#EPISODE100 - #RoomTour 2016 & #PickUps 9 - It's a #PixelTHING #special

And here we are, Episode 100! What an awesome ride! Come along and enjoy this 1 hour long walk through my man cave!

Thank you all! Without you, this wasn't possible!


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Dakar [Off-Road Rally] Games Overview - It's a Pixel THING - Ep.#33

Every year, when the world’s greatest off-road race is about to begin, nostalgia hits me in an unimaginable way.

Back in the glorious Sinclair ZX Spectrum days, one of the most important games in my collection was Paris-Dakar, developed and released by the Spanish company Zigurat in 1988. 

When I finally got my hands on my brand new Spectrum +2A, few were the games that worked. That caused me some frustration. Never crossed my mind to return it for repair or replacement, such was the desire to play games. Maybe it needed just a slight adjustment on the head of the incorporated tape recorder.

Slowly and gradually, I was able to play the many games that I already had in my collection, but the infamous Paris-Dakar game persisted in presenting that "tape loading error" demonic message.

One fine afternoon, I placed the tape once more in the machine and hold the "enter" key just to see what could happen. I couldn't believe my eyes! The game worked! Total joy! Jumps, smiles, complete hysteria!

In short, Paris-Dakar in the ZED X Spectrum is, until today, one of the most absorbing racing games I've ever experienced.

It unfolds in three stages: Europe, the deserts of Sahara and Teneré bound for Dakar, being each step an incredible challenge. The Road-book had the correct directions to take; 5 km to the North, 2 km to the East, 15 km to the South, etc.. We must reset the partial kilometre counter after every change of direction to get it right. Much attention also to the level of water, state of the gearbox and the fuel tank! Along the way there are areas of supply and repair for us to stop. But even with all these precautions, reaching the chequered flag intact and well classified was almost impossible, but achievable!

Every time the game is loaded, the circuits are randomly generated. This means that we could never know to which way was the first curve. In that time, this simple feature was enough to keep me hooked to my Spectrum making its longevity almost endless. And even after a withdrawal, the mere label "game over" was not enough for the programmers from Zigurat. Thus, when we press the "quit" key, a helicopter appears on the screen, picks up the pilot and disappears in the horizon. Simply brilliant!

The game was also ported to the Amiga and DOS personal computers, but never grabbed as much attention as it did on the 8 bit machines, MSX, Amstrad CPC and, of course, the ZED X Spectrum.

  

A year later, in 1989, the arcade saloons received a 3D rally racing arcade game entitled Big Run, Jaleco’s attempt to take down Sega’s famous Out Run. There was also an Amiga and Atari ST port and, as well, a slightly newer version for the Super Famicom, in 1991 but I believe that this last one was only released in Japan. 

In this game we’re granted access to a Porsche 959 and participate on this six stage Dakar race. The other opponents’ cars that we can also find in Africa’s natural terrain depicted in this game, resembles the Peugeot 205 T16 and the well-known Mitsubishi Pajero.

There’s a little nice feature incorporated in the cabinet: a horn that we must sound when we’re planning to overtake other cars. That way, they will allow you to pass. Otherwise, Gandalf appears and “YOU SHALL NOT PASS”!! Just joking ;)

In 1990 there was a title for the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST, named Paris-Dakar 1990, that the only nice thing to watch a babe showing her nice attributes (watch the video)... 

Moving on, the next Dakar game that really deserves being brought up in this video, was only released 11 years after the last one that I’ve mentioned here.

From the developer Broadsword Interactive and publisher Acclaim came Paris-Dakar Rally, in late 2001, where we’ve got the chance to participate in this mythic off road event with a dirt bike, ATV, dune buggy or SUV. 

Press reviews were unanimous: what a piece of crap this game is. And that’s kind of true. Controls are painful, sound is awful with also some irritating music, but, there’s something of a challenge that makes me come back to it year after year right before the real race starts. I believe the reason for that is its difficulty that is what the real Dakar race is all about. The extreme and complicated riding engine implemented in this game, turns it into an awesome challenge even if the game is painfully horrible! Am I insane? Believe me, it’s like a drug! Every year I try to get to the top 10 after all those stages, and there’s a lot of them, but I simply cannot achieve that! And I just love those free roaming desert stages, where you must find the checkpoints and, also, pick up those repair icons in the form of wrenches.

Give it a try, only if you’re a fan of the real thing!

Two years later, in 2003, Acclaim decided to develop indoors and release another Dakar game. This sequel named Dakar 2, and also subtitled as The World’s Ultimate Rally in certain places of the globe, was a huge step up from its older brother. 

It has pretty nice Graphics and music, but sound effects could be better. Another not so good feature is the fact that, in one stage, our co-driver is a girl and, on another, she changes her voice and sounds like a man! Isn’t this kind of weird?..

Again, the desert free roaming stuff is what makes this game so enjoyable. Those are beautifully designed and gameplay on these special stages are so freakin’ awesome and we need to be extremely careful to avoid rocks, grass that hides nasty sand banks, etc. Unfortunately this good stuff ends really fast, ‘cause stages are quite short in length and the clock is ticking.

There’s the mighty trucks, SUVs and dirt bikes to pick and embrace the desert, but I found the SUVs and pickups the more suitable and an easy way to finish victorious in this 12 stage race that you can complete in about 50 minutes.

This game was intended to appeal to the arcade racer and simply accomplishes it very well.

Aside from some walls, in a couple of stages, that works as some kind of a magnet that insanely attracts our vehicle, this game is quite enjoyable to play, but don’t expect it to have a Colin McRae or DiRT type of gameplay. It’s really far from there.

Once again, play it if you’re a real fan of the world’s greatest off road event.

In 2005, French developer Asobo Studio was working on something big: Grand Raid Offroad. But, as part of the publishing deal with Codemasters, they ended up transforming the code to what we know today as FUEL. If you haven’t watched my thoughts about it, just click on the rectangle. 

But if you’re eager for some desert racing, you’ll be much more satisfied with 2XL’s BAJA Edge of Control, only on XBOX360 and PS3. It was developed by the same team that brought Motocross Madness 1 and 2, and MX and MX vs ATV Unleashed games. 

Will we see more Dakar games in the future now that the race is no longer a European and African exclusive event? Will the next DiRT game have some desert racing stages or championships? I would love to see these questions answered.


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Trials Fusion [2014, PC] Review - It's a Pixel THING

This week's episode is about a "not so retro" title that has some good old school references. I'm talking about Trials Fusion and this game is the first Pixel THING's "Not so Retro Review" series.
Hope you enjoy watching these videos as much as I enjoy making them!

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It's a Pixel THING response to Steve Benway's TAG Video

Hi, guys! This is my response to Steve Benway's Tag video from yesterday, October 23rd.
You can check out Steve's original tag video by clicking on the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5u2zO8eGJo

The questions are:
1. What State/Province/Country/City/Village do you live in?
2. How did you get into collecting?
3. What does your significant other think of your gaming hobby?
4. Favorite game of all time?
5. First person you were ever subscribed too?

And now, I would like to tag:
• ShiryuGL: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq7NSS5gsfD5nW0O3YcTr-w
• 1UPGameOver: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2QQacaXe_O7dlkqPG9iWaA
• Bill Benton: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoL_GLS7R8ibPS-NW1dgDcg
• Lazy Game Reviews (LGR): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLx053rWZxCiYWsBETgdKrQ
• Metal Jesus Rocks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEFymXY4eFCo_AchSpxwyrg

Hope you respond! :)

----------------------------------------------------

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Video Game Pick Ups - 34 Games - It's a Pixel THING

Take a look at the 34 video games I have added to my collection over the last couple of months! There's XBOX 360, original XBOX, PlayStation 2 and PC games!.

The soundtrack in the background is from a portuguese metal band - Atonement - in which I was the drummer. You can download the full album from the following link: http://www.mediafire.com/download/n2zbqqmimjz/ATONEMENT-Beyond_The_Shrine_Of_Doom%5B2003%5D-Black_Melodic_Metal_Portugal_.rar


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Rock'n'Roll [1989, Commodore Amiga] Review - It's a Pixel THING

Developed and released in 1989 by Rainbow Arts, Rock’n’Roll was available for a bunch of systems, like the ZX Spectrum, the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, PC and Atari ST.

You’re looking at the Amiga version which, besides the fabulous gameplay, 

features music composed by the great Chris Hülsbeck.

In this action arcade puzzle game, there are 32 huge levels (plus 1 secret bonus level) divided across 7 continents where we control a ball with the mouse and the objective is to reach the exit in each one of them. But this apparently simple task can be, sometimes, really hard and stressful. Thankfully, the superb soundtrack keeps us tapping our foot on the floor making every level an awesome and extremely joyful adventure.

There’s numerous objects scattered throughout each level that help or hinder our path to the exit. These take the form of ventilators, which blow the ball away, magnets, which attract the ball, arrows, which roll the ball in a specific direction, etc. Many objects can also drain your energy. If you lose too much energy, your balls.. sorry, your ball will collapse.

You must avoid some occasional gaps on the surface that shows a nice parallax scrolling effect with the background. If you roll into one of these gaps, you will be dead, unless you happen to possess a little parachute. Prepare yourself to open it up before you hit the bottom and your ball will live to roll once again!

Besides the useful parachutes, there are other essential items for you to pick up, that will help you finish the level, like keys to open doors, armor for your ball, spikes to help you on ice, repair kits to fix gaps on the floor and bombs to blow up obtrusive barriers and uncover previously hidden sections of the walkway. But before you can collect any of the useful items, you must have some money to pay for them. Coins are left lying around on each level and, if you search carefully, you’ll also find valuable colored diamonds.

The ball rolls around very realistically and the programmers have got the inertia effect just right. The way the ball slips and slides over patches of ice and the way the view pans as the ball travels through pipes, are nice and extremely well done.

Rock’n’Roll is one of the most brilliantly addictive games I’ve ever come across!

Backed up by impressive graphics and a great soundtrack, Rock’n’Roll is a must for everyone who enjoys arcade puzzle games.


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Ocean Software, Rise and Fall of a Giant

Repeatedly named the Software House of the Year, Ocean Software was one of the largest and most respected producers in the gaming world, a company that adapted and converted, in a masterful manner, the most successful Hollywood flics and arcade titles for the various platforms, ranging from the ZX Spectrum to Commodore Amiga and also for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Mega Drive (aka as Genesis is the US).

We were, for fourteen years, bombarded with adds of their latest releases in all gaming magazines. Ocean’s logo stamped on the cover was all that it took for the game to sell millions of copies. This shows the strength and the quality of the brand.

It all started in the early '80s when its founder David Ward, after a visit to the United States, realized that videogames would be a good business to invest in, as shown by the emerging potential of the industry in that country. Thus, in 1982, he founded the company Ocean Software and slowly started hiring programmers for its headquarters at Manchester. At the end of the first year, Ocean had already achieved profits of 500 thousand pounds and more than 200 thousand games sold. Then, David Ward became president of the company and his partner, Jon Woods, commercial director. By that time, Ocean had already 60 developers from across England with an average age of around 19 years.

In addition to its talents within the company, Ocean was also proud of its external sources, including Jon Ritman and Bernie Drummond, Denton Designs, Sensible Software and Digital Image Design.

David Ward said "The key to sell a lot of games is to make them identifiable to the public" and, thus, Ocean assured licenses for major film successes, television series and arcade games despite their first titles were total flops: Knight Rider, Street Hawk and Transformers were examples of bad conversions.

However, in 1987, profits of Ocean already ascended to £ 10 million with over three million games sold. By this time, Ocean acquires the "defunct" rival Imagine Software, the company responsible for two classic hits like Renegade and Yie Ar Kung Fu, cementing its international reputation through the Ocean brand with excellent conversions for Konami 8bit arcade machines.

Ocean grew exponentially and its influence reached its peak. The developers were able to create fantastic games and started having fun while doing them. 

By this time, Ocean decides to reward their employees putting their names in the credits of each game. Programmers, artists and musicians were now more motivated than ever and thus wanted the title to be the best possible, cause their name was now exposed to the world.

Obtaining licenses to create games from movies was, at that time, very easy and cheap. Movie studios did not have the perception of the potential that videogame industry had started to have. There were attempts, by Atari, to recreate the movie ET: The Extra Terrestrial. Spent £22 million and the results were much lower than expected. Ocean was determined to do it as it really should be done and Gary Bracey was responsible for acquiring the rights.

One of the best licenses was Robocop. This low-budget movie had a huge acceptance from the public and the game sold millions of copies in different platforms. It was probably one of Ocean’s most profitable games and its license was insignificant in monetary terms.

Between all this success and popularity, there was also room for failure. One of the worst acquired licenses was Hudson Hawk. The film, written and performed by Bruce Willis, was genuine garbage and the game does not go beyond that.

Anyway, more than 100 games have comfortably placed Ocean on top of the charts through the years.

However, tension began to rise. There was the need to release the game simultaneously with the premiere of the movie and, sometimes, that forced programmers to work 24 consecutive hours in order to obtain the final product on time to be sent to the duplicating machines.

The arcade licenses were also very important to Ocean. Between 1983 and 1992 half of the games published by the company were based on movies or on arcade games.

Simon Butler worked on many film and arcade successes, such as Total Recall, Platoon, Darkman, The Adams Family and Combat School, and recalls that the conversion to 8-bit machines – Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad – were always the most challenging and complicated to perform. One of the most successful conversions of arcades was Chase HQ. Bill Harbison, who joined the team in 1988, confessed that, to do an arcade game conversion, he needed to have the machine itself in the office and, while playing, he would draw sketches of the scenarios as reference.

There has always been competition and Ocean wanted to be the best. Its biggest opponent was initially U.S. Gold. Later, when the first consoles started to emerge, the extinct Acclaim also became Ocean’s largest rival. Even internally, healthy competition also existed. The various teams were always wanting to better themselves and exceed expectations.

The evolution and changing time eventually came with the 16-bit machines. Programming for these new machines now takes twice as long and Ocean was not afraid of the challenge. They were excited!

The early 90s were, for Ocean, times for reflection. Remained the question of how the industry would develop. Then, in 1994, a new company within Ocean, Tribe, was formed to meet future challenges that had to be overcome: the giant leap from 8-16bit for the 32-64bit.

Were then created separate teams, each comprising a team leader, programmer and main designer. Games began to be planned six months before any programming was initiated and, in 1996, Tribe was already composed by 80 members.

That same year, the company ended up bought by French Infogrames. The headquarters remained in Manchester until Infogrames also purchase Gremlin Graphics in 1999, which led them to change the entire base of operations to Sheffield. Shortly after, Ocean brand was extinguished. GT 64 Championship Edition, for Nintendo 64, was Ocean’s last game.

Who is between 30 and 40 years old, recall with some sadness and nostalgia the disappearance of Ocean. They left a remarkable legacy that, even today, still manages to impress.

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O "bichinho" do Retro Gaming

2013 está a terminar.

Commodore Amiga 1200

Este foi um ano em que, lentamente, o bichinho do retro gaming cresceu.
Tudo começou com a aquisição de um Commodore Amiga 1200 logo no início do ano, um sonho para qualquer jovem no início da década de '90.

Entretanto, o retro gaming tornou-se num negócio.
Há quem faça fortuna comprando e revendendo jogos e consolas retro.

Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City e San Andreas

Não me considero colecionador. Apenas adquiro jogos e consolas que me marcaram ao longo destes últimos 26 anos, desde o dia em que, pela primeira vez, coloquei as minhas mãos num ZX Spectrum 48k e joguei o 3D DeathChase. 

Indiana Jones And The Infernal Machine

"1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die" e
"The Video Games Guide"

Não só de jogos e consolas vive um adepto do retro gaming. Essenciais são, também, as obras literárias que abundam em livrarias online internacionais.
Um bom exemplo é "1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die" totalmente a cores e com uma extraordinária qualidade de impressão. Excelente é, também, uma publicação 100% dedicada às aventuras gráficas, das quais sou fã incondicional - "The Guide To Classic Graphic Adventures". 

"The Guide To Classic Graphic Adventures" e
"The Ultimate History of Video Games"

Muito raramente surge em Portugal algo que desperta em nós o jovem adormecido que, em tempos, devorou jogos e frequentou horas a fio as casas apinhadas de arcadas.

"Videojogos em Portugal - História, Tecnologia
e Arte", por Nelson Zagalo

Estou a falar do recentemente publicado livro de Nelson Zagalo: "Videojogos em Portugal - História, Tecnologia e Arte". Desde o obscuro boato de Reinaldo, ex-jogador de futebol, passando pelas origens de Tiago Sousa (atual Lead R&D Graphics Engineer na Crytek), o livro transporta-nos numa épica viagem ao passado. Descobri, com enorme surpresa, que foi numa empresa da Figueira da Foz (na "minha" bela cidade) que surgiu, em 1981, o primeiro - e único - Personal Computer made in Portugal, o ENER 1000. Obrigado, Nelson Zagalo!













Essa era dourada não mais se irá repetir. Sinto-me lisonjeado por ter feito parte dela.

Tenham um bom ano de 2014.

Outras aquisições relevantes:

Sega Mega Drive II

Shadow of the Colossus (Collector's Edition)

Shadow of the Colossus (Collector's Edition)

WRC 4 e WRC Evolved
(os melhores jogos de rally na PlayStation 2)

Gran Turismo 4 e Colin McRae 3
(dois clássicos da condução automóvel)

Tomb Raider Legend
(o melhor jogo da saga)

Red Dead Redemption
(futuro clássico)

Convido-vos a conhecer um pouco mais o espaço Pixel THING.







Click here to watch this video in english.

Há 30 Anos Surgiu o ZX Spectrum

ZX 80

ZX 81

O Spectrum não foi, de forma alguma, o primeiro computador doméstico. Nem tão pouco o primeiro computador no qual as crianças poderiam desenvolver técnicas de programação ou experimentar jogos de vídeo. Foi, isso sim, o primeiro computador que os jovens pediam aos pais como sendo um aliado para os trabalhos de casa. Mas, sejamos realistas, o Spectrum seria sobretudo para jogos! 

Sir Clive Sinclair

BBC Micro

O Spectrum nasceu da rivalidade entre Clive Sinclair (ZX80 e ZX81) e o seu ex-sócio Chris Curry, que ganhou a licença da BBC para criar uma máquina para ser usada nas escolas: o BBC Micro. 


Poucos meses depois do lançamento do BBC Micro, surgiu o Sinclair ZX Spectrum transformando-se num enorme sucesso mesmo não tendo uma campanha publicitária ao nível do seu rival. O modelo original, disponível com 16k e 48k, será para sempre recordado pelas suas teclas de borracha, semelhantes às de um comando remoto de televisão.


Era uma excelente máquina para programar, pois cada tecla possuía, para além de uma letra ou número, um símbolo e um atalho para dois comandos distintos.


Mas foram os jogos que mais notoriedade deram ao ZX Spectrum. A quantidade de títulos disponíveis era enorme e a crescente popularidade do Spectrum incentivava as companhias a lançarem mais e melhores jogos.


Já aqui, no Pixel THING, lembrámos com nostalgia a Ocean Software, uma das principais companhias produtoras de jogos para este computador.

O suporte para os jogos e programas produzidos para o Spectrum era a típica cassete de áudio o que tornava a pirataria de software uma fonte de lucro para muitos. Bastava possuir sistema de áudio com duplo deck para ser possível a cópia desenfreada.


Para tentar colocar um travão a estas práticas ilícitas, várias medidas foram tomadas. Uma das mais comuns consistia em solicitar ao jogador que pressionasse a tecla corresponde à letra que constava numa palavra específica, numa determinada frase, situada numa determinada página do manual de instruções do jogo. Tirar cópias do dito manual era dispendioso para a época e, assim, os piratas viam-se obrigados e transcrever todas as páginas à mão.


Parabéns, ZX Spectrum!

Ocean Software, Ascenção e Queda de um Gigante

Por diversas vezes nomeada a Software House do ano, a Ocean Software foi um dos maiores e mais respeitados produtores mundiais de videojogos, uma companhia que convertia de modo magistral os títulos de maior sucesso das arcadas e adaptações cinematográficas dos grandes sucessos da época para as diversas plataformas, desde o ZX Spectrum ao Commodore Amiga, passando pela Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) e pela Sega Mega Drive.

David Ward e Jon Woods

Fomos, durante duas décadas, bombardeados com anúncios aos seus jogos em todas as publicações da especialidade. Bastava apenas o logótipo da Ocean estar estampado na capa do jogo para vender milhões de unidades, tal era a qualidade desta marca.

Um anúncio da marca para captar a
atenção dos jovens programadores

Tudo começou no no início dos anos 80 quando o seu fundador David Ward, após uma visita aos Estados Unidos, percebeu que os videojogos seriam um bom negócio no qual deveria investir, pois constatou a emergente evolução e potencial do ramo naquele território. Assim, em 1982, fundou a empresa Ocean Software e foi, pouco a pouco, contratando programadores para a sua sede em Manchester. No final do primeiro ano tinha já obtido lucros na casa das £500,000 e mais de 200,000 jogos vendidos. David Ward tornou-se, então, presidente da empresa e o seu sócio Jon Woods diretor comercial. A marca Ocean transformou-se na EA (Electronic Arts) da época, com 60 programadores oriundos de toda a Inglaterra com média de idades a rondar os 19 anos.

Para além dos seus talentos dentro da empresa, a Ocean orgulha-se, também, das suas fontes externas, nomeadamente Jon Ritman e Bernie Drummond, Denton Designs, Sensible Software e Digital Image Design.

"A chave para a venda de muitos jogos é torná-los identificáveis para o público", afirma David Ward e, assim, a Ocean assegurou as licenças para os maiores êxitos cinematográficos, de séries televisivas e das máquinas de arcada apesar dos primeiros jogos não terem sido grandes sucessos: Knight Rider, Street Hawk e Transformers foram exemplos de más conversões.

Entretanto, em 1987, os lucros da Ocean ascendiam a já £10 milhões com mais de três milhões de jogos vendidos. Por esta altura adquire a "defunta" rival Imagine Software, empresa responsável por sucessos como Renegade e Yie Ar Kung Fu (dois enormes clássicos), cimentando a sua reputação internacional através da marca Ocean com excelentes conversões das arcadas Konami para as máquinas de 8 bits.

A Ocean crescia exponencialmente e a sua influência atingira o auge. Os programadores estavam a conseguir criar jogos fantásticos e começavam a divertir-se enquanto os faziam, conforme se pode constatar no segundo vídeo que se segue.

O primeiro vídeo trata-se de um documentário que relata como a Imagine se transformou numa empresa fantasma, fruto de um "mega-jogo" que nunca chegou a ver a luz do dia.

Por esta altura, a Ocean resolve premiar os seus colaboradores colocando os nomes de todos eles nos créditos de cada jogo. Programadores, artistas e músicos estavam agora mais motivados que nunca e, desta forma, queriam que o título fosse o melhor possível, pois o nome deles estava exposto ao mundo.

Obter licenças para criar jogos a partir de filmes era, naquela época, muito fácil e barato. Os estúdios de cinema ainda não tinham a percepção do potencial que esta indústria começara a ter. Tentativas houve, por parte da Atari, de recriar o filme ET: The Extra Terrestrial. Gastaram £22 milhões e os resultados ficaram muito aquém do esperado. A Ocean estava determinada a fazê-lo como realmente deve ser feito e Gary Bracey era o responsável pela aquisição dos direitos.

Uma das melhores licenças foi Robocop. Este filme de baixo orçamento teve uma enorme aceitação junto do público e o jogo vendeu milhões de unidades nas diversas plataformas. Foi provavelmente um dos jogos mais lucrativos para a Ocean e o seu licenciamento foi irrisório em termos monetários.

Gary Bracey e o atleta Daley Thompson
(testando o jogo com o seu nome)

Pelo meio de todo este sucesso e popularidade, houve também espaço para o fracasso. Uma das piores licenças adquiridas foi a de Hudson Hawk. O filme, escrito e interpretado por Bruce Willis, foi uma autêntica infelicidade e o jogo também não passou disso.

De qualquer forma, foram mais de 100 os videojogos da Ocean que passaram pelo primeiro lugar das tabelas de melhores títulos de entretenimento doméstico.


Entretanto, a tensão começava a aumentar. Havia a necessidade de lançar o jogo em simultâneo com a estreia do filme e isso obrigava os programadores a, por vezes, trabalhar 24 horas consecutivas por forma a obterem o produto final a tempo e horas de este ser enviado para as máquinas duplicadoras.


As licenças das arcadas eram também muito importantes para a Ocean. Entre 1983 e 1992 metade dos jogos editados pela empresa eram baseados em filmes ou nas arcadas.

Simon Butler

Simon Butler trabalhou em muitos êxitos cinematográficos e das arcadas, tais como Total Recall, Platoon, Darkman, The Adams Family e Combat School, e recorda que as conversões para as máquinas de 8 bits - Spectrum, Commodore 64 e Amstrad - eram sempre as mais desafiantes e complicadas de executar.
Uma das mais bem sucedidas conversões das arcadas foi a de Chase HQ. Bill Harbison, que se juntou à equipa em 1988, confessou que para se fazer uma conversão de um jogo das arcadas necessitava de ter a própria máquina no escritório e, enquanto jogava, ía copiando os cenários desenhando esboços como referência.


Sempre houve competição e a Ocean queria ser a melhor. O seu maior adversário foi inicialmente a US Gold. Mais tarde, quando as primeiras consolas começaram a surgir, a também extinta Acclaim tornou-se no seu maior rival. Mesmo internamente, a competição saudável também existia. As várias equipas estavam sempre a querer superar-se e exceder as expetativas.


A evolução e o tempo de mudança acabou por chegar com as máquinas de 16 bits. Programar para estas novas máquinas levava, agora, o dobro do tempo e a Ocean não estava com receio do desafio, mas sim excitada.


O início dos anos 90 foi, para a Ocean, de reflexão. Permanecia a dúvida de como a indústria iria desenvolver-se. Então, em 1994, formou-se uma nova empresa dentro da Ocean, a Tribe, para enfrentar os desafios futuros que tinham de ser ultrapassados: o salto gigante dos 8/16 bits para os 32/64 bits.

GT 64 Championship Edition,
o último jogo da Ocean

Foram, então, criadas equipas distintas, cada uma contendo um líder de equipa, programador e designer principais. Os jogos passaram a ser planeados seis meses antes de qualquer tipo de programação ser iniciada e, em 1996, a Tribe já era composta por 80 membros.
Nesse mesmo ano, a companhia francesa Infogrames acabou por comprar a Ocean. A sede manteve-se em Manchester até a Infogrames comprar também a Gremlin, em 1999, que os levou a mudar toda a base de operações para Sheffield. Pouco depois, a marca Ocean foi extinta. GT 64 Championship Edition para a Nintendo 64 foi o último jogo da Ocean.


Quem se encontra entre os 30 e os 40 anos de idade, recorda com alguma tristeza e nostalgia o desaparecimento da Ocean. No entanto, esta deixou um legado notável que, mesmo nos dias de hoje, consegue ainda impressionar.


Seguem-se alguns dos melhores exemplos da excepcionalidade artística da Ocean Software:


WIZBALL [1987] Commodore Amiga
(também disponível para Spectrum, C64, Amstrad e Atari ST)



MATCH DAY II [1987] Amstrad CPC
(também disponível para Spectrum e C64)



TARGET: RENEGADE [1988] ZX Spectrum
(também disponível para C64 e Amstrad)



OPERATION WOLF [1988] Commodore Amiga
(também disponível para Spectrum, C64, Amstrad e Atari ST)



CABAL [1988] Commodore Amiga
(também disponível para Spectrum, C64, Amstrad e Atari ST)



BATMAN: THE MOVIE [1989] ZX Spectrum
(também disponível para C64, Amstrad, Amiga, Atari ST e PC]



OPERATION THUNDERBOLT [1989] Amstrad GX4000
(também disponível para ZX Spectrum, C64, Amstrad, Amiga e Atari ST)



CHASE HQ [1989] Commodore Amiga
(também disponível para ZX Spectrum, C64, Amstrad e Atari ST)




NAVY SEALS [1990] Amstrad GX4000
(também disponível para ZX Spectrum, C64, Amiga e Atari ST)




RAINBOW ISLANDS [1990] ZX Spectrum
(também disponível para C64, Amstrad, Amiga e Atari ST)




MIDNIGHT RESISTANCE [1990] Commodore Amiga
(também disponível para ZX Spectrum, C64, Amstrad e Atari ST)




PLOTTING [1990] ZX Spectrum
(também disponível para C64, Amstrad, Amiga e Atari ST)




PANG [1990] Commodore Amiga
(também disponível para ZX Spectrum, C64, Amstrad GX4000 e Atari ST)




TOTAL RECALL [1991] Amstrad CPC
(também disponível para ZX Spectrum, C64, Amiga e Atari ST)




JURASSIC PARK [1993] Sega Mega Drive
(também disponível para Amiga, NES, Master System, Game Boy e GameGear)




MR NUTZ [1994] Super Nintendo Entertainment System
(também disponível para Amiga, Mega Drive e Game Boy)