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E3 2012: Mass Effect 3 On The Wii U You Say?
Yes, the Wii U is doing something the Wii hasn’t done for me in a long time. Releasing games I want to play. Bazing! But in all serious something I never expected, and that’s Mass Effect 3 coming to the WiiU. Not really any other details, but there is bunch of game info you can check out past the break.
SHORT DESCRIPTION
Mass Effect™3 plunges you into an all-out galactic war to take Earth back from a nearly unstoppable foe – and how you fight that war is entirely up to you. Groundbreaking interactive storytelling drives the heart-pounding action in which each decision you make could have devastating and deadly consequences. You are Commander Shepard, the only one who can save Earth from annihilation. But you are not alone. At your side is a team of elite, battle-hardened soldiers ready for your command. Flank enemies with your squad or take them down lone wolf. Use cover or go in guns blazing. Unleash tactical assaults from a distance or go toe-to-toe with enemies using devastating melee assaults and the deadly omniblade. Coming later this year, the war for Earth begins on Wii U™.
KEY FEATURES
• Play Your Way – Choose a fast-paced cinematic experience or delve into a deeper, more choice-driven narrative. Either way, intense combat propels the action as you fight to unite a war-torn galaxy against a common enemy.
• A Rich, Branching Story — Interactive storytelling delivers an experience unlike any other, with multiple outcomes determined by your choices. Mass Effect 3 will redefine what you know about emotionally engaging story.
• Unleash a Customizable Arsenal — Build your character and squad with dozens of unique weapons and abilities, each with powerful upgrades and modifications.
• Adrenaline-Pumping Gameplay — Feel every bullet impact, roll into cover, and unleash devastating heavy weapons in an intense and pulse-pounding action-shooter game.
• Ruthless and Intelligent Enemies — Battle merciless enemies that will consistently challenge your best combat tactics and put you on the edge of your seat.
Let’s start with the good news. Lockbox looks far better than its misleading marketing materials suggest, a supernatural horror movie so darkly lit and color graded that you’ll have to squint your way through jump scares. It’s also anchored by reliable genre performers. That’s also about where the good news ends with this rote adaptation of Knifepoint Horror Podcast story “Winthrop.”
The empathetic Carla Gugino gives her all as Ellen, a saint of a woman with boundless patience who takes on life’s hard luck with a kind smile. After giving up her career as a fashion designer to become caretaker for a dying mother, she’s then forced to reinvent herself once more when her caretaker role ends. That catches us up to the events of Lockbox, where Ellen is asked to take in a cousin she hasn’t seen in quite some time who’s dealing with severe PTSD.
Just as Ellen finally establishes a real connection with Winthrop (Lou Taylor Pucci), it’s interrupted by the arrival of peculiar neighbor Vahna (Katharine Isabelle), who spells clear trouble. When Vahna shows up dead, it sets in motion a supernatural battle of possession.
Image Credit: Aura entertainment
Director Daniel Stamm (The Last Exorcism, Prey for the Devil) and screenwriter Justin Yoffe approach Lockbox in the broadest of brushstrokes, dooming it from the start with clunky storytelling and woefully underdeveloped themes of heady topics like PTSD. Winthrop is a character that comes loaded with emotional baggage and trauma that’s piled on throughout his tragic life, but much like its title, his interiority and history are treated like a tightly guarded secret meant to prolong the supernatural mystery.
The problem here, though, is that Lockbox is too sparse to sustain mystery at all, and it instead robs Winthrop of characterization. It winds up trapping the talented Pucci without anywhere to go, toggling between wounded animal and mentally disoriented.
From there, Lockbox bounds through plot developments without any sense of stakes or purpose, peppered by a smattering of haphazard paint-by-numbers jump scares. The only unwavering constant is Ellen’s resolute faith, and Stamm seems to leave it entirely to Gugino to guide confused audiences through this inconsequential story right up until its supernatural climax.
Image Credit: Aura entertainment
To give more credit, Lockbox at least injects an unconventional exorcism here; just don’t expect much in the way of explanation. When the film finally reveals the meaning behind its title, it dangles a fascinating carrot it has zero interest in delivering. More than a severe lack of fleshing out its characters beyond plot drivers or devices, this faith-based flick also seems terrified to offer any worldbuilding whatsoever.
Yoffe’s script stretches the short story beyond its means instead of fleshing it out, and Stamm fills out the gaps with cheap CGI scares and overwrought performances; Isabelle’s Vahna is beyond cartoonish in her villainy. It’s also pretty nonsensical, treating only Ellen’s faith with the utmost sincerity and largely squandering its typically reliable talent. So much so that the final imagery, pure sunkissed saccharine sentimentality, leaves you with the feeling that this horror movie might be better suited as an entry in Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Lockbox releases in select theaters on July 3, 2026.
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