First released in 1988, Ocean Software‘s Batman: The Caped Crusader is not to be confused with Ocean‘s other Batman game, programmed by Jon Ritman. No, this one is the 2D, comic panel animated adventure programmed by Jonathan Smith.
Category Archives: Ocean Software
Ocean Software was a Manchester-based video game development and publishing house that was founded in 1983 by David Ward and Jon Woods. It was known for its ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 games (although it did publish for a wide variety of formats), and its movie licenses. Ocean was wound-up in 1998, and later sold to Infogrames. Bandai Namco acquired the rights to the Ocean label in 2009.
Cobra, ZX Spectrum
Loosely-based on the Sylvester Stallone film of the same name, Cobra is a legendary run-and-gun platform game programmed by the late Jonathan Smith for Ocean Software and first released in 1986.
Street Hawk: Subscriber Edition, ZX Spectrum
We may never know the full version of events surrounding this notorious Ocean Software game, but legendary Spectrum programmer Jonathan Smith was almost certainly involved. It does bear a few of his hallmarks, but is a ridiculously simple and quite boring shoot ’em up.
Continue reading Street Hawk: Subscriber Edition, ZX Spectrum
Daley Thompson’s Supertest, ZX Spectrum
Jonathan Smith followed-up his superb multi-event sport game Hyper Sports with this – another multi-event sports game! Except this time: an officially-licensed Daley Thompson sports game.
Pud Pud, ZX Spectrum
Or, to give the game its full title: Pud Pud in Weird World. This strange 1984 Spectrum release was the first commercial game programmed and designed by Jonathan Smith.
Smash TV, Atari ST
On the face of it the Atari ST conversion of Williams Electronics‘ classic Smash TV looks pretty good, but scratch below the surface and you might realise that it has one or two major deficiencies.
Kong Strikes Back, ZX Spectrum
Ocean Software‘s 1984 release for the ZX Spectrum, Kong Strikes Back, is an unashamed clone of Universal‘s Mr. Do’s Wild Ride, but with elements of Donkey Kong also thrown into the mix.
Island of Death, Oric
Ocean‘s Island of Death is a game I remember seeing back in 1984 (because of the striking Bob Wakelin cover art), but have never played – until now.
And I’m quite surprised by how good it is…
Cavelon, ZX Spectrum
A conversion of the obscure Jetsoft arcade game, Cavelon is a simple but challenging maze game where you play a knight trying to collect the pieces of a door to create the exit to the next level.
Rainbow Islands, Amiga
Graftgold‘s Amiga conversion of the legendary Rainbow Islands is pretty much flawless… Well, if you discount the three secret hidden worlds the developers had to ditch when they discovered them… And the lower resolution, compared to the arcade original.
The King of Grabs 