum: http://gamestage.topcities.com/zx-oceansoftware.html