Rise of Spartans Slot Machine
With 300 and its sequel, Meet the Spartans and films like Troy, Spartacus and its remake, Hollywood knows there’s a demand for ancient Greek history. So how does this Saucify game rise to the challenge of this popularity or fall in battle?
Spartan Design
For such a serious title, it’s no surprise that the layout has an intense tone. This includes the music. It’s got dramatic pauses and a feeling of atmosphere, with a subtle beat that sounds menacing. It feels like war is approaching.
This atmosphere is brought out with the background. There are no bright skies, puffy clouds and smiling animals here. It is a high rocky cliff face with a dangerous edges and no easy route to climb. Instead, there are lightning flashes, murky skies and wild seas.
The 5 reels aren’t transparent, but blend well with the images as separating each reel is a thin line of the rocky cliff. The reels do dominate with their sharp colours, strong symbols and level of detail on the human figures. Especially as the men and women in the pictures have warrior like poses so you see the muscles and the precision in the weapons they use.
Playtime is Over
It’s in the gameplay that this game really stands out. You can choose your coin to be 0.01, 0.05, 0.10 or 0.25, with coins between 1 and 5. The game is just as flexible with the number of lines, as you can play any number up to the 15 it offers. If you are feeling in brave leadership mode, you can press Bet Max which bets 75 credits. While you can Spin as a one off, you can also save your energy for battle by using Auto Spin, which has base settings of 10, 25, 50 and 100 but you can go anywhere in between or even higher.
The way the winning icons come to life is great. Or impressive or brilliant, to choose the other two words that flash across the screen after a win. The icons appear in such a dramatic manner you’ll be desperate to find out what each one does. This isn’t just spinning and shining. There is sword fighting and blood and presumably, death.
On the Paytable you see the hierarchy of points. It is all a little cramped, even though there are 2 pages. Of the regular icons the most you can receive is 1,000 credits for 5, or 300 for 4. 300 is certainly a memorable number as that’s the maximum score you can win if you get 5 of the next highest symbol. The ships and different coloured shields are great designs and show a level of detail that is evident even with the least valuable ones.
Greeks Bearing Bonuses
The fact that all the figures relate to the game stands out, and you may also notice that each of the bonus cards has the name of a person that existed at that time. Themistocles is the Wildcard and gives the game’s best credit prize of 8,000. It doubles any win and substitutes everything except the Scatter, Queen Gorgo. Scatter win are multiplied by total credits wagered.
The archer Artemisia represents Free Spins. If you get 3 or more during a spin you get either 7, 12 or 15 extra spins depending if you get 3, 4 or 5. You can even get more Free Spins while enjoying your current Free Spins. During these bonus spins her arrows can turn any spin wild for that spin. The Wildfire symbol, announced vocally by Artemisia herself, replaces any symbol except for the Scatter. Any win with a burning wild substitute doubles your wins.
And that’s far from the end of the extras. King Xerxes is the Feature Game Scatter and if you select 3 or more you get a little extra something. During the feature game you have to choose one Golden Pool if you get 3 of them, choose 2 out of 4 when you trigger four of a kind and 3 out of 5 if you originally spun 5 King Xerxes. As each Golden Pool has money inside you’ll want to be going back again and again. In case you’re the curious type, it also tells you what was in the other pools.
Rise and Shine
This is a superb game. Truly one of the best around, with pretty much everything you could want. Valuable prizes, innovative bonuses, intricate designs, strong storyline, appropriate music and well thought out icons. All about the Spartans. All about the spectacular.
