World Soccer Slot Machine
With football being everywhere (and that includes the Olympics) it’s curious to ask why there aren’t more slot games of the world’s most popular sport. SkillonNet has decided to try and remedy this with their Word Soccer game. So why have they got it wrong?
Pitching a Bad Idea
Women’s football has come a long way in the past few years. Not just in the USA where the game has been of a high profile, but it’s grown in other major regions too and is taken a lot more seriously. Which makes this game seem all the more dated, even before you look at the clunky graphics.
The background is a football stadium, there is a chanting crowd, ticker tape falls and along the bottom of the screen is the run up to the goal. It is a festival of celebration for sure. At the top right, the name in orange letters lights up intermittently in an ‘80s video style, with a ball as the O in World. The details of your betting are at the top and either side of the reels are the cramped betting lines in the form of stadium seats. The alternating background colours of orange and yellow don’t mix, though making the symbols in a round shape was the right idea.
But that’s not what will catch your attention. You’ll be noticing the sexy ladies representing 8 different nationalities. The Italian and Mexican ladies have the skimpiest outfits, but they’re all looking flirtatiously at the screen. Indeed, the Dutch and English ladies suggestively wink twice when they are part of the winning line.
It’s Only a Game
The game itself is easy to play. You can bet for either 1, 2, 5, 10, 25, 50 and 100 credits and any number of lines between 1 and 30. If you’re feeling lucky in front of goal you can go straight to Bet Max, or if you want to sit on the bench for a bit you can use Auto Roll. As there are no settings on the number you might want to get back on the pitch sooner rather than later.
There is a heavy guitar riff which is pretty standard, though the football style chant when scoring points does stand out. As does the crowd jumping up to celebrate, the ball rolls along the grass as though it wants to be in on the fun. The celebrations do go on quite a bit, with each winning line number emphasised, which gets tiring very quickly.
As shown on the green paytable, the Dutch woman is the most valuable with a maximum score of 5,000 credits. Next most useful is the South African fan with up to 4,000 credits, the English fan with 3,000 and Italian with 2,000 credits. It continues to the eighth icon worth a best score of 100 credits.
Extra Time
There are several bonuses. You have a chance of getting 18,000 credits if you get 5 icons of the English girl with the cup in 1 spin. If this happens you get to play the trophy game. If you choose the 6 trophies out of the 9 spaces you hit the jackpot. If you miss just one, you’re back to the main game. You do get credits even if you don’t get all 6 though.
It’s easy to see how you are doing with the main bonus as your progress towards the goal gets closer and closer. With each bonus card you get 100 points and this automatically moves you further forward. At the halfway stage of the 1,000 points, you get to choose a footballer and guess how long until he drops the ball while doing football tricks.
But it’s when it gets to 1,000 that things become really interesting. You reach a shootout where you choose to be either the goalkeeper or striker with the aim of scoring or saving the penalty. You select from six directions as to where to move. If you are successful you get 2 further chances where the difficulty increases and the credit possibilities rise. Also worth noting that Scatter symbol (red shirted guy celebrating) gives you a maximum of 12 free spins and the burning football Wildcard can replace all of the 8 women.
He Shoots, He Scores
What you really think of the game will be influenced on whether you see the sexy women in skimpy tops as cheeky and fun or outdated and sexist. Either way the graphics are poor, the design is cramped and the sounds are annoying. However, you’ll find the bonus games really entertaining, especially the shootout.
