Sonic the Hedgehog creator Sega has unveiled a brand new retro games service that lets you play old-school games from its archive for free.
The formerly great game-maker's 'Sega Forever' is making Master System, Mega Drive and Dreamcast titles available to download at no cost, but there's a catch – they're only available on iOS and Android smartphones.
The freeman's version of the games are ad-supported, but you can cough up £1.99 per title if you're feeling flush and want to play them ad-free.
Over the next 24 hours, Sonic the Hedgehog, Altered Beast, Phantasy Star 2, Kid Chameleon and Comix Zone – all Mega Drive titles – are rolling out to the App and Play stores. (We just had a look and at the time of writing, the Android titles are available but the Apple ones aren't.)
Sega says it will be adding new titles to the Sega Forever collection every month. Each game appears in the store individually, not delivered by a single app, so don't go searching the stores for 'Sega Forever'. No announcements have been made yet about bringing the service to console or PC either.
The ported games aren't just lazy cash-ins either, with modern features like worldwide leaderboards so you can compete against other players online, cloud saves (especially handy for those with 16GB phones who delete apps all the time) and support offline play, which is presumably subject to ads.
Thankfully, the titles are also shipping with support for Bluetooth controllers with D-pads, as we wouldn't relish the prospect of taking on Sonic on a touchscreen.
Want up-to-the-minute entertainment news and features? Just hit 'Like' on our Digital Spy Facebook page and 'Follow' on our @digitalspy Twitter account and you're all set.
