From the very moment you launch Star Wars: The Old Republic, you’re sucked into this fantastic world that you instantly want to be a part of. You want to believe that you can dual-wield lightsabres or fling debris at your foes. You want to electrocute everyone who dares to challenge you. You want to travel into the deep realms of space and bring justice to alien planets. Everywhere you go, you either feel like a true soldier of the Republic or an instrument of destruction as the Sith Empire. And it’s a feeling truly worth relishing. Right from the opening scene featuring the iconic Star Wars text crawl, you know you’re stepping into sacred territory.

After drooling over the gorgeous opening cinematic, you get to choose your faction and one of nine races. You then choose one of four classes to play as – each class has an appropriate choice depending on which faction you’ve selected. After a few mostly cosmetic changes to your character, you’re ready to begin your adventure. My first character was a Jedi Knight, so I began my training on Tython in the ways of the Jedi. The world is beautiful, inhabited by fierce and tame creatures as well as the now feared Flesh Raiders who are attacking the natives as well as Jedi trainees. If you’ve played any recent MMO, the controls and interface will be very familiar. Even if you’re new to the MMO genre, the game gently gives you tips about how to play the game, and Bioware themselves have started releasing in-depth video guides for new players to follow. Once you’ve become familiar with the controls, you can pick up your first few quests on your path to being a seasoned player.

One thing I will remark about the quests in SWTOR is that they never feel monotonous or forced. Even though your initial quests will be of the fetch variety, it never feels this way, unlike other MMOs. A bonus is that as you’re progressing through on quest, you may inadvertently trigger a side quest that you can complete for extra XP. Every quest you is taken on through a conversation with an NPC, and it’s great that you actually get to have a conversation with characters rather than just hitting “Accept” on a quest. The hundreds of hours of dialogue recorded for this game really makes a difference, and the conversation wheel gives you a number of choices that can turn a conversation around at any time. In addition to providing a more engaging experience to the game, conversations with NPCs can also shift your alignment with the Force, so it’s worthwhile keeping a track on what you’re saying to people.

I have a laptop, iPad, Blackberry, and iPod – at any given time I’m usually carrying at least two devices if not more. I’ve tried downsizing my reliance on gadgets, but I often find that there are certain scenarios that make me favor one device over another. I prefer blogging and writing occasional articles on my iPad as well as surfing the web, while I use my laptop for photo editing, gaming, and other things I can’t get done on my iPad. Obviously I use my Blackberry for phone calls, email, and Twitter, while my iPod provides worry-free music when I go out walking or need to drown out the mall crowds.

As the years have passed, technology has been able to blur the lines between devices, so that rather than using a phone for say just phone calls, you can now take photos with it, record movies, listen to music, purchase items, surf the web, and a stack of other things.

With this amalgamation of devices, are we truly heading to the ‘one device to rule them all’? Wouldn’t it be great to have one device that I could pick up when I left the house that would let me make phone calls on the way to work, and then dock at my desk so I could write up my articles on a full sized monitor, or slide into a sleek tablet for computing on the go. Bear in mind, a quick Google search and I was looking at the KT Spider Concept, one of many multi-function devices that are looking to combine phone, laptop, tablet, and gaming device all into one portable solution.

The way I see things, there are really two schools of thought here – one school wants the all-singing all-dancing device that combines everything, while the other wants one device for each task. Would you carry your iPhone into a press conference and start taking photos with it instead of using your DSLR? Or would you rather have a state of the art camera that you can adjust every little setting down to the nanosecond of your shutter speed?

There is a point to be made somewhere in this blog post – I either need to stop carrying around so many things or just get bigger pockets. But seriously, with the way technology is soaring forward, it won’t be long before we have one true hybrid device that can adapt to any scenario and any task – the question is will you find it worth it to have everything combined into one device, or will you like me, still carry around multiple things?

When I first saw Q.U.B.E at E3, it did fascinate me somewhat. Here was a game that was made by a small group of developers, that was able to showcase a rather impressive looking piece of work on a rather humble bit of funding. While that statement still holds true, there’s still plenty that needs to be plugged into the game in order for it to become a game worth playing through. You start the game with your character waking up and lying down on a descending platform. Your surroundings don’t give you any clue about what has happened or where you are, and all you notice are the futuristic gloves that your character is wearing. As you walk forward you notice colored blocks in the level, and its these blocks that you need to manipulate in order to get through the game. Red blocks can be pulled out to a certain degree, yellow ones come in groups of thee, blue ones can be used to bounce off, and so forth. The game does an excellent job of slowly introducing players to the various block types before finally mixing the block types and introducing some rather quirky puzzles.

You will need to deftly master the various block types in order to progress, and while the initial levels are just a case of sliding out the right blocks, the later levels introduce laser-bending spheres and magnets, which not only makes things tricky but also fiendishly difficult at times. While you’d expect the magnets to actually behave like magnets, they often lead to very finicky control issues when trying to maneuver the blocks, simply because they don’t snap in place properly.

But really what disappointed me about Q.U.B.E was its complete lack of personality. While Portal has GLaDOS spewing her quirky comments to prevent the game from being monotonous, Q.U.B.E has no such luck and ends up being just one puzzle after another. You’re not really compelled to progress much through the game, unless you really are adamant on solving every single puzzle in the game. And even when you reach the very last puzzle and finish the game, there’s no sense of accomplishment or real achievement, as the ending scene unfolds much like Portal did. After all of the hellish puzzles and the effort you’ve gone through, any anticipation for a substantial reward will rapidly vanish, so prepare yourself.

Graphically the game does look quite crisp, showcasing some rather impressive geometric effects as walls slide and twist to reveal different areas. The lighting effects applied to the cubes in certain levels makes a start contrast to the usual clinical appearance of the game, though solving these illuminated puzzles successfully is another matter.

Q.U.B.E is a decent indie attempt, but its similarities to Valve’s masterpiece cannot be ignored, and it’s this constant comparison that will be its downfall. While the effort has to be applauded, at its most basic level Q.U.B.E exhibits very little to engage players, and as such won’t keep your attention for very long.

But what about singing?

That’s what one brave man is about to do – more specifically, singing for 24 hours on the Playstation hit game, Singstar. Youtube user Julian Hill is out to raise money for the Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity, and after uploading a video on Jan 16th about his musical idea, he then followed up with an updated video on Jan 27th after getting in touch with Sony and managing to secure a venue for the event.

“When my daughter Amelia was born, she was diagnosed with a congenital heart condition called Tetralogy of Fallot. Thanks to the amazing staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital Amelia successfully had surgery to fix her heart last year.” comments Julian.

Throwing both superstition and caution to the wind, he will kick off the Singstar Endurance Challenge on Friday April 13th 2012, at The Ambassadors Bloomsbury hotel in London. He is relying on people to link to his channel to help spread the news about the event and raise more funds for charity.

Check out his video posting below and visit his YouTube channel here. You can also directly donate to his fundraising efforts by securely making a donation here.

When will it release in the UAE? (Aboody Isaac)
The UAE release date for the PS Vita is February 22nd, with the Wi-fi and 3G editions being available. For full pricing information, click here, and for launch details outside of the UAE click here.

Where can I pre-order a PS Vita ? (Mohamed Shahin)
If you are in Dubai, pre-orders are currently being taken for PS Vita at Jumbo Electronics and at Geekay Games. Their pre-order campaign should also be available in branches in other parts of the UAE, but it’s worth just calling them first to check.

Is a PS Vita game bound to a PS Vita? Can I re-sell a PS Vita game? (Salue Salute)
To the best of our knowledge, games are not bound to the Vita, only the memory cards are. So you will be able to sell your game cards or borrow a game card to play from a friend. The only thing to pay attention to is that if you want to earn Trophies from the game, you will have to delete any game data that is saved on the game card itself – you will be prompted if you want to do this if the Vita detects save data on your game card that does not belong to your profile.

This handheld is non-UMD right? So it’s going be more like download games only? But I would like to know more about the game card. Are they having cards instead of UMD’s? (Kammie Dante)
The PS Vita will allow you to download games from the Playstation Store, and will also allow you to play games from the PS Vita game cards. The cards effectively replace the UMD discs that were used in the PSP.

Can Vita be integrated in games for PS3? I mean to be used as a controller for PS3? (various)
There are a few things you can do with a Vita and PS3. On games like Wipeout, you can use the Crossplay feature to play games against each other on the PS Vita and PS3. You can also connect the PS Vita to the PS3 system to copy or backup applications and multimedia such as photos, music, and videos. You cannot use the Vita as an additional controller or integrated it into any PS3 games. You can however use the Remote Play feature on the PS Vita to remotely connect to and control your PS3, as you could do on the PSP.

Can you play videos on PS Vita? (various)
During our test we were able to copy videos to the PS Vita, but they had to be of mp4 / .H364 format. Playback also only supports up to 720p, so any video content in high definition that you’ve downloaded on your PS3 from the Playstation Store won’t work on the Vita.

About the “3G”, will providers like Zain, VIVA or STC, Etisalat etc provide us with 3G for our PS VITA? Or are we going to stay with Wifi only? (Reaper Ex)
Playstation have partnered with Vodafone to provide 3G content for the PS Vita, however we aren’t sure if this extends to Middle East countries where Vodafone operates. In the UAE there have been no announced partnerships with local ISPs du and Etisalat, however you will be able to use a regular SIM card with an active data package in the Vita. The Vita is also not SIM-locked, so any SIM card can be used.

How are the graphics? Can it beat tablets? (@Saadie)
The graphics on the Vita are certainly very impressive for such a device. It handles graphics very well and most games look very smooth and glitch-free. While the screen size might not be as large as most tablets, its OLED screen offers a more than adequate gaming experience, and even web browsing is quite comfortable.

Is there a Metal Gear game on the PS Vita? (Al Kim)
Metal Gear Solid HD collection will be coming to the PS Vita, but no release date has been announced yet.

How good is it compared to the PS3? (Akash Ladkani)
It’s hard to do a direct comparison between the two as they are different pieces of hardware. The PS Vita is capable of near-PS3 graphics in games like Uncharted, and many others.

I heard that it can be use as a smart phone? How true is that? (Frank San)
Completely false. The SIM card you insert is for data services only, and there’s nothing on the Vita that will allow you to make or receive phone calls or send messages etc. Skype will be made available through the Playstation Store (its availability in the Middle East is unknown), however apart from Skype there is no other way to turn your PS Vita into a smart phone.

If you get the device from japan do we need a transformer to charge it? (Sulaiman Al-jaber)
Yes, as the voltage in Japan is 100 volts, so you would need to buy a power adapter that would be able to convert this into a compatible charge. One thing worth noting is that for Vitas sold in Japan, the X and O buttons are reversed, as X in Japanese games is to cancel an option, and O is to accept.

How does the PSN accounts work with the memory cards? (Omar Nassralla Ali)
You can only have one Playstation account associated to one memory card. So if you want to have multiple players sharing one PS Vita, they all need to have their own memor card.

Main questions, is it any good? And worth buying ? How are the graphics Speed ? Touch? (Charitha Rukshan)
Questions best answered by our in-depth Vita review!

Does it play PS3 titles too? 
Er, no.

So rather than let age get the better of her mind, 100 year old Kathleen Connell keeps her mind sharp by skipping the knitting needles and firing up her Nintendo DS. She attributes the handheld to keeping her brain active, despite often not being able to remember things the next day.

Check out the screen-tapping action in the video below:

Dustforce takes platforming games to a whole different level, thanks in part to its excruciating difficulty. I’m not kidding here – I consider myself to be a pretty good gamer, but this game has some serious qualms about getting a perfect score. The objective is very simple – you pick one of four janitors and run around various levels sweeping up dust and dirt. While this may not sound quite thrilling, the janitors are able to move with surprising grace and poise, and end up pulling off some ridiculous stunts such as running up walls and ceilings. Maintaining your momentum is the key to getting through the level – if you break your concentration or run into one of the level’s many hazards, you have to start that section again and attempt to rebuild your combo. While the initial levels casually introduce you to combos and keeping your momentum, the later areas really are a test of concentration and skill as they ramp up in difficulty.

What makes the game even more challenging is that in order to truly finish a level and obtain a key to unlock future levels, you have to obtain a perfect score. This involves cleaning up all the dust in a level as well as doing so within a given time limit. If you don’t, then you simply have to redo the level again until you succeed. At times this hardly felt fair, as I was so close to finishing a level before I plummeted to my doom or missed out on a speck of dust hiding somewhere in the level, and had to replay the entire thing.

Apart from its rather strict difficulty, Dustforce is at its heart quite an enjoyable platform game. I did find it a bit cumbersome to play the game with the keyboard, but I think after some practice most gamers will be able to work out the game’s rhythm and how it controls. The game’s cartoon-esque presentation also works out in its favor, with the janitors blurring as they zip and move through the level. But by far the game’s audio is the show-stealer here, with serene beats helping you to keep your cool in often frustrating times.

Dustforce is a game that you will stop playing and then want to play again to get that perfect score. It’s not for everyone, as some gamers will find the difficulty a bit too strict for their liking. Still, if you’re looking for a game that isn’t afraid of challenging your skills, then Dustforce is the one for you.

So go ahead and leave your questions in the comments below, or ask us on Twitter and Facebook – we’ll compile all of them into a Q&A article and post it up this week.

Hardware
Even when it’s turned off, you can’t help admiring the PS Vita. It just sits there with its sleek finish and tempting curves, begging you to turn it on. While the device is of course a remarkable improvement from the Playstation Portable, it still maintains much of the PSP’s original design elements, but with a few changes. To the left of the device is the traditional D-pad, and the left analogue stick. This analogue stick is a welcome improvement from the flat disc that functioned as an analogue joystick on the PSP, and it feels much more comfortable to use when gaming. It’s worth nothing though, that the analogue stick doesn’t click down as on the PS3 controller. Right below the left analogue stick is the Playstation button, which you can use to quickly jump out of a game and return to the main PS Vita home screen. To the right of the device is the tiny front-facing camera (more on that later), and the four face buttons. These buttons have been made a bit smaller than what they were on the PSP, and it’s only after a substantial amount of gaming do you notice that this might not have been the smartest move. Of course, that could just be down to me having ridiculously long fingers. Below the face buttons is the right analog stick, as well as the start and select buttons.

Where the PS Vita makes a quantum leap forward from the PSP is with the additional controls that are hidden away on the device. The gorgeous front touch screen is mainly used to navigate through menus, but can also be used for various actions while playing games. At the back of the PS Vita is the hardly noticeable touch panel – I say hardly noticeable because apart from a subtle application of a design created with the face buttons, you wouldn’t really know that there was a touch sensor there. While the rear touchpad is a cool feature, I found it more of a gimmick than of much use in the games that I played. As mentioned before, the PS Vita has a front and rear facing camera mainly for taking player photos and for games such as Reality Fighters where augmented reality are the primary attractions. Both cameras are of surprisingly average quality, but I’m not going to hold this against Sony at all – the device is for gaming, not macro photography. On top of all of this, the PS Vita also has motion controls, which makes for plenty of fun in games such as Frobisher Says where shaking and tilting the Vita is the norm.

It would be cruel to not have a paragraph about the Vita’s screen – larger and crisper than the PSP, it is an absolute joy to behold. I’m raving so much about the screen in particular because I was able to game on the Vita for about 45 minutes non-stop without experiencing any of the discomfort in my eyes that I would experience with the PSP. The OLED display does every single game justice, and even viewing photos or videos on the screen are a real treat. The screen was responsive to my slightest touch, and swiping through menus and scrolling through web pages couldn’t have been simpler. You really have to see this screen in person to appreciate just how detailed things look on it. But as with similar high-resolution screens, the performance tends to be a bit lacking when outdoors – in direct sunlight the screen is just too glossy to look at properly, and even in shaded areas with maximum brightness I had trouble playing games like Uncharted.

At the top are small buttons for turning the device on as well as controlling the volume. This is also where you’ll plug in the PS Vita game cards, with the slot being covered by a plastic flap that you have to carefully pry open with your finger. It feels a bit fiddly at first, but in time I think you’ll hardly notice. Overall though, the Vita feels like it could withstand the daily wear and tear of being thrust into backpacks and shoved into your back pocket, a scenario that I could never imagine with my PSP which has never left its padded casing.

The contestants each ran through a qualifying lap, and Ahsan Ishtiaz sadly was eliminated with a lap time of 7:37:160. The first versus race was between Tawfiq Hamed and Hummair Ishtiaz, with Tawfiq emerging victorious. The next match was between brothers Asjad and Ashhad Alvi, with Ashhad making it through to the final round versus Tawfiq. After four grueling laps in a neck-and-neck race, Ashhad emerged as the grand champion to a round of applause and congratulations from everyone, including his brother and father who were watching from the sidelines.

Check out photos from the event here, and catch our second day of coverage coming soon.