The highly successful iPhone, iPod and iPad game Angry Birds, which has has over 6.5 million purchases, has finally made it to the Android platform.

The aim of Angry Birds is to take control of a flock of birds who’s eggs have been stolen by a group of evil pigs. The pigs have taken refuge within structures made of wood, glass and steel and your job is to launch the birds with a slingshot to either hit the pigs directly or hit the structures around them to fall on them and destroy them.

Angry Birds has now been launched on the Android platform and for a limited time you can grab it for free via GetJar.

Angry Birds will work on the following Android devices:

Htc: Desire, Desire Z, Evo 4G, Hero, Incredible, Legend, Magic, Wildfire
Samsung: Galaxy U, GT I5500 Galaxy 5, GT I5700 Galaxy Spica, GT I6500 Galaxy, GT I9000 Galaxy S, GT M110S Galaxy S, GT P1000 Galaxy Tab, SCH I500 Fascinate, SCH I899, SCH R880 Acclaim, SGH T959 Vibrant, SHW-M100S, SPH D700 Epic 4G, SPH M900 Moment, SPH M920 Transform
Acer: E400 BeTouch, Liquid, Stream
Alcatel: OT-980
Apanda: A60
Chunghwa Telecom: CHT 8000
Dell: Streak, Thunder
Elocity: A7
Garmin-Asus: A10
Google: Nexus One
Huawei: U8100 Ivy, U8110, U8230
Lg: E720 Optimus Chic, GT540 Swift, GW620 Eve, KU9500 Optimus Z, LU2300 Optimus Q, P500, P503 Optimus One, SU950 Optimus Z, VS740 Ally
Motorola: A955 Droid II, Droid, Droid X, Enzo, MB501 Cliq XT, Moto XT800, XT701, XT720 Motoroi
Pantech: IM-A600S Sirius Sky, IM-A630K Sirius Izar, IM-A650S Sirius Vega
Sony-Ericsson: X10 Xperia
T-Mobile: MyTouch 3G, MyTouch 3g Slide, Pulse
Vodafone: 845
Zte: X850 Racer

Many South African XBox players have resorted to using UK or US accounts to play online on XBox Live, however this could become pricey with microsoft’s new subscription pricing.

Microsoft will be increasing the price of their XBox Live Gold subscription fees for all members in Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom and United States. Chances are that if you are a South African and making use of XBox Live Gold to play online, you will be affected by the new pricing.

As of 1 November 2010 Microsoft will increase the price of certain XBox Live Gold subscription packages, US users have it worst as all subscriptions from the 1 Month to the 12 Month ones are subjected to the new pricing as detailed below.

If you make use of a UK account you will only be affected if you buy on a monthly basis, to avoid being affected by the new rates when they kick in why not upgrade your account now with a 12 month subscription at the normal price.

Another question that remains, now that South Africa will finally be getting Xbox Live soon, how will users currently making use of these overseas account transfer to the local accounts?

Microsoft’s long awaited motion controller, Project Natal, was introduces at the E3 show and dubbed Kinect.

The move by Microsoft came a few months after Nintendo launched its popular Nintendo Wii which took motion control gaming to the next level, however Microsoft did not sit back and soon afterwards announced their own motion controlling system, Project Natal.

Users wanting to get their hands on the new Microsoft Kinect motion controller will have to wait a bit as it is only due later this year, some say October. Pricing for the Kinect controller is still unkown.

The Kinect controller makes use of built in cameras and microphones that uses facial and voice recognition to enables users to simply navigate the menus or start and stop movies using their voice.  A new menu also allows users to simply grab out to the screen to select menu items or start games.

Some of the games users can expect is Kinect Sports a direct aim at Wii sports I presume, Joyride a racing game that lets you steer the car with an imaginary steering wheel, Kinect Adventures which includes a river rafting time trial game. There is also a Dance Central game in development by MTV studios that will bring the So you think you can dance experience to the XBox.

I am really looking forward to the Kinect motion controller from Microsoft and will definitely be buying one, on demand of the wife also.

Vodacom and The Grid, South Africa’s location based social network has launched South Africa’s first location based war game, Legends of Echo.

Legends of Echo is a multiplayer social game that is played on mobile phones where players trade, communicate and battle with other players from South Africa with their physical location as central point.

Legends of Echo makes use of The Grid’s location based services by determining the players’ entry point into the game, from there players can move around freely in the Echo which is a virtual representation of South Africa.

The Echo may be a virtual representation of South Africa but is no where near the reality. Instead of skyscrapers and cities players will wonder through endless rolling green fields, rocky outcrops and valleys to explore and establish their base.

The aim of Legends of Echo is for players to become a legend of the Echo, this is done through battling other players and obtaining advanced weapons and items through trading with other players.

Legends of Echo is available as a free download for Java enabled cellphones. Once installed players can start immediately to interact with other players in the Echo. There is no cost involve to play Legends of Echo, apart from standard data costs of your network operator. Players even have the option to trade airtime for items in the game.

To play Legends of Echo, SMS “ECHO” to 33313 (50c/SMS) or visit http://www.legendsofecho.mobi/

I do not know what to say about this, what do you think?

A while back Microsoft announced that they will be rolling in a update on the XBox 360 console to enable users to Twitter, Facebook and Last.FM from the comfort of their couch on a big screen TV.

So last night I decided that its time to test out this functionality. Using the applications is really straight forward, just log in with your credentials and away you go.

The Twitter interface looks really sleek and nice, but just don’t try to do a status update with your remote control. Writing the update is really time consuming as you need to move around the on-screen keyboard with your remote control to find the correct letters, not worry, all I did to avoid this was pop in a usb keyboard and all was well again.

All the the Xbox 360 now lacks is a browser, would be cool to be able to open up the links on tweets and view them. Me hold thumbs that they do not implement IE on the Xbox 360.

Here is a screenshot taken from GameSpy

The Need For Speed franchise has always been a hit amongst gamers, that was until the last one or two releases.

Games such as Grid and Forza set new standards in the racing market, and Need For Speed just kept with their arcade style driving losing a few gamers that hindered for that real driving experience.

The latest edition to the Need For Speed franchise is Shift and it is up for some serious competition later this year from the likes of Forza Motorsport 3, but if the trailer bellow is what we can go by I’m sure they will start regain the gamers they lost.

Imagine a racing game built by racers for racers and you’ll have a good idea of what to expect with Need for Speed SHIFT. It’ll introduce gamers into a level of realism never before seen in a Need for Speed title, offering an incredible authentic and immersive driving experience. Need for Speed SHIFT has been designed to replicate the true feeling of racing high-end performance cars and features a stunningly realistic first-person cockpit viewpoint and an all-new crash engine which offers an unrivaled sensation of racing at high speed.

The game is being developed using a collaborative model with some of the best racing game talent from around the world. Some key names behind the game are Michael Mann (executive producer at Black Box), Patrick Soderlund (senior vp of EA Games) and Slightly Mad Studios in London. SMS, or to give them their former name, Blimey, should be well-known to the racing crowd as the developers behind such classic racing games as GT Legends and GTR 2.

Need For Speed: Shift will be available later this year. It will be available on PS3, Xbox 360, PC and PSP.