Rate Homeland : The Stone of Night
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| Author | Topic: Rate Homeland : The Stone of Night |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 6821
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written Monday, March 6 2006 09:45
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(Please only rate this game if you've bought it and finished it.) Ah, Homeland. The Scourge Of Spiderweb, The Dishonor Of Every Veteran Spidwebber, The Weapon Of Game Destruction, The Misunderstood One. And yet, one of my favorite games. Plot : Those who have only read the Player's Manual may at first think that Homeland's plot is completely ridiculous. Light vs. Dark, Bad Demons, and A Big Bad Guy named the Devourer of Souls. But you have to keep in mind that the story is pretty much told from the point of view of your average peasant, and the story is actualy quite different. In fact, the Legions of Light are no more than a bunch of killing machines with an IQ approximately equal to that of the dumbest Servant Mind in Geneforge. There are lots of good demons and skeletons, unlike Avernum : The Child Prophet, Estohan, Nassar the Deadlord, the IceBrother (well, maybe not exactly nice, but not really bad either), the Guardiennes, some skeletons in Necru and even Maglius who you have to fight anyway because he thinks you are Braccus. Poor Maglius. The more I played the game, the more I realized that the plot was actually much more complicated than it first appeared. In fact, you don't even know at the end of the game whether the Devourer is evil or not (though he's definetely not very nice), and Korr's decision to banish him was not necessarily a good thing (EDIT : The Devourer saves Korr's life twice, by the way. Once in the Void, sort of - although it's technically not in the game, we can guess it; and once in the cathedral - in the game this time, when Braccus attacks Korr). Things we do know, however, is that the Devourer is not a mindless killer and appears to be somewhat honourable. The universe is really well done in my opinion. EDIT : And yes, there's indeed quite a bit of humor in it, and it even manged to make me laugh. I don't think including Korr's girlfriend as a main character is overboard (and I don't think you'd say it's overboard if you knew about the Familiar spell and the Homeland 2 demo. But of course you don't.). Gameplay : The manual is not nearly detailed enough, but once you understand how the game works, it shouldn't be boring. Well, maybe a little before you start getting spells. I really like the spells, some of them are very original, like the CallDragon or MindShatter spells. The missile spells should miss a bit less often, though. There should be a bit more gameplay balance at times (some parts are too difficult and the endgame is a piece of cake compared to Buolkaloch, in my opinion). The subquests were fun. The weapons and the elemental-based damage were really interesting as well. There are some minor bugs left, sadly; and I thought the game was perhaps a bit too short (although the world map is HUGE). Still, apart from that, pretty much everything else was good. Graphics : I liked most of the graphics, especially the Dothraki, Maskim, and Dragon graphics. EDIT : And the 3D cutscenes were really nice, the closing cutscene even had a bit of voice acting. Some of the graphics (like the door graphics) are a bit crude, though. Music/Sound : I loved the music, and liked the sound effects as well. Overall : Loved it. 9.1 EDIT : I replayed it again since I wrote this review, and the missile spells don't miss as often as I thought. My character just hadn't been using them enough, so I'm raising the score. [ Friday, February 16, 2007 15:28: Message edited by: The Lurker ] Posts: 363 | Registered: Wednesday, February 22 2006 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 5567
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written Monday, March 6 2006 09:52
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I have a Mac! And, frankly, Galactic Core must be worse than this. -------------------- How many shapers are there? Why is Drypeak controlled by Zakary? Why is Barzahl a Guardian? How does the Geneforge work? What's as small as nothing? Why am I asking stupid questions? -------------------------------- Shaper teacher : "DON'T TOUCH THAT!" BOOM!! apprentice :*little voice* "Sorry..." --------------------------- CSM RIFQ Neopets Do join, it's fun. Do you know what is the answer to the greatest question ever? It's here. Posts: 576 | Registered: Wednesday, March 2 2005 08:00 |
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Post Navel Trauma ^_^
Member # 67
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written Monday, March 6 2006 10:10
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I think Apple used "Macs can't run Homeland" as their last marketing campaign. -------------------- Barcoorah: I even did it to a big dorset ram. desperance.net - Don't follow this link Posts: 1798 | Registered: Thursday, October 4 2001 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Monday, March 6 2006 10:11
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quote:You do realize that this skews the rating upwards by an insane amount? I mean, you do notice that nobody sane would buy a game whose demo they would rate at 2.1, right? Oh wait, you finished Homeland, sorry. I've played it for an hour. You'll need a damn good shrink to bring out the repressed memory though. 2.0 for trying to be Diablo (which I'd give 4.5) and failing due to the crappy graphics and crappier interface. Some credit for not crashing my computer upon installation. Although on second thoughts, that might have been less traumatizing. -------------------- Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum] My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast. Polaris is dead, long live Polaris. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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Skip to My Lou
Member # 40
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written Monday, March 6 2006 10:34
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 -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Monday, March 6 2006 10:59
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quote:I have a Mac and Virtual PC. Galactic Core is a droplet to Homeland's ocean of suffering. —Alorael, who considers GC not worth playing and Homeland worth going to significant lengths to avoid playing. That's a big difference. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Agent
Member # 4506
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written Monday, March 6 2006 11:00
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No offense, but you'd have to be insaner than any normal Spidwebber to actually BUY Homeland. I mean, the rest of us can barely last ten minutes (if that) of the stuff. I mean, if you forced terrorists to play the game they would surrender! It's mind-bogglingly awful. Just like that RBTV stuff on that kid's movie (Rocky and Bulwinkle). So, I'd rate it as a 1.232. If I'd bought it's I'd rate it as a 3.14156 only for it's torture value. - Archmagus Micael -------------------- "You dare Trifle with Avernum?" ~ Erika the Archmage -------------------- My Scenarios: Undead Valley : A small Undead problem, what could possibly go wrong? -------------------- Richard Black - PROOF of his existance (the Infernal one's website). -------------------- MY FORUM! Randomosity at it's highest! :) Posts: 1370 | Registered: Thursday, June 10 2004 07:00 |
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Skip to My Lou
Member # 40
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written Monday, March 6 2006 11:06
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 -------------------- Take the Personality Test! Deep down, you wish you were a stick figure. Posts: 1629 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 4256
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written Monday, March 6 2006 11:28
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HomeLand isn't even listed on the order form as available for purchase. Did it become freeware, or just get wiped off the face of the planet, except for our 'beloved' memories? As for rating the game, I haven't played it all the way through, but the demo was something to do if you were bored... and had nothing else to do... and were trying to distract yourself from a shark eating you. [ Monday, March 06, 2006 11:30: Message edited by: AshxBy ] -------------------- "Let's just say that if complete and utter chaos was lightning, he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are false'." Posts: 564 | Registered: Wednesday, April 14 2004 07:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 4599
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written Monday, March 6 2006 12:01
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I hope someone went back in time and stopped the game from ever being made. That way, I never would have been scarred when I was a child. -------------------- "Yeah-- you're right. You christians are far too persecuted nowadays. I mean it. We really should stop feeding you to the lions." --TM "Ancient Blessings" My unfinished (and likely to remain that way) BoA scenario. Posts: 135 | Registered: Tuesday, June 22 2004 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Monday, March 6 2006 12:05
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quote:That proof that nobody ever did or will lies in you posting that. Sorry to disappoint you... -------------------- Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum] My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast. Polaris is dead, long live Polaris. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 4599
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written Monday, March 6 2006 12:18
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quote:Don't worry, I'll just dedicate my life to keeping others from ever going through the same trauma I did! Or I'll sit on my couch eating chips. I'm not sure which would be more fulfilling. -------------------- "Yeah-- you're right. You christians are far too persecuted nowadays. I mean it. We really should stop feeding you to the lions." --TM "Ancient Blessings" My unfinished (and likely to remain that way) BoA scenario. Posts: 135 | Registered: Tuesday, June 22 2004 07:00 |
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Nuke and Pave
Member # 24
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written Monday, March 6 2006 14:27
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Homeland is really not that bad. It was just released too early for its time. The gameplay reminds me strongly of Runescape. (Stand near a spawning point, killing snakes for an hour to level up.) The failed attempt at 3D graphics is so weak that it's amusing. As for the storyline, it gets bonus points for including protagonist's dog into the party. However, including the girlfriend as 3rd party member goes a bit overboard. The dialogue is also cheesy enough to be funny. So the game is good for about 20 minutes of amusement if you look at it as a parody of a game that desperately tries to be cool. 3.0 (The numeric rating is random, because I haven't played enough low-rated BoE scenarios to compare.) [ Monday, March 06, 2006 14:28: Message edited by: Zeviz ] -------------------- Be careful with a word, as you would with a sword, For it too has the power to kill. However well placed word, unlike a well placed sword, Can also have the power to heal. Posts: 2649 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 618
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written Tuesday, March 7 2006 02:54
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I played it for a good couple of hours. I swear I had RSI at the end. The graphics were crude, the terrain indistinguishable, the characterisation poor and the combat shoddy. The only thing I might say is at least it had some dialogue. Posts: 1487 | Registered: Sunday, February 10 2002 08:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 6821
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written Tuesday, March 7 2006 03:13
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quote:There are a few spidwebbers who bought Homeland, and they might show up. Your score is only valid if you've finished the game. As for not buying a game if you hate the demo... Terror's Martyr hates Geneforge 3, yet he seems to have fully finished it. Posts: 363 | Registered: Wednesday, February 22 2006 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Tuesday, March 7 2006 03:41
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quote:Knowing TM, that doesn't mean he bought it. >_< -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Tuesday, March 7 2006 06:38
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Question: Would asking for help with pirating Homeland be a violation of the CoC, or a violation of international weapons treaties? -------------------- Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum] My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast. Polaris is dead, long live Polaris. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 6821
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written Tuesday, March 7 2006 06:51
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quote:I'd say both. Although pirating Homeland would be pretty hard, since you have to buy the CD (it can't be downloaded online, probably due to the huge 3D cutscenes). Posts: 363 | Registered: Wednesday, February 22 2006 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Tuesday, March 7 2006 07:07
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Thank the heavens. At least one game is inherently unable to spread like a virus. Our implants are safe. -------------------- Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum] My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast. Polaris is dead, long live Polaris. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 5132
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written Friday, February 16 2007 10:24
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*bumps the last one up* I won't bump Nethergate up until this Nethergate 2.0 is released, and the others were maintained by people who aren't around anymore. [ Friday, February 16, 2007 13:24: Message edited by: BainIhrno ] -------------------- "Let us see what the new day brings." - Temas, Areni. Visit my realm! Rate My Scenarios! Fort Emerald Robbery The Nephils' Defense The Final Spire The Fifth Tower of Magi The Portal Posts: 626 | Registered: Monday, October 25 2004 07:00 |
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Councilor
Member # 6600
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written Friday, February 16 2007 15:28
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Originally by BainIhrno: quote:Bump them up anyway. (And we could always get a mod to maintain them once in a while if we asked nicely. Or bribed them.) --- Let's start off at a 7.0 and go from there. For the novelty of playing something so awful: +0.5 For being able to travel with your dog: +0.5 For the dog having an inventory: +0.5 For the dog being useless in combat: -0.5 For the girlfriend being useless in combat: -0.5 For me not being able to figure out how combat was supposed to work: -1.0 For me not being able to remember anything about the graphics (meaning that I repressed them): -1.0 For sharing a background sound with Geneforge and making me like Geneforge less because of it: -2.0 For the snakes: -0.5 For more snakes: -0.5 For the rats: -0.5 For some sort of navigation problem I had on the level with all the rats: -0.5 For being so bad I deleted it incorrectly in my haste to save my computer from utter destruction and now have to put up with the indignatity of it being listed on my Add/Remove Program list until I get a new computer: -1.0 For being so terrible Dikiyoba will be able to make fun of it for the rest of Dikiyoba's life: +3.0, which brings the total to 3.5 [ Friday, February 16, 2007 15:33: Message edited by: The Dikiyora ] Posts: 4346 | Registered: Friday, December 23 2005 08:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 6821
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written Friday, February 16 2007 15:34
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*rereads reviews* I still find it interesting how many people here hate Homeland... My guess is that said people are used to playing turn-based RPGs, and Homeland is a real-time RPG. It's probably not the only reason why so many spidwebbers don't like it, but it probably plays a part. EDIT : Hum, Dikiyoba? You should have checked your formation and character default combat behavior before saying Kaleb and Keegan are useless. Kaleb is actually a lot tougher than Korr at the beginning of the game, and I think he's the one with the most HP throughout the game. Keegan may not be as good as Korr, but she does help a lot. I bet you couldn't even beat Maglius. -_- No, wait. In fact, you probably didn't even meet Maglius. [ Friday, February 16, 2007 15:40: Message edited by: The Lurker ] Posts: 363 | Registered: Wednesday, February 22 2006 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Friday, February 16 2007 17:02
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quote:It might have more to do with the fact that they are (newsflash) used to playing games which don't start sucking as soon as they are opened. Just a guess. ---- Anyway, I'm re-evaluating my rating, since it's true I didn't put much thought in the last one. Also, the repressed memory was pretty vague. My latest CD includes the Homeland demo, and out of a masochist drive I installed it and tried to enjoy it for about an hour. Here's my review. -------------- The game turned out to be a klutz about 5 seconds after starting. The screen went dark before shifting through about three different resolutions, then dropping me back to the Windows desktop. With its main screen minimized, the game still hogged 100% of the CPU to play its music. After one reboot, two attempts aborted by killing the process, and fifteen minutes, I managed to get the task manager open and adjust the priority of the process so the mouse would move again. The first obstacle overcome, I Alt+Tabbed over to the game, hoping to finally see the main screen. The screen, however, remained dark. The main menu graphic wouldn't show up - but the game was clearly running, since clicking on various areas of the black screen resulted in dialogs like "Load Game" and "Quit". Wild clicking eventually yielded what I wanted - "New Game". It was now twenty minutes after I installed the thing, and I was finally looking at a game screen. A nice isometric landscape filled it; unfortunately, that's all there was. My character appeared to cast a small square shadow, but the sprite graphics were another thing the program hadn't managed to load. Not yet discouraged, I let my shadow wander through the town for a while, talking to various NPC shadows. One odd thing I noticed was that the allegedly "isometric" plane didn't actually fit that definition. North-south distances where displayed longer on the screen than East-west distances (compared to the auto-map), and to make up for this, my character moved much "faster" north-south than east-west. The resulting experience felt non-Euclidean and, for a game often maligned as a spawn of R'lyeh, appropriately Vertiginous. I quickly saw the point of showing squares like this (Avernum): Rather than like this (Homeland): --- Still filled with an iron resolve to derive enjoyment from this game, I ran off into the woods. To kill snakes. For one gold coin apiece. This was made vaguely more interesting my the fact that I couldn't actually see the snakes (no sprites). It was made ugly by the fact that when I moused over the snake, it would show a random flickering square of something unidentifiable, but clearly not the snake graphic. In retrospect, I'm lucky my dog died when it did, because if the game hadn't ended, I might now be a gibbering wreck muttering only about colors out of space and ages dead to time, and the cry of the shantaks on the hidden plateau of Leng. ---- Scoring For user interface - which tends to remain constant throughout the game - I'd score it 1.0. Because I was not able to actually reach something resembling a plot (if it has one), I'll adjust it upwards at a guess. There are two possibilities: Either the author is a misunderstood genius who made a plot that could make angels weep with delight, and spent so much time on it that the technical gameplay went down the drain. Or looks are not deceiving, and this is in fact, an awful game. Thus, I add a vague "1.5" for plot. However, the installation assistant was very smooth and likely the best-written part of the game. I would add 2 points for this, but unfortunately the assistant appears to be a standard tool that is used by most Windows applications, so it doesn't count. Preliminary score: 2.5. I am willing to play the complete game and reevaluate it, under the condition that someone buys me the game and pays me an hourly rate ($50, plus 50% to pay for insurance against mental illness). Edit: This appears to be .5 higher than last time. The only explanation I have is that excessive sleep deprivation has in the past year killed off a part of my brain cells, so my standards have dropped. [ Friday, February 16, 2007 17:13: Message edited by: The Sorcerer ] -------------------- Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum] My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast. Polaris is dead, long live Polaris. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 4599
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written Friday, February 16 2007 17:36
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Is it at all possible that people just hate Homeland because everyone else hates it? You know, like a fad? I won't really rate it since I never made it past the demo myself, but I did enjoy it. Though it was not worth a purchase. Interpret that however you will. I will retreat to my flame bunker in case someone decides to tear me apart for that. -------------------- "Yeah-- you're right. You christians are far too persecuted nowadays. I mean it. We really should stop feeding you to the lions." --TM "Ancient Blessings" My unfinished (and likely to remain that way) BoA scenario. Posts: 135 | Registered: Tuesday, June 22 2004 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Friday, February 16 2007 18:12
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I judged it on its own merits (or lack thereof). I'm pretty sure I'd hate it even if it was fashionable to like it. :P -------------------- Encyclopaedia Ermariana • Forum Archives • Forum Statistics • RSS [Topic / Forum] My Blog • Polaris • I eat novels for breakfast. Polaris is dead, long live Polaris. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair. Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |
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