If you or someone in your life is into both LEGO and Christmas, this one's for you. The brand-new 2021 LEGO advent calendars are now available. Five sets are in stock this year: Star Wars, Harry Potter, Marvel's Avengers, Friends, and City. And if you're more into Funko Pops than LEGO, check out this year's Funko advent calendars as well.

Better yet, all of the sets are 20% off right now. So if you're interested in ringing in the holidays with daily builds, now is the time to buy.

LEGO Advent Calendars 2021

This year you have five sets to choose from, instead of last year's four. The Avengers calendar is the new one this time around. It comes with seven minifigures: Spider-Man, Iron Man, Black Widow, Captain Marvel, Thor, Thanos, and Nick Fury. You'll also get a bunch of accessories and tiny builds, like the Quinjet and Avengers Tower.

In the Star Wars LEGO advent calendar, you'll also get seven minifigures over the course of the month of December. It comes with The Mandalorian, Grogu, a Tusken Raider, IG-11, and an IT-O Interrogator Droid, among others. As for the mini builds, you get things like Mando's ship the Razor Crest, an X-Wing, TIE Fighter, as well as Boba Fett's ship.

And once again a LEGO Harry Potter advent calendar is also available. It includes six minifigures: Harry, Hermione, Ron, Draco, Dudley, and Griphook. You also get all kinds of scenery builds and accessories from the movies.

As with all advent calendars, the idea is to open one little gift each day, starting December 1 and going through Christmas Eve. It's a fun way to have something to look forward to as the holidays approach.

Chris Reed is a deals expert and commerce editor for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.

We Need to Do Something releases in theaters, digital, and VOD on Sept. 3.

You know that strange elation when your whole body bursts into trembling goosebumps? You’re terrified but you feel undeniably ALIVE! This was a treasure I found in the middle of We Need to Do Something. Like its title, this unnerving titillation promised horrors that would rattle my bones and scratch at my nerves. Frustratingly, the film fails to deliver on this promise, ultimately offering a woefully murky and underwhelming tale of family and fear.

The premise is simple: A family of four hunkers down in their house’s spacious and sturdy bathroom to wait out a raging storm. Things turn hellish when they realize they’re trapped inside. This hideous bathroom is built like a pink-tiled prison cell; its windows, walls, and doors cannot be easily busted down. So, the family needs to do something to escape before they starve. You might anticipate an Escape Room scenario, where they investigate their surroundings to strategize some way out. Instead, this clamoring clan takes turns fruitlessly pushing on the door and whining, and none of it is all that compelling.

In his feature directorial debut, Sean King O'Grady makes a bold choice by never revealing the world beyond the bathroom walls, even to show what the family spies through a crack in the door. At first, this willful omission stirs tension, leaving a gap between what we suspect and what we know lies outside. It also leads to the surprising scare that caused my giddy outbreak of goosebumps. But repetition breeds contempt. Before long, this ugly bathroom is a bore to behold. Any could-be claustrophobia is suffocated by tedium of location and lack of action. Soon, I began to wonder if O’Grady didn’t have the budget to peek beyond the door. Or was the problem a lack of imagination? Either way, he leaves us stuck inside with characters that are shallowly confined to tedious archetypes.

Indie horror star Pat Healy (Cheap Thrills) plays bad dad Robert, who is defined by his too-tight necktie — worn even when he sleeps — and a thermos of booze. Starting out at irate, Robert has nowhere to go but scowling and screaming. This is about all he’ll do aside from grasping for grim laughs by drinking ANY form of alcohol he can find in the bathroom cabinets (at least that’s somewhat Escape Room-y?) By contrast, his wife Diane (Hocus Pocus’s Vinessa Shaw) is cool as a cucumber, even when that feels wildly unlikely. But hey, at least she gets a subplot as flimsy and dull as her fuzz-bunny-colored cardigan. Meanwhile, their pesky but sweet son Bobby is played serviceably by NOS4A2’s John James Cronin. Finally, The Vast of Night’s Sierra McCormick brings wide eyes and a sulking snarl to teen daughter Melissa, whose internal drama is signaled by a goth wardrobe topped by a bubblegum pink wig.

Through flashbacks, the film clumsily explores Melissa’s life before the bathroom, which involved a surly girlfriend (Lisette Alexis) with witchy inclinations. No other family member gets flashbacks, so Melissa is steadily made the center of the story. Perhaps this is why her parents and brother are so thinly realized? Maybe screenwriter Max Booth III is establishing an unreliable narrator, placing audiences into the perspective of a self-obsessed teen, who thinks everything — even the mysterious mayhem raging beyond their porcelain prison — is ultimately about her. However, even Melissa isn’t compellingly developed. She’s a careless collection of troubled teen girl tropes, from her alternative fashion to her spooky girlfriend, to a gruesome self-harm habit. It’s as if Booth watched The Craft once and felt he now understood young women. The result is superficial and low-key insulting, mistaking calamity for complexity.

With such an unstable character base, O’Grady struggles to ground the film in Melissa’s subjective perspective. Unlike thrilling psychological horror movies like Black Swan, The Babadook, or Saint Maud, We Need to Do Something never musters a satisfying surrealness that might blur the lines between what’s real and what this troubled heroine believes. Instead, King tosses out strange offscreen sounds and clattering nightmares awash in red lighting. So, even at its end, I’m left wondering what kind of horror movie this is: psychological? Supernatural? Lovecraftian?

Whatever it might be, it’s just plain bad.

Aside from the occasional piece of concept art surfacing online, news about Neill Blomkamp's Alien sequel is mostly a thing of the past with the film's fate having been sealed many years ago. However, the director recently opened up further on his attachment to Alien 5, the status of the film, and the support he had from Sigourney Weaver on the project.

In an interview with the Independent, Blomkamp was asked about whether there he had any interest in the discontinued Alien project. Blomkamp answered, "I don't know, to be honest. I'm not sure that I would do that project. My assumption is that it's completely dead."

The director went on to reaffirm that whilst Alien star Sigourney Weaver had shown support for the project, it had broken down on Fox's end. "Sigourney was unbelievably supportive and amazing. I have nothing but the best things to say about Sigourney," said Blomkamp. "I’m such a fan of hers on every level. She was always into the project, but Fox just clearly doesn’t want it. I haven’t had anything to do with that for years."

Weaver's interest in creating a fifth Alien movie spans back long before Blomkamp's Alien 5 was suggested to be in the works. In 2004, IGN reported that Weaver had suggested to Fox that she "thought it would be interesting to do a small, spooky movie" in the form of a psychological thriller that could "take Ripley to whatever the next stage may be."

Despite confirmation that Blomkamp isn't currently interested in revisiting Alien 5, he didn't completely rule out one day looping back to the concept. "I wonder if it’s possible to do an entire loop, where you're really into it up until the point it gets shut down, then you lose interest and years go by and you loop all the way back around to being really into it again. Maybe that’s hypothetically possible," he concluded with the Independent.

Currently, the only Alien project in the works is Noah Hawley's TV series for FX. The Alien series is not a Ripley story but will be heavily steeped in the Alien universe established in the movies.

Whilst no new news surrounding Alien 5 looks set to come out anytime soon, the recent release of Aliens: Fireteam Elite has stolen a few headlines. You can read our review of the Cold Iron Studios developed co-op shooter where we gave it a 7/10. We praised the game for its wild shootouts but thought that awkward pacing and repetitive level design held it back from becoming a classic.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Tokyo Game Show's organizers have announced the schedule for this year's show, detailing what fans can expect from the four-day event. Unexpectedly, this includes a VR version that will be available on select virtual reality headsets.

The show's organizers have yet to elaborate on exactly how Tokyo Game Show VR 2021 will deliver in terms of a unique experience, but the official website teases that VR users will be able to "visit booths as if you were wandering around inside the gaming world." Organizers of the event said that the VR version of the show is a "grand experiment" and that they are "taking on the challenge of building the game show of [the] future."

Tokyo Game Show VR 2021 will be available when the show begins on September 30 and will support the following VR headsets: Oculus Quest 1 & Quest 2, Oculus Rift, and the HTC Vive. Oculus Quest owners will have the option to stream the VR version natively through their headset in addition to PC.

The website also details the specifications required to run the VR version of the showcase. This includes Quest owners having an internet connection of 20Mbps or higher if you plan to run the show natively on those VR headsets. If you are using a different headset, the website also details the PC requirements needed.

Tokyo Game Show, like E3 and Gamescom, is among the biggest of the annual gaming events – but it's the firt to try and transplant its physical edition into a VR world to allow fans to experience the showcase. Tokyo Game Show 2021, like E3 2021 and Gamescom 2021, will be online-only due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. A VR version could provide gamers another way to experience the event without watching live streams on their mobile device or computer.

Tokyo Game Show 2021 is not the only event this year to try out VR, however. In August, Virtual Market 6 held an online convention and marketplace through VR Chat.

Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

There are more streaming networks than ever before, so if you have questions about the future of streaming, then you've come to the right place. All week long, IGN's State of Streaming 3.0 initiative is featuring reviews and in-depth analysis about current streaming providers like Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video, and more!

When it comes to streaming devices, the conversation usually revolves around how well the interface runs, what apps are available to add, and how intuitive the layout is. But none of that matters if the handheld remote is trash. The streaming device could offer every app under the sun and run like lightning, but if the remote feels clunky, the overall experience will be poor. Let’s take a look at the major streaming devices on the market and which of those has the best remote to go with it, from worst to best.

5. Apple TV Remote

The new second-generation Siri Remote for Apple TV is definitely an upgrade over the functionality of the older version, but for a company famed for its user interface design I still find it lacking. First, the improvements. The swipe controls for the directional pad are less sensitive, which might sound worse but in actuality, the original implementation caused inadvertent scrolling all the time. There’s also a defined directional pad as opposed to a blank black portion at the top of the first generation Siri Remote. A rechargeable battery (with an included lightning to USB cable) is a big benefit over having to buy replacement batteries.

While the Siri Remotes also have more buttons than the Apple remotes of old, for me it’s still a bit too minimalist. While the swipe controls on the direction pad can be used to fast forward and rewind through content, it lacks buttons for those functions. There are also no dedicated app buttons (not even for Apple+, which seems like a missed opportunity). At $59, the replacement remote cost is also the highest of any of the ones in this article.

4. Nvidia Shield Remote

The Bluetooth remote for the Nvidia Shield is long and slim. At first glance, I expected to dislike its feel, but because of the rounded triangular shape, it actually fits in the hand rather comfortably. The button layout isn’t ideal to me. As opposed to the transport buttons in traditional positions (the play/pause button flanked on either side by rewind and fast forward horizontally), the two-column approach means they’re positioned vertically. Included is a voice control button, but either the microphone on the remote isn’t great or the voice recognition software on the Shield needs work because it can be wildly inaccurate. There’s also only one dedicated app button (for Netflix) and no programmable buttons to add other apps.

There are some nice features too. The remote is backlit and activates when you pick it up. And it includes a built-in remote locator in case you manage to misplace it. The Shield TV is $150 and the Shield TV Pro is $200. Remote replacements cost $30.

3. Chromecast with Google TV Remote

Until recently I wouldn’t even include the Chromecast on a list like this. Why? It didn’t come with a remote and relied on using an app on your mobile device to navigate the interface. But now the Chromecast with Google TV has added a small Bluetooth remote. And even better, they’ve done a pretty good job with it. In addition to Bluetooth, it has IR so it can control your TV’s volume with an up and down button on the right side. The remote is reminiscent of a Roku remote, with a curved top and bottom and a rounded back. It’s a bit shorter than the standard Roku remote (by about 0.75 inches) and fits pretty well in the hand. The layout of the remote is great—relatively sparse but not as minimalistic as the Apple TV remote—and the compact size means you’re not shuffling it around in your grip to reach everything.

At the top is a circular directional pad with a select button in the middle. Below that are two rows of three buttons—home, back, mute, voice control activation, and two dedicated app buttons for YouTube and Netflix—followed by a power and input select button in a slightly recessed area with the microphone in between. The Chromecast with Google TV and remote come in three colors—Snow, Sunrise, and Sky (otherwise known as white, pink, and blue). The remote is one color except for the Google Assistant button that is either black, red, or green, respectively. The Chromecast with Google TV costs $50 and a replacement remote is $20.

2. Amazon's Fire TV Remote

There are a few different remotes for the Fire TV depending on which version you buy. The Fire TV Stick Lite remote expectedly is the most bare-bones and the one that’s been around the longest. There’s a directional ring for navigation, two rows of three buttons grouped with back, home, and menu first, and transport buttons next (arranged horizontally instead of vertically like the Nvidia Shield, which we’ve established I’m not a huge fan of). For content, there’s just a Live TV button, but no dedicated app or assignable buttons. At the top of the remote is a mic button that is slightly annoying to reach for with my thumb, although someone with above-average-sized hands likely wouldn’t have the same problem. There are no TV volume control buttons. If you don’t need much it’ll get the job done, but the more advanced remotes in the lineup are what makes the Fire TV remotes our #2.

The Fire TV Stick 4K remote adds some TV controls with a power button at the top left, a + and – volume button that replaces the Live TV button, a mute button right below that. The third-generation Fire TV Stick that just came out, comes with the most involved of the three remotes. The mute button is moved to the left of the volume and the Live TV button returns, now to the right of the volume. At the bottom are four dedicated app buttons for Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Disney+, and Hulu. It has almost all the buttons you could ever need (only missing assignable app buttons like you get with the Voice Remote Pro Roku remote below). Unfortunately, the Fire TV Stick doesn’t support 4K, which seems like a glaring oversight that the most advanced Fire TV option doesn’t include the most advanced Fire TV remote. The replacement remotes are all $30, which is almost as much as just getting another Fire TV Stick.

1. Roku Remote

There are many reasons that Roku has been at or near the top of streaming devices for years. One of them is their remote. Like the Fire TV options, there are different remotes depending on which version of Roku you get, but they’re all good. Each has a back and home button above a purple cross-directional pad. On the Simple Remote that comes with the Roku Express, below the directional pad is a 30 seconds back button (called Instant Replay), menu button, transport controls, and four dedicated app buttons for Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, and SlingTV.

On the Voice Remote there are added TV control buttons including power at the top of the remote, volume up and down, and mute (on the right side). There’s also a microphone button to activate voice controls. The Voice Remote Pro builds on that by adding two programmable shortcut buttons, an on/off toggle for hands-free voice search, a headphone jack for private listening of the attached TV, a lost remote finder, and a charging port. It’s what sets the Roku remotes apart from the others. All three versions are the same size that fits well in the hand and has a nice smooth indentation on the back where your index finger naturally lies.

The Simple remote isn’t available for separate purchase, but both the Voice Remote and Voice Remote Pro are available for $20 and $30, respectively. The Voice Remote Pro works with all Roku TVs, Roku audio products (like soundbars), and recent Roku players. For anyone with a Roku, it’s a worthwhile upgrade.