So it seems like most people here have their knickers in a snit because they think Homecoming is a stupid title. It seems to me like most, if not all, of these detractors are kids who are equating Homecoming with the high school dance that is a lame excuse to get drunk, buy expensive clothing, and fuck. However, I would remind these people that Homecoming has a much more important meaning: the returning of soldiers from war.
Upon doing a little further reading, I'm thinking that the title may be an offhand reference to the poem "Homecoming" by Australian poet Bruce Dawe.
I'm going to spoiler my explanation of it because if I'm right, it pretty much gives the entire game away.
"Homecoming" describes the process of collecting and processing the dead from a war and shipping them home. All the soldiers returning home in the poem are already dead. If Homecoming's title is inspired by the poem, then it could be a subtle suggestion that Alex is already dead when he returns home.
Here is the poem itself:
All day, day after day, they're bringing them home,
they're picking them up, those they can find and bringing them
home,
they're bringing them in, piled on the hulls of Grants, in trucks
in convoys,
they're zipping them up in green plastic bags,
they're tagging them now in Saigon, in the mortuary coolness
they're giving them names, they're rolling them out of
the deep-freeze lockers - on the tarmac at Tan Son Nhut
the noble jets are whining like hounds,
they are bringing them home
- curly-heads, kinky-hairs, crew-cuts, balding non-coms
- they're high, now, high and higher, over the land, the
steaming chow mein,
their shadows are tracing the blue curve of the Pacific
with sorrowful quick fingers, heading south, heading east,
home, home, home - and the coasts swing upward, the old
ridiculous curvatures
of earth, the knuckled hills, the mangrove-swamps, the desert
emptiness...
In their sterile housing they tilt towards those like skiers
- taxiing in, on the long runways, the howl of their
homecoming rises
surrounding them like their last moments (the mash, the
splendour)
then fading at length as they move
on to small towns where dogs in the frozen sunset
raise muzzles in mute salute,
and on to cities in whose wide web of suburbs
telegrams tremble like leaves from a wintering tree
and the spider grief swings in his bitter geometry
- they're bringing them home, now, too late, too early.
Thoughts?
"Oh yeah, I've been here before
I can see it with eyes closed
Shadows that look like blood
Dead as far as the mind goes
Fear that comes from my head
Lives in the mirror"
I just came back from Iraq in April so the title doesn't confuse me at all with dances or any other irrelevant topics. I can see where the game can go with the concept of coming back from war and even with the quote alex sais in the E3 2007 vid where he comments that he doesn't want to come home. You get very mixed feelings when you come back and for many of the guys I know including myself we now aware of something more deeper inside us sometimes we believe is evil. I always kidded that you couldn't join the military unless you have some sort of messed up past. So if the creators can capture it we may have a really deap game. Thats one reason why I've always had hope despite a few road bumps we've seen.
crucifix wrote:people who think "homecoming" is a bad title seem to be teenagers who are reminded of the school dance... it's a term for soldiers returning. there's nothing wrong with it, you just have something of less significance pictured.
My boyfriend and I argue about this all the time. He thinks everyone in Silent Hill is already dead (mostly talking about the movie, he's not a big Silent Hill fan). He's a non-Silent Hill fan who saw the movie and that's what he collected from it.
I really hope that's not the case with Homecoming.
I mean correct me if I'm wrong, but... that's not.. Silent Hill.. Right? Oy, I don't want to get off on another discussion like that, I just don't like the whole "Oh, you're dead and you're in purgatory(SH) until you clear your conscience" thing.
I dont hate that homecoming title. I just want to see/play that game, then i can say my hole opinion. Its so pointless blame game just for the name. I know we know a lot of things in this game, but.....
I like that they've got rid of numbers. It makes it more accessible to newcomers, and it means there'll be more chance of 'stand alone' future instalments like SH2/4, and no more drawn out sagas like SH0/1/3.
But Homecoming? Meh! I'm sure they could of come up with something better had they of put a bit more thought into it. But I suppose this is double helix, and thinking aint really their strong point.
Can we please stop talking about why you do or don't like the title, and address what Drewfus has brought up?
The first thing he brought up was a gross generalization of people that don't like the subtitle. Why shouldn't people be allowed to address that? Personally, I think it's just cumbersome to say and spell; and if it is as Drewfus suggests, it's a dead-giveaway.
Speaking of Drewfus's suggestion, wouldn't that essentially be Jacob's Ladder redux?
Cool, but I juts don't like how alike it is to Jacob's Ladder. I don't mind taking from the movie, but the twist as well? Even I am against that one...
Good idea.
It makes much since under the spoiler thingie. I already knew this though.
I think that whoever still considers this as homecoming, like school is pretty simple minded.
Hi,
I must say I mostly agree on and like theories I've read
But reading this on another topic made me thinking:
he enviroment and story looks very promising. I mean this time its something new: A town other than Silent Hill is physically being hassled by the forces of the Otherworld. I noticed how there are SG police cars everywhere meaning even the police don't have control.
(is this true? I mean I haven't THAT much watched trailers etc.)
so here's my thought, don't bash me, even if it's silly
