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E3: Metal Gear Solid: Rising Explains How Raiden Became A Badass
You may have noticed a slight difference in the skill and appearance of Raiden between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Guns of the Patriots. Rising will explain all that and more.
Rising bridges the gap between the second and fourth Metal Gear titles, and, try and contain yourself for this: in the game you will be able to pull off the same kickass cyber ninja moves Raiden threw at the creepy mooing mechs in Guns of the Patriots. Now that’s exciting. Read on after the jump for more details and the brand spanking new E3 trailer.
Raiden’s newest fully clothed adventure is looking great, especially the cutting mechanic that briefly slow down time giving you ample room to maneuver your sword so you can really slice and dice your enemies (or any inanimate objects that might be lying around the game). Seeing Raiden cut through a vehicle with ease than unleash his fury upon an unsuspecting watermelon shows that not even the thickest of fruits can stand in his way. I’ve cut a watermelon, it’s much more difficult than a cantaloupe. Just imagine, if you can, how much pain Raiden could unleash on a cantaloupe. Scary, huh?
One of the likely many awesome ideas in Rising is the ability to cut open mechs (and anything else) so you can claim the goodies inside. Now your enemies are essentially glorified piñatas, waiting for you to crack them open and get the life force spinal columns (see the trailer for that) or ammo that’s hidden inside their fragile forms. And since you can choose where you cut this means you have the option to maim or simply injure your enemies, which should give the more disturbed gamers amongst us the chance to brush up on their torture techniques. Fox News should have fun with that. I can see the headline now: “Metal Gear Title Lets Five Year-Olds Torture Innocent People”. Can’t wait.
There will also be plenty of stealth action in Rising, in case you were wondering. But enough chat, let’s get to the stylish new trailer, shown at E3 earlier in the week:
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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