History VideoGame / Spore

** Just to save ourselves from massive overloads of shout outs, players in Spore (if creative enough and with help of the editors) can create their own shout outs in adventures and creations they make. Many {{expies}} of [[StarWars Star Destroyers]], [[StarTrek The Enterprise]], and even ships such as the [[CaptainHarlock Arcadia]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o-kUs2i4Do are out there]].

* The Cell stage is the simplest of the five; you swim around the tidepool in two dimensions collecting fragments of vegetation or meat depending on your cell's diet and avoid the cells that are much larger than yours.
* In the Creature stage, you collect new parts from skeletons, eat food, and either kill or befriend other creatures, using abilities that are defined by which body parts you use.
* In the Tribal stage, you now control an entire tribe of your creature, rather than just one. You must eradicate or ally with the other tribes that spring up, by use of weapons or music respectively.

* AcceptableBreaksFromReality: The Tribal stage is about the only thing that can be taken at face value. For example, DNA is received for eating things in the "Cell" stage (since you technically control a multicellular microorganism, it is often referred to as the "Tide Pool" stage), or extincting/allying various species in the Creature stage. You can immediately add the most advanced parts you have unlocked even if you don't have what is logically a "prerequisite" part. And don't even mention the SchizoTech and indistinct timeline of the Civilization stage...

* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: The Tribal and Civilization phases have this.The Creature and Space phases let you recruit allied creatures/ships in your fleet as you reach higher brainpower/ranks, but there is a limit to those too.

* AttackOfThe50FootWhatever: Epic creatures can be any normal creature but fifty feet tall, able to kill any creature in one hit and pose a threat to any society in city stage except religious (somehow it is possible to convert them to your religion as well for a short period of time).

* AuthorAvatar: What some people may make their captains into in Galactic Adventures.

* ColonelBadass: Your captain in both the core game and sometimes in various adventures. Let's see, you pilot a starship, can expand the empire, can upgrade said starship to [[EarthShatteringKaboom to be capable of planetary destruction]], get to go into combat, handle severe diplomatic tensions, and of course, get all sorts of cool equipment to wear... Let's just hope that your creature isn't some kind of [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotAwesome space slug...]]

*** GA captains' max-upgraded Warrior parts and Scientist tools are similar to this.
** JackOfAllStats: It's possible, if not ideal or easy, to make a vehicle with all of its health, speed, and power (be military, economic, or religious) at even levels.

* GenreSavvy: Maxis ''knew'' that people were going to make Penis-monsters...and put in measures so that users woudln't have to run into them.

** Tick them off by attacking them and they complain at you like Al Gore, but scary... not so much.

* LevelGrinding: Galactic Adventures is rather bad about this, mostly because your captain has ten ranks to go up with (in which you earn the chance to get any part with each new rank), and every new rank usually requires roughly double the number of points your earned for the previous rank. This results in most people playing things like Clark & Stanley and other simple easy adventures that tend to only give you 5-30 points in order to rank up to get a new part so that they can play the harder, larger adventures worth 50 or more. Factor this in with the fact that a single captain can't earn the points from the same mission after the first playthrough, and you'll have a bunch of frustration trying to find worthy missions.

** Or eat an egg for the large DNA bonus.

* MusicalTrigger: Somewhat worked out during the Civilization stage; religious powers are church-like and optimistic (save for the Black Cloud), economic powers are based on cash registers and 80s style corporate music, and military powers use radio-talk noises over tense orchestral music.

* PlanetOfHats: Kind of the whole point in the civilization stage, in which you must conquer the whole planet into a OneWorldOrder for the space stage.

* {{Scandalgate}}: The unpleasant fan reaction to EA's insistence on using severe DRM in the game became known as "Sporegate" in the community.

* ShoutOut: The strange disturbance at the center of the galaxy, the only even somewhat arguable ENDING to this game, turns out to be [[spoiler: "Steve", who looks inexplicably like the UFO from ''SimCity 2000'', released 15 years earlier. The real kicker is the opening cinematic in 2000 even SHOWS the UFO traveling to the center of a spiral galaxy!]]

** If a military nation launches the [=ICBMs=], you'll get a very loud "[[DrStrangelove Yeeee Haaaawwww!!!]]" while the missiles are flying through the air.

*** Bards are actually ChaoticNeutral to the point of inviting another species over for a party then '''[[IAmAHumanitarian eating them]]''' and even ask the player if they are ready to be eaten as one of their greetings.

* SoundtrackDissonance: Galactic Adventures offers some very nice music to use in your adventures, but due to the [[SturgeonsLaw overall quality]] of most adventures, sometimes the music doesn't even belong and will literally drive you nuts.

* SummonBiggerFish: It isn't easy to pull off, but if you're having trouble with a particularly difficult enemy in the Tribal Stage, you can set one of your villagers in front of an Epic creature and carefully lure it toward the enemy village... HilarityEnsues.

** The movie, supposed to be made by IceAge's BlueSky is entering this as well.

* BeyondTheImpossible: Any Clark & Stanley mission will be this. Just what can kill them [[spoiler: or the player, other characters, and possibly even the entire planet, depending on the creator's imagination for the plot]] can be rather... odd.

CoversAlwaysLie: Of all the creatures depicted on the cover of any Spore game disk (minus Darkspore), only ''two'' are actually included: Captain Barbados and the Solotto creature. A few of the others can't even be recreated with the creature editor.
* TheChewToy: Clark and Stanley in Galactic Adventures. When they die, the player bursts into a dance, followed by the computer calling you out for being a [[JerkAss Jerk Ass]].

* RomeoAndJuliet: Completely invertied in one of Maxis' adventures, right down to the characters' names.

** Freeze, poison, BeeBeeGun, repeat till enemy is dead. Poison blades do more damage to creatures that Lv 1 Bladed Knuckles over time, freezing a creature leaves it open for at least two attacks, and swarming causes it to run around wildly for a few seconds. But Shaman does suffer for not doing much damage to vehicles or buildings.

* DemonicSpider: The [spoiler: Grox are a race you find in Space Stage, and they surround the interior of the galaxy. In fact, they ''crowd'' '''EVERY SINGLE CORE WORLD''' and they're so powerful they can kill a low-to-mid level ship in ''moments''].

* DemonicSpider: The [spoiler: Grox are a race you find in Space Stage, and they surround the interior of the galaxy. In fact, they ''crowd'' '''EVERY SINGLE CORE WORLD''' and they're so powerful they can kill a low-to-mid level ship in ''moments''.

* OneWorldOrder

* SdrawckabName: The Xorg.Unsurprisingly, unlike the Grox, they're rather friendly and peaceful.

* FashionableAsymmetry: The fifth patch allows players to create creatures, costumes, and vehicles with asymmetrical features. Whether they are fashionable [[YourMileageMayVary depends on the viewer]], but we can be sure that [[SturgeonsLaw 90% of the asymmetrical creations are crap]].

* VomitIndiscretionShot: In the Creature stage, trying to force your creature to eat meat if it's herbivorous, or fruit if it's carnivorous, will promptly cause them to vomit (and gain no nutrition from it). Omnivores, of course, are immune to this.

* AlienSky: Among your spaceship's arsenal is a series of sky-coloring tools. Additionally, other planets may have, for instance, the star they orbit, their moon, and another planet in the system in clear view (best seen in Creature phase.)

** And another achievement, "Oh, The Humanity," for [[EarthShatteringKaboom blowing it up.]] Speaking of humans, they apparently don't exist in this game; Earth is actually guaranteed to be a T1. For whatever reason, terraforming it fully will turn the land red.

* BorderPatrol: A giant sea monster keeps you from swimming to other continents during Creature phase. However, there are mods available that will get rid of the sea monster, effectively allowing you to explore your entire planet. Other continents will be completely devoid of any collectable parts, and will be empty of any other creatures besides your own - very strangely, they will be populated with nests of creatures of your own species, which allows you claim any of these nests as your home nest. This isn't advisable, however, since these other continents will lack other creatures to eat if your species is carnivorous (since you can't kill your own kind), and it's a bit of a pain to constantly swim back and forth between the "main" continent and the one you technically shouldn't be able to live on. And it's also very easy to get lost on your planet.