Ocean: The History

by Chris Wilkins, Roger Kean

Ocean - The History charts the rise and rise of Ocean Software, the company behind games like Robocop, Terminator 2 and Pang, throughout the 1980 and 1990's and is littered with anecdotes from those that contributed to the company's success as well as photographs, concept graphics, sprites and Ocean memorabilia that has never been seen outside the Ocean Headquarters in Manchester. The apple iBook edition is 264 pages long and features enhanced multi-media elements including video, music and images. The Ocean story is captured by Chris Wilkins and Roger Kean and illustrated by Oliver Frey. Roger was editor of Crash and Zzap 64! magazines and the owner of Newsfield Publications whilst Oli was responsible for the artwork that defined the look and feel of these magazines plus created their infamous covers.



Take a journey back in time and discover the genesis of one of the most influential UK software houses of the 80's and 90's.

Genres: Nonfiction, Video Games, History

268 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Lives in Kenilworth, with his wife and 3 children.

Reviews

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I savoured this book instead of reading it, getting a dollop of retro computing nostalgia before slipping into electric dreams. The first 90 pages summarise the history of Ocean’s rise and fall. Amply illustrated with screenshots and cover art, magazine excerpts and photos, it certainly prods at the 80s and 90s neurons. My knowledge of the company traverses a pretty small section of their history - the very early years - but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

The second part of the book is basically interviews with various staff members who worked at Ocean over the years giving a couple of pages to each interview. This section did seem to be a bit repetitive and overly long - it’s about 160 pages or so - and could have been trimmed back by a dozen or so interviews. Some of the staffers were there for a matter of weeks or months and their insight is equally covered elsewhere with other interviews. That said - there are some very notable figures in the history of early gaming covered in these pages which more than makes up for any repetition. If the Ocean logo conjures up fond childhood memories you’ll like this deeper dive into the company’s history.

[Lewis Clark · Rating 1 out of 5]

Genuinely one of the most tedious things I’ve ever read cover-to-cover. Ocean didn’t foster a culture of creativity - it created product and this book lays that bare. Every staff interview in this goes as follows: “we worked long, unforgiving hours in a shithole of an office, sleeping under our desks to meet a ridiculously tight deadline. But we got paid well and once the job was done we’d all go and get pissed.” That story is told over and over and over by every member of staff they interview and it’s not the sort of thing you want to hear from a creative industry like game development. Ocean had a reputation for hoovering up licenses and rushing out mediocre product and this book supports that reputation completely. A soulless, uncaring shambles of a company that deserved to close.

[Steve Erickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant book about the history of one of my favourite UK software houses of all time. Loved hearing from the actual programmers, artists and musicians who worked there at the time. This books gives a real insight into what it was like to work in a the gaming industry when it was in its infancy. The iBook version really adds an extra element with the game videos and music and looks fantastic on my iPad. Highly recommended!

[Adrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was an interesting and well written book, full of little-known facts and stories from various Ocean developers who plied their trade for one of the UK's best software houses in the 80s and 90s. If you ever owned a 8/16-bit gaming computer in the 80s/90s, you will recognise the Ocean brand and I am sure you will enjoy discovering what it was like to work for Ocean. Thanks Chris W. and Roger K. for an excellent book. PS, 'Jack Nicholson'!

[Trevor · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an interesting read, starts off well but then it just turns into a list of people who worked for Ocean (some for just a few months) who appear to have been given a set sheet of questions. Their anecdotes seem to repeat a fair bit.

That bit just seems a bit lazy to me.

The ending is good though.

[Pablos544 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit Epic. I didn't realise how important A++

[Dirk Dierickx · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kind en computerfreak van de jaren 80? Dan ken je zonder twijfel Ocean, de computerspellenhitfabriek.

Er was nog geen computergame-industrie, meestal werden de spellen geschreven door zonderlingen in hun slaapkamer, zonder enige organisatie in verdeling en advertenties. Ocean veranderde dat allemaal, enkele van de meest legendarische spellen op de Commodore 64 komen uit hun stal. Dit kwam natuurlijk omdat ze talrijk talent in huis hadden, van programmeurs, grafische vormgevers & muzikanten.

Dit boek is onderverdeeld in verschillende hoofdstukken, eerst wordt uitgelegd hoe Ocean is ontstaan en hoe het steeds groter werd, verschillende games komen ook voldoende aan bod. Daarna heb je de verhalen van de medewerkers; hoe zij aan hun job geraakte, hoe zij bepaalde games ontwikkelde en wat de werksfeer was.

Alles wordt doorspekt met prachtig fotomateriaal en artwork van hun meeste memorabele spellen van welleer.

Een echte aanrader!

[Richard Tubb · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone who grew up in the British home computer boom of the 1980's, the software house Ocean was a household name.

This book covers the history of Manchester-based Ocean Software from its formative days, through the boom years and up until its acquisition by French software house Infrogrames.

The first half of the book covers the story of the business, and the second half features spotlights on key players from Ocean's history - programmers, sales staff, artists and freelancers.

It's simply a fantastic read. Beautifully presented, with archive photographs and original artwork, plus honest, in depth insights from the people who lived the Ocean story.

I can't rate this highly enough. If you are interested in computing history, or grew up with an 8-bit machine in the 1980's, you'll love this book.

[Codetapper · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, and the author regularly reduces the cost of the book if you follow his social media pages. It's an absolute bargain, and very nicely formatted. You won't be disappointed buying this!

[David Muir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read. Essentially it’s a series of short biographies of and reminisces from people who worked at Ocean. It is therefore also a potted history of the British gaming industry.

Ocean were taking off while I was getting my Computing degree. Why did I never consider a career in gaming?

[Natxo Cruz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un altre peça del puzzle que va completant el “making off” de la felicitat d’una generació que avui, quaranta anys més tard, descobreix com va néixer i créixer la industria del videojoc dels 80.
Només per nostàlgics.

[Gary O Connor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Class read

[Daniel Almeida · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing take on one of the biggest software houses ever to exist.

Chris Wilkins not only brings back all the fond memories of afternoons spent playing computer games, he seems to know what we all loved back then. The quality and layout are very good, in fact, one of the best I've seen on a publication of the sort for a long time, but the information and pictures can actually top all that.

A must read to all Ocean fans, to all of those who played these games, or just to everyone who lived through the influence of videogames in the past, you won't regret it!

[Alex Montoya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Realmente es ameno y divertido, pero el enfoque se hace algo pesado al encarar los capítulos por autores, contando en varios lo mismo (varios autores en el mismo juego, con lo que conlleva volver a tratar el juego y sus peculiaridades, así como sus circunstancias). Quizá lo peor es ver una NES casera con customización de SNES al hablar de la Famicom y tal, o ciertos errores de fechas, cifras y formatos. Pero por lo demás es un libro que se le rápido y se hace ameno, aunque esos fallitos hacen que no le pueda poner 4*.

[Stuart Chalmers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant potted history of one of the most important early software houses.