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Resistance: Retribution Screens
Resistance Retribution is a PSP specific game based off of the Playstation 3 game Resistance Fall Of Man. This new story from Resistance is a 3rd person shooter as opposed to 1st person in the PS3 game. It’s a new story, new characters, weapons, enemies, levels, and it so far looks real good as far as games have looked on the PSP.
Set in the weeks after Resistance: Fall of Man®, Resistance: Retribution follows the story of former British Marine James Grayson. After a personal tragedy – he is forced to kill his own brother inside a Chimeran conversion center – Grayson goes on a vendetta to destroy every conversion center he can find. Eventually Grayson learns that his efforts have been futile… in Western Europe the Chimera have evolved a new method of converting humans to aliens. The European resistance – the Maquis – enlist Grayson’s help, and he joins Cartwright and Parker in Operation Overstrike. The war to retake the European continent has begun. KEY FEATURES
• Game: A third person action-adventure game created specifically for PSP that bridges Resistance: Fall of Man and Resistance 2™.
• Storyline: Dramatic storyline set against the battle to retake the European continent, follows a single soldier’s grim determination to avenge his fallen brother.
• Engine: Utilizes Bend Studio’s third generation PSP engine that allows for more enemies on screen, more detailed characters with higher resolution bitmaps and specular highlights, and a memory buffer system that allows for larger and more detailed worlds.
• Revolutionary Targeting System: Advanced third person targeting system designed specifically for the PSP.
• Portability: Liberal checkpoint system makes the title ideal for small bursts of gameplay perfect for the on-the-go gamer.
• Weaponry: Weapons include favorites from Resistance: Fall of Man like the Auger, Carbine, and LAARK, as well as new weapons based on hybrid Alien/Human technology – including the BM001 Razor and the Longbow 1S-1K “One shot, one kill” sniper rifle.
• Enemies: Over 10 different types of enemies, including Chimera from Resistance 2™ and Resistance: Fall of Man – including the Titan, Slipskull, Hybrids and Leapers – and all new enemies like the Hag and Cloven.
• Multiplayer: Intense eight player multiplayer gameplay with five game modes including Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Containment and Assimilation available via ad-hoc and infrastructure.
• Resistance Franchise: Web based franchise that ties into the Resistance franchise web portal.
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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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