10 Games Hidden Within Games
6. Space Quest I (Space Quest IV)
Remember that scene in Back to the Future II where Marty travels back in time to the events of the first film? Space Quest did basically the same thing in the fourth instalment.
Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers saw the eponymous cosmic janitor journey back through the chronostream to Space Quest I. That's literally Space Quest I, EGA graphics and all.
Sierra painstakingly recreated the Ulence Flats scene from the first game, but Roger and his time capsule remained VGA. Old and new collided and the developers had a lot of fun with this concept. At one point, the protagonist runs into some biker aliens in the local bar and they attack him for being rendered in 256 colours.
As well as this fantastic callback to the place where it all started, Space Quest IV includes another game within a game called Ms. Astro Chicken, a riff on Ms. Pac-Man that can be found at the Galaxy Galleria mall.