Sega Mobile offers a handful of games for free

Sonic jumps onto cell phones for free.

(Credit: Sega Mobile)

Sonic the Hedgehog has seen a platform or four.

The spikey-furred rodent first brought to life by Sega in 1991 for proprietary consoles rolled with technology's punches onto TV, Xbox, PS3, and recently, onto mobile phones. April saw the spawning of Sega Mobile, when several flagship games, including Sonic the Hedgehog, were ported to mobile phone format and offered to cell phone gamers for subscription or sale through their carrier's Web portals. Now Sega Mobile is offering Sonic Jump, Afterburner II, and Golden Axe free of charge for U.S. residents.

The catch, as you may have guessed, is that the games are ad-supported, offered through a partnership with content distributor Greystripe. Sega's games are available for select cell phone models via GameJump.com or from the mobile Web at http://gjmp.tw. In addition to showing advertisements, the GameJump policy warns that users may be charged between 5 cents and 15 cents for the data transfer of each freshly-served ad; something to keep in mind if you're not on a data plan.