Fatal error: Call to a member function set_charset() on a non-object in /home/vhosts/galgonews.xp3.biz/includes/connect_database.php on line 3

$host ="host";
$user ="username";
$pass ="_passhere_";
$database = "database";

// variables.php
$connect = new mysqli($host, $user, $pass, $database);

/* check connection */
if ($connect->connect_errno) {
    printf("Connect failed: %sn", $connect->connect_error);
    exit();
}