I didn’t manage to get a new slots post in last month, partly because I was on my holidays and partly because I just never got round to it while I was still in the country, so here’s a mash up for May and June.
You probably don’t want to spend too much time playing slots at the moment since the sun is making itself known, so I encourage you to spend some time outdoors enjoying it, but when you do hunker down for the night, these are a few games you might like to try.
We are going to be revisiting an old favourite of mine this month, NoLimit City, who have released a Mafia themed slot, and crime is the theme I have been running with.
Not sure why, maybe it was watching all those re-runs of The Sopranos? Who knows. Fuhgeddaboutit. Anyway, here are the slots.
Whacked – NoLimit City
The theme here is definitely mafia related, although the funky 80s music doesn’t exactly match the visuals if you ask me, although it certainly does the job of keeping your attention.
It’s a standard 5×3 layout with 243 ways to win, and obviously production values are tip top as they always are with NoLimit City.
The basics are as follows:
- RTP – 96.07%
- Max Win – 11,912x
- Volatility – Very high
The game uses cascading reels, which means multiple wins are possible from a single spin, and a Lock n Load feature is built into this.
Basically, if you get enough wins from a single spin (displayed as bullets being loaded into a 6-shooter), the bullets will fire at any high paying symbols on the grid (which are mafioso types, one of whom looks suspiciously like Paulie Walnuts), and turn them into wilds.
It’s probably my favourite feature in the game, and certainly where I topped my balance back up the most.
They have also included their proprietary xWays and xNudge features in this game, which you can read more about here, and these give the already pretty cool base game more depth and add a richness to gameplay.
Unusually for NoLimit City though, there is only one feature round to speak of, and that is Whacked Spins.
It’s the old, ‘here are 3 spins, they will reload every time you get a win on the reels’, situation, capeesh?
So basically, 3 spins without a winning symbol ends the round.
The reel is filled with symbols depicting murder victims with plastic bags over their heads which is… well it’s on topic but it’s pretty grim. Anyway, you want coins landing on the reels, not corpses, and when they do, the multiplier value they show will be added to a calculation at the bottom of the reels which will ultimately be your final payout for the round.
It’s a good game, not their best, but I enjoyed it. That volatility is a killer though, so don’t turn up to this sit down unprepared or you will find yourself very quickly taken out.
Five Guys – Popiplay
This game would have been good in 2015.
I’ve never played a Popiplay slot before to my knowledge, so I thought I would give it a go as I enjoy trying the work of developers who are new to me, but I didn’t stick around for long.
It’s a bank robbery themed slot with a fitting if rather generic and repetitive soundtrack, and the graphics are a bit meh too.
Add to this the fact that the base game hardly ever spins a win and you are basically just dropping dead spins until you hit the feature.
Anyway, the basics are as follows:
- RTP – 96.12%
- Max Win – 9,990x
- Volatility – Very high (ridiculously high in my experience)
The bonus game took me ages to hit and when it arrived it really wasn’t worth the wait either.
When you do get in there you go to a 3 number code padlock type thing, and whatever the code ends up being is your multiplier for the round. That’s it.
I got 193, which made it 193x my 20p bet… woohoo…
If you trigger the round with 4 bonus symbols that number is multiplied by 3, and if you get in with 5 bonus symbols it’s multiplied by 10, which is where the 9,990x max win comes from (you would need 5 bonus symbols and then a 999 on the padlock).
It was all very underwhelming and I wouldn’t go near this game again.
The worst thing though, was that whenever you land 2 bonus symbols with some reels still to land, those reels slow down to a snails pace – I assume in an attempt to build the tension – so the spin really drags.
It happens a lot too, and almost never results in a feature trigger, so you just end up getting annoyed with it.
Personally, i’d stick Five Guys in the vault with the ‘loot’ and leave it there.
Mega Heist – Relax Gaming
On to a very different approach to a similar crime theme, and this one is by Relax Gaming.
It’s full of silly fun but the game is a solid offering, set in a prison, from which the robbers try to escape in order to stage heists on a Gas Station, a Club, or a Bank, with each new location being worth more.
The base game looks good but is pretty basic in terms of gameplay.
There is a wild but there are no other features, and with it being such a volatile game this can be draining if you haven’t hit the bonus round in a while. That said, the bonus round is so good it’s worth waiting for.
The basics of the game are:
- RTP –96.19%
- Max Win – 16,591x
- Volatility – Very High
So while it is a very high volatility slot, the good news is that you only need 2 bonus symbols to trigger the feature round, which is the really fun bit, so you could find yourself in there quite often.
Of course, the more bonus symbols you get, the more prisoners that will be let loose rushing for freedom (and building your prize pot).
Once you get into the bonus round it sort of feels like an old Sega Megadrive game but with better graphics.
Instead of spinning reels, prisoners will riot and try to escape the prison, moving one space forward per round and with the possibility of collecting extra multipliers, disguises, or instant escape motorbike symbols along the way.
The prison guards are after them though, popping up above the ‘reels’ after each turn and catching one prisoner from each reel they appear on.
So you could get a really high value prisoner right to the point of escape only for him to be captured.
Each prisoner has a starting multiplier, and whatever they are worth as they move into the escape zone is what will be added to your overall bonus round multiplier total.
It’s a really fun idea executed well, and I loved playing it, even if I didn’t win in the end.