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.

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.

Soulcalibur V takes place 17 years after Soulcalibur IV and revolves around Sophitia’s children: Patroklos and Pyrrha. The main story mode follows the siblings as they venture around the world in search for answers regarding their past as well as a method to stop the evil doings of the series main antagonist Nightmare. While this is the first time that Soulcalibur has had a full-fledged story mode instead of the usual quest mode it still leaves much to be desired. The story is nothing impressive and the mode is extremely short spanning only 20 episodes which in total will require 1-2 hours to complete. The Arcade mode is just what you expect from a fighting game. Surprisingly however the mode lacks any story bits for the characters you choose to fight with. This leaves a lot of characters without proper introductions or endings that usually provide background information on the character’s history or motives within the game. There is also the quick battle mode which has you fighting a series of opponents until you lose. As a whole the single-player modes in the game are quite lacking when compared to other popular fighting games currently in the market and are definitely the disappointing portion of Soulcalibur V.

Now that the story is out of the way, let’s talk about what really matters in a fighting game: the gameplay mechanics and character roaster. Namco did an outstanding job with the fighting system of Soulcalibur V by improving its accessibility to new players while still retaining the great deal of depth that the franchise is known for. Most Soulcalibur fans will be familiar with the system in this iteration while still having a lot of new features to delve into. It gets rid of critical finishes from previous games and instead introduces the “critical gauge” that acts as a meter which can be utilized to do devastating special attacks. Soulcalibur V involves mechanics from both 3D fighting games as well as 2D fighting games which really makes for a fantastic hybrid.

As for the character roaster, it involves a mix of both new and old faces. Lots of the new characters act as sort of successors to previous characters in the Soulcalibur series such as Patrokols resembling Sophitia. While there is a great diversity in the playstyles of most characters there are a few characters that are very similar to one another. For example, it’s weird that the game decided to go with 3 characters that essentially mimic other characters each time you play with them which seems like a rushed decision to do. The majority of the cast however does impress as they play very differently and uniquely from one another.

Soulcalibur V also brings in an updated version of the creation mode found in previous games. This mode allows you to edit characters in game appearances to a great deal of detail. It also allows for the creation of your very own character to play with both online and offline. The creation mode has a great deal of options to mess with and boasts one of the best editing and creating systems in a fighting game yet.

Online in the game felt pretty solid from what I experienced. Playing with people close to your location is non-problematic as the game masks lag well. You can choose to play in both Ranked and Player matches as well as being able to create your own lobbies to invite your friends. Soulcalibur V also has the ability to save, play, and share replays of the matches you played as well as the ability to watch other people’s replays. The online mode holds its ground very well and is probably where you will be spending the majority of your time with Soulcalibur V.

What Soulcalibur lacks in Single player content, it makes up for it by having solid gameplay mechanics, fantastic visuals, and fairly good roaster of characters. The game felt like a great mix of 3D fighters with some mechanics popularized by 2D games. If you are looking for deep gorgeous looking fighting game to pick up then look no further as Soulcalibur V is definitely one of the best fighting games to experience out there.

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.

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.

What sets the Logitech apart, however, is that it can quickly ‘switch over’ from being a desktop headset using wireless connectivity, to a Bluetooth headset, which can then be paired with a smartphone or a tablet device. But is it a ‘one headset to rule them all’ then?

Design
Call me spoiled, but I find the Logitech h800 extremely bland and boring. In fact, its appearance is quite deceptive, and can be taken as one of the knock-off brands if not for the properly spelled ‘Logitech’ sticker on the sides.

That’s not to say it does not serve its purpose. The Logitech holds all of its controls on the right ear cup, with the volume rockers, play/pause and the microphone mute button embedded on the center. The inner right-edge has a switcher that changes the headset’s connectivity from wireless and Bluetooth, and a slider to change sound tracks if you are using a media player. The controls might seem crammed but they are quite evenly spaced out and are intuitive to use. If you have used similar headsets before, you shouldn’t have much problem adapting to the Logitech’s ways.

The Logitech h800 also have found a very innovative place to hide the microphone, which is straight under the right ear cup. While we still prefer the Steelseries’ hide-it-inside-the-earcup way of doing it, the Logitech design is functional and works quite well. Unfortunately, the microphone does not auto-mute when it’s shoved back up, the lack of which can be potentially dangerous if you happen to forget to do it yourself. So thread carefully, you must.

Comfort
I usually find the on-the-ear design to be painfully uncomfortable. The ear-cups lay flat on your ear, and the padding has to be just sturdy and soft enough to not hurt. The Roccat Kulo and the Asus HS-W1 failed in doing so and I had little hope from the Logitech h800 to be any more comfortable. It certainly didn’t look to be, at least.

The Logitech are comfortable, surprisingly. It doesn’t claim to have the softest, highest-quality premium padding. It just uses basic foam material on its cans and the headband, and I have to say, it fits in snugly. It does heat up after a while, but that’s normal given that headsets don’t float in the air. Yet.

Performance
The Logitech h800 switches between wireless and Bluetooth connectivity quite smoothly, allowing you to ping-pong between your PC and your music player easily. There is a bit of a delay between picking up connections, but that can be chalked up to a limitation of the technology than the headset itself.

The h800 is a general purpose headset and provides adequate power and performance for its purpose. For music, the headset is quite loud and clear, but lacks the fulfilling, wholesome punch that premium sound drivers provide. My test tacks consisted of various Hindi movie songs, ranging from mild-rock to full-on bhangra to what can be best described as ‘masala-pop’ music. The sound felt compressed and hollow, with the treble falling flat on most occasions. The bass was muddy and sometimes overly done, giving more hollowness to the soundscape.

For gaming, I tried it on two experts – Counter Strike 1.6 and Modern Warfare 3. Here, too, it felt weak, with many effects being ‘left out’ or ‘buried’ under the more prominent ones. It provided decent positioning feedback in Counter Strike, however. Not ‘surround’ by any means, but did the job just fine defining between left and right, which was good enough for my experienced fingers.

Conclusion
For appox. AED 380, the Logitech h800 are a decent buy, especially since it can negate the need to have multiple devices for your music player and your PC. It does lack power but is adequate enough to be a portable solution that is sturdy and can last a good number of hours before it needs a recharge.

Good: Comfortable; light; nice mic implementation; supports both wireless and Bluetooth connectivity.
Bad: Weak bass and treble; average sound positioning.

Rating: 3/5

The game revolves around our hero Zack Zero (that rhymes!), who’s on a quest to rescue his beloved Marlene who’s been captured by the evil Zulrog who’s trying to obtain some sort of time-travelling substance. Yes, I really didn’t bat an eyelid for the story either, so thankfully there’s not much of it to absorb in the game. You travel to Zulrog’s home planet and move through a variety of impressively detailed environments in your quest to save your damsel in distress. Of course this isn’t a ‘Tarzan rescuing Jane’ kind of mission – Zack means serious business, and comes fashionably kitted in a super suit that grants him control of the elements of fire, ice, and rock. While the opening level has your suit at maximum power with all your abilities unlocked, a minor accidents causes everything to reset back to level 1, so you will need to power up your suit’s abilities as your progress through.

Each element has two abilities that you gain access to and level up accordingly. Ice allows you to freeze enemies and also slow down time. Fire will let you hurl a fireball to damage multiple enemies or ‘surf’ across gaps with a fiery trail. Rock will let you operate levers, smash obstacles, or erupt a flurry of jagged rocks towards enemies. When using the suit in normal mode, you’re given a simple disc attack to vanquish enemies, or you can double-jump to smash into the ground. You rack up more points by combining multiple attacks, so freezing enemies and then hurling rocks at them will nab you a bigger score. You also need to collect the green orbs scattered through the level, as this will help you power up your suit and unlock abilities. The only downside is that you aren’t given any control over which abilities you get to unlock – they’re automatically unlocked and assigned to you which is a bit frustrating, as I would have liked to gain the ability to freeze enemies earlier on in the game rather than later.

While the platform element will seem familiar, it’s the game’s locations that really steal the show. Gorgeous and vividly designed levels pop out on screen, with enemies scrambling to attack you from both the background and foreground. The levels will have you looking for hidden doors and treasure, avoiding spikes and killer lizards, and riding wind shafts to name a few. There’s plenty of variety in the action than just running left or right, and some of the later levels employ some backtracking to unlock doors or solve puzzles. At the end of each level you’re faced with a boss encounter, and once you’ve worked out the attack pattern it’s a fairly straightforward affair to dispose of them.

But while the game offers a good run for your money, there are some flaws that I just couldn’t ignore. The game likes to occasionally use depth to confuse the heck out of you, so in certain parts you have to jump onto higher platforms that are actually set in the background of the level. Mastering the art of getting onto these areas will take practise, as there were countless times where Zack would just simply not climb onto a platform that was clearly within reach, and instead plummeted to his doom. You also get to collect some sort of jellybeans when you defeat enemies, both for health and for scoring points, but these run away from Zack at an evil pace so it’s truly frustrating at times when you’re desperate for a health boost.

These issues aside, Zack Zero is the platformer that no one has heard about yet but everyone needs to try out. It’s a bold project from a fledgling studio, and for the most part it offers a satisfying platformer experience for anyone looking to relive the classic platformer gaming experience.

Where Unstoppable Gorg first tries to stand out is that it technically doesn’t involve any towers at all. The action is instead set high above the Earth in the darkest regions of space, and your job is to defend the earth from the ruthless alien race known as the Gorg. Instead of just building towers, you have to strategically position satellites in orbit around the Earth and keep the aliens from invading Earth. This all sounds quite simple, but the game can be deliciously tricky at times, which is what kept me playing forward.

As your arsenal revolves around the use of satellites, the game gives you a variety to choose from as you progress through. While initially you have very basic satellites, the later levels reveal much more powerful ones that pack quite a punch. But where Unstoppable Gorg stands out from the crowd is that it employs a satisfying amount of strategy rather than building hundreds of towers to defend your base. Firstly, there are a limited number of locations that you can place a satellite in orbit, so choosing which satellites to place is key. Secondly, managing your money pool is also important – will your first satellite be a generator to bring in more money, or a defensive satellite to greet the first wave of aliens? Satellite management also kicks up a notch with the fact that you can rotate the orbits, so once you’re done defending one side of the earth, you can swing the satellite around to take down the wave of aliens sneaking around the back. Apart from placing the ever-important generators to bring in money for new satellites, you also need to place a research lab into orbit to earn research tokens – these tokens can then be used to improve your satellites before your next battle.

But while the gameplay is fast and requires a keen eye to catch aliens sneaking past your defenses, it truly is the game’s presentation and art style that really takes the cake. Each level is preceded with a short black and white clip, designed in the style of an old 50’s horror or sci-fi film, very reminiscent of Godzilla or old sci-fi movies. This ties in well with the general presentation of the game, especially with the newspaper headline clips and satellite selection screens. The seductive Sereia who pops up later in the game (played by the lovely LouLou D’vil) adds a bit of quirky humor to the game, not to mention the worthy appearance of the King Gorg (played by the head of Futuremark’s benchmark team). While you can play through the story mode to unlock the story and various satellites, there is also a challenge mode where your satellite selection skills are put to the real test, with less satellites to choose from and trickier enemies. There’s also an arcade mode for nonstop alien-busting mayhem, and a number of medals you can also earn while playing the game.

Graphically the game runs smoothly and doesn’t employ any over-the-top effects for explosions or the aliens, so the brownie points really go to the 50’s themed clips and overall effort put into the game’s presentation. The audio is minimal during the levels, and the acting is cheesy but totally adorable. I half-expected a line to go like “Danger Will Robinson, Danger!” but that would be more 70s than 50s.

Unstoppable Gorgs is a surprisingly satisfying game to play, thanks to its quirky presentation and smart use of satellite placement. While it certainly requires a bit more skill to master than a traditional tower defense game, it has a smooth learning curve and eases into the difficulty by level 6, so you have plenty of time to learn the ropes and which satellites to use. The team have put together an addictive and fun game, and it’s definitely worth a look at.

The HS-W1 is a wireless headset that has all the trimmings of a good quality ‘companion headset’. For one, it’s sturdy and well built, despite its small size and slim profile. Asus also provides a carrying case that holds the headset, receiver and the USB cable, making it easy to carry around during long hauls.

The headset is also well designed. It’s not as imposing as the Vulcan, but then again it’s not a gaming headphone and has no business looking like one. It smartly manages its gloss and plastic to create a subtle appearance of class without being too snazzy or stylish. All the controls, as minimum as they are, are placed on the left can. The volume controls are fitted inside the shiny exterior, so you can click it to increase or decrease the volume. Below it is the power button with a small LED accompanying to show the current status of the headset (green is go, red is dead, etc).

As well as it is built, I found the headset to be lacking in comfort. It’s an on-the-ear design, so the cushion lays flat on the ear. Despite the enormous 70mm padding, it started hurting after 20mins of on-time. You can adjust the cans itself, so you might find a comfortable angle. Our Arabic Editor Serge Farrah was pretty happy with it, but that could be credited to his amazing flock of hair that probably made the headset float anyway.

Performance wise, the HS-W1 are an above average headset for music. While the sound produced was loud and clear, it wasn’t wholesome and engulfing due to the lack of bass and slightly flat soundscape. The headset weren’t exceptional for gaming either, though it performed well in sound positioning, surprisingly. I could pinpoint where the action was taking place in Team Fortress 2, which says a lot for the quality of the 40mm stereo drivers.

The mic is a big part of the package as well. The headset uses a simple mechanic that enables the mic if it’s brought forward, and disables it when slotted back. The mic works well for the most part, although I found that it captured a lot of the background noises than my own.

The wireless works well, although the tiny up-time of under 8 hours (from fully charged to completely dead) is rather disappointing. Of course, you will not have an 8 hour session, but if you listen to a lot of music, you will find yourself constantly charging the headset (which is probably a good idea to do anyway, if you are stationary). Wireless range varies – Asus claims it’s about 15 meters, although we could only muster out about 8 meters.

Conclusion
For its price, the Asus HS-W1 wireless headset is a decent buy. It’s compact, easy-to-carry, classy, and a good performer – just don’t expect it to outdo itself.

Love: Classy design; well built; above avg. performance; easy-to-carry.

Bad: 8hour battery life; mic is just about okay.

Rating: 7/10

Skyward Sword starts out with the series’ usual introduction to the world and its characters. You start your adventure in Skyloft, a floating city in the sky that has been created by the Goddess to save the people of land long ago .While most of the starting hours feel familiar to other entries, there are several points in which Skyward Sword diverts from how The Legend of Zelda usually starts. For starters, Link and Zelda this time around know each other from the start and develop a relationship that seems a lot more powerful than previous titles have showcased. In addition, Zelda is also not a princess but her importance is significant and is revealed as the story progresses. After a few opening hours Zelda disappears due to a series of events and Link must then embark on a journey to find her and stop whatever evil that is lurking out there from bringing corruption on to the world.

The major gameplay change in Skyward Sword is the control scheme. Traditional controls are out of the picture as they are replaced with full use of motion control using the Wii’s Motion Plus controller. While skeptical at first because of previous experiences with really badly implemented motion controls, the accuracy of the motion controls in the game blew me away. You use your Nunchuk extension both for moving Link around as well as acting as a shield in battle while the Motion Plus controller acts as your sword. The controls can be hard to get used to at first, but gives a lot more control to Link than any Zelda game yet. Each monster/enemy in the game suddenly becomes a mini-puzzle as you need to figure out their patterns and find their weak points. The addition of motion controls really enhanced the gameplay as a whole as it opened up a ton more depth and detail to how you approach enemies in the game.

Skyward Sword also adds in the ability to upgrade your items and shields by collecting different ingredients and visiting the shop in Skyloft to perform the chosen upgrade. Having upgrades in the game is a great addition to the game as it gives you more control as to how you want to improve Link. Another gameplay change is the addition of a stamina bar as well as a sprint button. The stamina bar is something that you would either like or hate from the start. While it adds a different sort of mechanic to the game, it can be frustrating because of the limitations it puts on you while playing. The Sprint button on the other hand is a god sent as it gets you to where you need a lot faster than before.