Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

Over on Ask Metafilter, a question popped up about games that had other games contained within them, such as Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure for the SNES containing the entire original Pitfall within it. After the jump, I’ll list what they came up with – know of any they missed? (Some games contain their predecessors, others contain homages or parodies.)

• Donkey Kong 64 had a playable Donkey Kong arcade machine and Jetpac
• The Sims 2 for consoles (not PC) had a new arcade machine available each (real-life) month, each with a different classic arcade game
• Kingdom Hearts 2: Final Mix will contain a 3D version of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories from the GBA
• Major Havoc had an embedded version of Breakout
• The second Maniac Mansion adventure game, Day of the Tentacle, had the original DOS game hidden inside
• Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures (for the SNES) had the original Pacman and Ms. Pacman in it as minigames
• Via a cheat code, players of the Tempest 2000 remake (for the Atari Jaguar, later converted to Mac, PC, Saturn, and Playstation) could play the original game
• Excitebike 64 contains the original Excitebike as an unlockable
• In the 2001/2002 version of Spyhunter, entering a special filename allows you to play the original Spy Hunter
• The new Ms Pacman/Galaga arcade cabinets have Pacman hidden in them
• The original Prince of Persia could be unlocked on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.
• Animal Crossing for Nintendo Game Cube has several NES games within it: Balloon Fight, Donkey Kong, Excitebike, Clu Clu Land, Donkey Kong Jr. Math, Pinball, Tennis, Golf, Soccer, DK Jr., Clu Clu Land D, Donkey Kong 3. (The Animal Crossing NES ports must be acquired in-game to play them, a few are difficult to acquire without special equipment (GBA and link cable), and a couple (Super Maro Bros. and Zelda) are impossible without a cheat device since Nintendo (in a move that I wish was uncommon with them) never got around to releasing the means of acquiring them.)
• If you won Metroid Fusion and hooked your GameBoy Advance up to Metroid Prime, the original Metroid would become playable
• NES Metroid, in addition to being included in Metriod Prime, is also unlockable in Metroid Zero Mission (and MZM itself is an expanded remake of that game).
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Battle Nexus has the arcade version of TMNT in it
• Shenmue 2 has Hang On and Space Harrier
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has Asteroids and possibly another game
• In Prey, you can play an arcade game in the bar where you start the game.
• The SNES Ninja Gaiden Triology is hidden within the XBOX game. In Ninja Gaiden Black for XBOX, you can play the original cabinet arcade Ninja Gaiden.
• Wario Ware had Dr. Mario (Wario) as an unlockable. (The GBA WarioWare’s port of Dr. Mario (“Dr. Wario”) has two fewer rows in the bin and some changed graphics. However, one of the Gamecube demo disks they made had a port of Dr Mario that could be transferred to a GBA via link cable.)
• Panzer Dragoon Orta had the original Panzer Dragoon.
• Lunar Silver Star Story Complete on the Playstation had a cool unlockable clone of Warlords.
• Versions of Escape Velocity after the original have free plugins that let you play the original game in the shinier new engine.
• The Warriors had an unlockable beat em up game that was very Double Dragon-esque.
• You can unlock the original Wolfenstein in the Xbox version of Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
• Doom 2 has secret levels that were remakes from Wolf 3d.
• The Tekken series has always had mini games built in and Tekken 5 includes Tekken 1, 2 and 3 in it’s “Arcade History” mode.
• A couple of the later Commander Keen games had a Pong clone called “Paddle War” in the pause menu.
• The ’80s version of Space Quest III may have had Space Quest I embedded in it.
• NHL 06 on the PS2 had NHL 94 embedded in it.
• Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (2005) had playable versions of Metal Gear (1987) and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (1990) embedded in it.
• While battling Arcade in the recent Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, you get to play very spot-on minigame versions of Pitfall and Breakout
• Super Mario Bros. 3′s version of Mario Bros. is actually a two-player minigame inspired by the original, not either a port or emulation of the original
• A version of Mario Bros. that can be played competitively or by one’s self is included in the Super Mario Advance series for GBA, and also in Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga
• There is a version of Mortal Kombat (2? 3?) that contains a recreation of Pong.
• Ridge Racer used Galaxian for a loading screen.
• Ridge Racer 5 has the original Pac-Man as a loading screen, and is later unlockable
• Beating Quake 4 on the 360 unlocks Quake 1 with its own achievement points (all 0 though).
• Tekken 5 has “Star Blade” hidden inside it.

PHEW! What a list!