Slots Adventures

ah, so today i decided to wander straight into All Slots.  this is Halloween, the last day of the english harbour slots tourney on the wheel of chance.  the new tourney starts tomorrow, so i have a bit of time to kill, and i was wondering how the microgaming fruit machines stacked up compared to those at intercasino.

the first of the fruit machines i’m testing out is the Pandemonium game.  the slots part of the game is a three reel, single payline machine.  there is both a nudge feature, and a hold feature that are active from time to time.  you can’t count on the hold feature, it just shows up randomly.

the nudge feature is also random, and shows up in increments of one to four nudges usually, although it can go as high as 15 nudges. 

the game itself has a screen that reminds me of a pinball machine, with flashing values for tons of different bonus games and counters.  for instance, there is a trail counter that increases every time you land a symbol that has a small number drawn in the bottom of it. 

so, there’s a cherry symbol, and a cherry “sub 2″ symbol, etc.  those numbers light up the lights in the “trail” across the bottom.  at the end of your spin, if the “trail held” light comes up, the lights in the trail stay on.  get far enough into the trail and you’ll win some bonus prizes. 

the fourth stop on the trail unlocks a bonus round where the names of bonus games flash in the digital display.  you press the stop button to land on one of them, and then play it. 

the trail is only one of the basic bonus features.  between the flashing lights, and the digital readout (when in doubt on this machine, read the digital display.  it shows the options you’ll have, often flashing options that you choose by pushing the “stop” button), there is a LOT going on with this machine.

 of course, there is a BIG bonus game on Pandamonium.  it’s the Wheel game, which is like the board game on the cryptologic ruit machines.  you spin, and land on a slice of the wheel that either lets you play a bonus game, adds to your cash, or adds to your nudge total.  you can choose to collect your prizes at any point in the bonus game, or keep going in the quest for even bigger payouts.

the Pandamonium fruit machine (errr, Amusement with Prizes game?) has a rock and roll theme about it, and enough action is packed into this one game to entertain for hours on end.  while the slot itself is simple, figuring out the bonus games, and playing through them all can chew up quite a bit of time, and provide quite a bit of entertainment.

i’m glad that i went through the trouble to find the AWP games that microgaming has available.  they certainly are a sharp left turn away from most of the slots i’ve found online.

wow.  i just had an eye opening exerience on the net.  i logged into intercasino to check out the last of the fruit machines, the HULK slot game.  by last, i mean the one i didn’t play yet.  and, it’s the same engine as the other two i did play, just different pictures on the reels.  so, that wasn’t looking to be terribly exciting. 

so, remembering that i heard the phrase “Amusements With Prizes” first associated with microgaming, i thought i’d pull up the recent microgaming to hit my ‘puter, All Jackpots Casino, and test out their AWP games (what they call fruit machines).  well, oddly, there weren’t any listed. 

 i was specifically looking for the Pub Fruity slot, figuring that’d be as good a place as any to start.  so, once i did the once, twice and three times over of the slots listed in the casino, i left.  and i opened up the next microgaming on my machine, Vegas Slot.  They had to have it.  or so i thought.

so i checked the internet just to make sure that i wasn’t making things up in my mind.  and sure enough, i found a review of pub fruity on one of the slots review sites, it wasn’t slotAdvisor, hmm, it’ll come to me later.  but anyway, there it was, plain as day, screenshot and all.

so, i’m off to look for this game on the net.  with hundreds of machines at the different casinos where i’ve played, i just couldn’t believe that i wasn’t able to find any fruit machines at the microgamings.  it just wasn’t right.

Finally . . .

i stumble into All Slots Casino, and whew, there is a line up of the different AWP slots.  there’s a handful off them at least, so i’m guessing that this type of slot is available, but just never caught on at a lot of the online casinos or more people would carry them. 

i know i’ve played at All Slots before.  i’m nearly positive it was for real money because they offer a great signup bonus, but for the life of me i can’t find it on my computer.  so, maybe i was  a player there one computer ago.  now that’s going back a stretch.  instead of downloading and going through the process of finding out all my old player info, i’m just going to hit the Flash casino at All Slots, and test out the games in free play. 

good morning, this is the second of the fruit machine slots that i’ve tried out at intercasino.  the Super Sideshow slot game is essentially the same game as Fruit Fight, but with a different set of graphics.

the slot machine part of the game is a single line, three reel slot.  this time, instead of a boxer, there is a clown to take you through the games. 

the same hold button and nudge buttons are available.  and there are symbols that have a small clown in the corner.  land three of these and you’ll be whisked off to the bonus game(s) screen.

the bonus games are just like those found in Fruit Fight, so, if you enjoy that machine, you’ll find more of the same in the Super Sideshow fruit machine.  basically, there is a board with squares on it, like from a Parker Brothers board game.  you hit the start button, and a stream of numbers comes up, when it lands, you are moved that many squares on the board.  you then perform whatever action is written on that square.

if you collect enough Super Side Show symbols, you’ll be moved over to the higher stakes board game, the Super Side Show. 

besides the bonus board games, there is a whole list of other bonus games that can be unlocked.  they all offer the chance to land some bonus credits.  add to that the whole hi/low double up gamble feature that is available constantly, and there is a lot of action going on in this slot, just like on the other fruit machines.

just by personal preference for the theme, i prefer the Fruit Fight game.  but, i can see a lot of players enjoying the Super Sideshow because, after all, who doesn’t like the circus?

now, to me, this is new stuff!  i had been talking with my wife about some of the English “fruit machines”, and she confused me.  i shook my head, made some noises, and that was the end of that. i never got farther than AWP stands for Amusements With Prizes.  what that means exactly, i dunno.

at intercasino there are a list of games they call fruit machines, even though there aren’t any fruit on the symbols.  the machines themselves are totally different than traditional slots.  they are like half feature-filled slot game, and half bonus games.

the Fruit Fight slot is the first of these games I’ve tried.  here’s a quick snapshot of the game . . .

the slot itself is a three reel, single payline.  the paytable is pretty basic, no WILD symbols or multipliers to be found.  the slot itself though, has a lot of features built into it. 

the first is the HOLD button.  from time to time, you will be allowed to hold a reel in place.  some machines have hold buttons and respins built into them, so you can always hold a reel, and you’re always respinning.  this game has them as a “feature is active when lit” option.  so, they are active from time to time, not all the time.

the second cool feature of the Fruit Fight fruit machine is the NUDGE Button.  this is another option that is active when lit, so you can’t rely on it.  it shows up once in a while.  It allows you to “nudge” the reels down a notch.  And when it is lit, there can be anywhere from one to four nudges available. 

so, if there are four nudges, you can nudge one reel four times, or two reels twice, or whatever.  you’d get four total nudges, use them however works best.

what are you nudging for?  well, you’re trying to either land a winning combo on the payline, or get three symbols with “KO” on them to appear (one in each column) so you can move on to the bonus game.  these symbols do not have to line up, just appear, one on each payline!

what’s the bonus game like?  well, there are lots of bonus games on this slot!

you can see in the picture that there is a superKO game on the left, and a super HeavyWeight feature on the right.  the games are like board games.  you roll the dice, and move around the board, performing whatever action is written on the square you land on. 

those actions could be things like, unlocking another bonus game.  like the lucky dip game . . .

at the end of most rolls you’ll have the option to choose hi or low.  that’s a wager on whether the next dice roll will be higher or lower than the last.  if you guess right, you’ll have the option to play a higher paying bonus game.  the bonus games are listed on the screen.  they go from the lucky dip and cash attack games up to “saved by the bell” and  “power punch”.

this slot is truly something else!  all of these bonus games and features really take advantage of the video screen to add more games of chance to one slot than i’ve ever seen.  the machine doesn’t have coin sizes you can change on the fly.  instead, you choose the coin size before you start spinning. if you want to change coin sizes, you’ll have to back out to the game lobby to choose a different version of the machine.

i don’t have a lot of cryptologic powered casinos on my computer, so i’m not sure if this machine is found at every one of them, but i know it’s found at intercasino.  these machines are certainly something else, and now having tested one and gotten a feel for them, it’ll be interesting to test out some more of them.