Dash back to school next week with some of the hottest titles ever to hit the Sega Genesis way back when, but now for the iPhone. Fear not guys, the chicks will be crowding all over you when you play as the blue hedgehog or begin battling street punks filled with rage. And girls, tell your significant others you aren’t texting Bobby down the street, but you are just kicking ass in Phantasy Star 2, which happens to be Sega’s newest iPhone release.

If you wanna be the ‘it‘ kid in school and say you got sweet Sega games on your iPhone, check the list below and browse each game’s discounted price!

• Super Monkey Ball 1 for $1.99
• Super Monkey Ball 2 for $2.99
• Sonic the Hedgehog for $2.99
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for $2.99
• Golden Axe for $0.99
• Shining Force for $0.99
• Streets of Rage for $0.99
• Ecco the Dolphin for $0.99
• Super Monkey Ball 2: Sakura Edition (iPad) for $3.99
• Phantasy Star II for $2.99 (actual price is $4.99)

Which game(s) will you be picking up? Cry havoc with some classic flair below!

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Target and Best Buy both announced expanded used game trade-in services this week, just in time for major developers to start making a profit off pre-owned games with online codes and subscription models. But I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

Best Buy will officially launch used game trade-ins in 600 stores this week, with the promise of more to follow soon. Games can be traded for Best Buy gift cards, which can be used instantly in the store. There is no mention of a cash trade-in option – it looks like Best Buy is following in the footsteps of great aristocrats worldwide and keeping it in the family.

Target’s new Electronics Trade-In service packages cell phone and iPod trades with video games, and should be in over 850 stores nationwide by 2011. Trade-ins receive Target credit of up to $200, but that amount would probably only be for a 4G iPhone at this point.

Best Buy will sell back used games “soon,” while Target does not specifically mention direct sale of any used games.

Both stores will offer online options for trade-ins, Target through a partnership with electronics recycling site NextWorth, and Best Buy through their own online system that will appraise games, accept them through the mail and send out gift cards 7-14 days later.

What does the mainstream trade-in service mean for our used game consumer future, or that of gaming in general? Leave us your thoughts in the comments!

Hulu Plus is officially hitting the PS3, Xbox 360, iPad, iPhone and 3rd generation iPod Touch in the form of a subscription-based, ad-supported service, and, if you can snag an invitation, you can start using it on the web and some of the devices today.

Hulu Plus features streaming television services to complement the free, online Hulu system by offering hundreds of full seasons from almost all the shows currently offered. Hulu Plus will also grant access to previous seasons or entire runs of some television classics (including all nine seasons of The X-Files!).

The upgraded service will cost $9.99 per month and is available today, with an invitation, for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Hulu Plus will hit PS3 this July (according to ShackNews) and Xbox 360 users will have to wait until 2011, and then Hulu Plus will only be available to Xbox LIVE Gold Members. Hulu Plus is also streaming on select Samsung Internet-connected TVs and Blu-Ray players starting today.

Hulu supports mostly ABC, FOX and NBC shows, as all three networks own significant portions of the company, but it also provides shows from other networks. Hulu Plus is a television-focused service and does not support any of the movies offered on its main site.

Like Hulu, Hulu Plus is only available in the U.S., probably because we are the only country with such a severe addiction to television that we will assuredly drop dead if we can’t watch the latest episode of Glee where and when we need to, including in public restrooms, weddings, Thanksgiving dinners and funerals.

Just like buying a t-shirt with “BILLABONG” stamped across its front, Hulu Plus’s ad-supported, subscription-based service means we are paying for the ads as well. In this sense, Hulu Plus can be a wonderful addition for those without cable and a DVR, though I’d be surprised if there are many PS3 owners who don’t also have cable or an internet connection to download their favorite TV shows. Legally, of course. Ahem.

Will you be signing on for Hulu Plus? What device will you be watching it on? Lay it down in the comments!

Holy digital comics, Batman! DC Comics officially hit the PSP, iPhone and iPad today with 81 initial titles and five free comics available for download.

In this first batch of DC releases is Batman: Hush #1-6, Fables #1-5, Green Lantern: Rebirth #1-6, Jonah Hex #1-6–We promise the comic is nothing like that high school drama club production they tried to pass as a movie this summer–plenty of Superman-Batman issues and others (and probably some serious daddy issues, but those are free).

Sony and DC are also releasing free downloads of Bayou, Fringe, Mirrors Edge, Resistance, and a 10-page preview of Superman #700 for the PSP.

The Digital Comics store for PSP already hosts over 1600 titles from Marvel, Image Comics, IDW Publishing and others.

Will you download any of these titles for your PSP, iPad or iPhone? Tell us what you’re reading right here, right now!

Killing zombies is fun. It has always been fun and it will always be fun, unless you’re trapped in one of those dramatic infection movies or in the last panels of The Walking Dead volume 8, but nevertheless, shooting the undead is generally awesome. Activision agrees – Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies for the iPhone is getting a new map pack by the end of the week, featuring the giant Shi No Numa swamp ground from World at War.

Josh Olin of Treyarch told IGN all the map’s console features are translating to the iPhone version, with a few bonuses thrown in. The iPhone will get new weapons, like the Arisaka, the Type 100 machine gun, and the Wunderwaffe DG-2, which is a lightning gun that fries zombies to a crispy golden-brown. These weapons won’t transfer to other maps.

There are also new enemies and characters for Zombies. Japanese soldiers and Hellhounds will spawn throughout the level “at random intervals” and you can now pick a specific soldier to fight off your new rivals. Choose to play as Tank Dempsey (US), Takeo Masaki (Japan), Nikolai Belinski (Russia) or Dr. Edward Richtofen (Germany). Each character has his own set of new traps as well.

If you already have Zombies on your iPhone, the new map pack is $4.99. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, Activision is offering Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies with Shi No Numa instead of Verruckt for the standard $9.99.

Should I go see a therapist, or is killing zombies really the coolest thing to do in the entire world?

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The dudes over at 1up have reported that Rockstar Games recently released a free version of their hit game Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on the iTunes App Store.

Titled, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars Lite, players will be able to experience the first three missions of the top-down open world game for free, and can upgrade to the full game at any time. The full game goes for $9.99, so here is a nice chance to get that criminal fix.

So, you pullin’ up the App Store app right this second? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

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It looks like Scratch: Ultimate DJ will finally be seeing a release this year, but on three new platforms: iPhone, iPad, and PC. This after the game was originally supposed to ship out on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 last fall, but a few legal throw downs and mixing up the dev team slowed that process, leaving wanna-be DJs in the dark.

Numark Industries, the manufacturer of actual DJ equipment and partners on the game, have not made a comment on its console release so I guess we will continue to wait and see if Scratch will still step up to the plate on consoles anytime soon…son! For now, you’ll just have to be a mixmaster on the go…or on a desktop.

So, will you step up to the turntables, bustah? Let us know below.

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Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1, originally due this summer, has been kicked to the latter half of 2010 to “allow the Development Team to focus on keeping the game high quality, continuing tuning and balancing of levels and interface and overall maintaining the kind of polish that an important game like this demands, ultimately providing fans with an unrivaled classic Sonic feel,” according to Sega.

In a sign of compassion, Sega has also revealed the game’s fourth platform, along with Xbox Live Arcade, PSN, and WiiWare – the latest iteration will be landing on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Which platform will you play the more classically-inspired, 2.5-D Sonic game on? Let’s hear it!

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When Call of Duty: Black Ops is released this November, your smartphone will be feeling a little of the action too. Glu Mobile has announced that it is releasing the fourth Call of Duty mobile game “in conjunction with” Black Ops.

Glu has previously produced other mobile Call of Duty titles such as Modern Warfare, Modern Warfare: Force Recon and World at War.

What’s your take on smartphone games, especially high-intensity ones like Call of Duty? Any past experiences with Glu games? Let’s hear it!

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World of Warcraft’s Remote Auction House is now live and kicking in full beta-test mode. Players can access the WoW Auction House from the iPhone and iPod Touch apps—there is an app for that—or from the Armory website.

Once the beta ends, full Remote Auction House services will be subscription-based at $2.99 for 30 days. A free version will allow users a passive perspective on the Auction House, able to get real-time notifications and view their events but unable to carry out any actions on them. During the beta test, all services will be available but transactions are limited to 25 per day, with this number expected to increase to 200 for the final version. Blizzard has yet to announce when the beta will expire.

Will this new service take some of the stress from your WoW Auction House deals? Is this the beginning of a new era in the game, a transition to app-based and remotely-controlled play? Is that ridiculous? Let us know!

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