A subjective view of the highest choices amongst this yr’s new slots
By Frank Legato
As you in all probability know, each fall, the slot producers present their new “mannequin yr” on the annual International Gaming Expo commerce present. These are the slots that might be coming to casinos over the approaching yr. As you additionally could in all probability know, yearly, I offer my very own opinion regarding what was the most effective among the many new slot video games popping out.
My annual High 10 slot video games are usually not chosen on the idea of how a lot they are going to earn for the casinos (a couple of of my previous decisions even tanked!), and even the truth that I’ve been writing about slot machines for greater than 39 years. These decisions are primarily based on what I favored as a participant. It’s a subjective evaluation by somebody who has been round slot machines almost 4 a long time.
I might additionally word that aside from maybe the highest three, the rankings themselves are a bit arbitrary. The numbers might be combined and matched.
So here’s what I favored within the new crop of slot video games coming quickly to a on line casino close to you.
DUCK DOLLARS • Eclipse Gaming Methods
It could shock many who my decide for the “Better of Present” this yr is just not from one of many big and well-established slot producers—and that it’s a Class II sport, out there solely in tribal casinos. However this sport is obvious enjoyable. The three-reel base sport is nearly an afterthought to the bonus, during which you’re capturing at geese and targets on a transferring video duplicate of a carnival capturing gallery displayed on a giant portrait display screen. For all of the hold-and-spin bonuses and pot assortment options which can be ubiquitous on slot video games today, capturing geese in a gallery is an entertaining departure from the norm.
NFL • Aristocrat Gaming
Aristocrat displayed six video games in its collection of slots primarily based on a license with the Nationwide Soccer League. Firstly of play, you’re invited to decide on your group from the logos of all 32 NFL groups. Whenever you decide, all graphics and reel symbols change to reflect your group, and video footage within the bonus rounds switches to depict precise sport video from that group’s most up-to-date season. Bonuses reflect soccer occasions, from a “four-quarter” hold-and-spin occasion to “Interception,” which immediately adjustments a shedding spin right into a successful one. Every sport within the collection is in a different format. If you happen to’re a soccer fan, don’t miss this one.
Kong: Cranium Island • Mild & Surprise
That is the most effective depiction of a display screen monster since Mild & Surprise’s final one, final yr’s Frankenstein. What makes it particular is the cupboard. Known as Horizon, it’s a 75-inch portrait monitor in entrance of an built-in LED wrap-around show, all built-in into a completely immersive sport. On this format, the footage of the large ape from the 2017 Warner Brothers film simply jumps out at you. It’s a compelling play expertise, to make certain.
Scorching Spot Multipliers • Everi
I’ve at all times cherished video games that get away from the usual reel setup, and nobody does that higher than Everi. (Crush is considered one of my favourite video games.) On this sport, as an alternative of reels, the display screen shows a big bonus wheel over “X”- and “Y”-shaped reel arrays (relying on the bottom sport). Values touchdown within the heart reel are elevated by multipliers showing on the reels that type the sides of the “X” or the “Y.” It’s a enjoyable departure from the five-by-three reel array.
Whitney Houston • IGT
Exterior of Everi’s nice Willie Nelson video games, there hasn’t been an enormous music-themed slot collection for some time. That is it, and it’s probably the greatest. As with Mild & Surprise, the cupboard is the rationale—the SkyRise, with two stacked 55-inch displays creating an enormous canvas on which is displayed an array of footage of Houston performing her most memorable songs. The visuals listed below are spectacular, and the sound system doesn’t disappoint.
Puzzle Time • Gaming Arts
This sport has one of the crucial intelligent bonus rounds we’ve seen in fairly a while. The item is to finish a jigsaw puzzle. Featured on the large Vert-X Grand cupboard, the sport shows three unfinished puzzles on the prime of the display screen. The reel symbols embody a whole lot of puzzle items, and letters. The three puzzles behave like assortment pots, and the purpose is to type clusters of puzzle photographs on the reels to finish a puzzle for a bonus prize. The unfinished puzzles stay in place when the participant leaves the machine, so new gamers can scout the financial institution for almost full puzzles.
Satan’s Lock All-In • Bluberi
Anybody who loved final yr’s hit Bluberi sport Satan’s Lock will love this one. Known as Satan’s Lock All-In, it’s featured on a brand new cupboard, the Beacon Elite, that includes a 49-inch J-curve portrait monitor. The graphics of the Satan’s Lock collection have been improved, and new characters have been added to the sport’s story, together with the satan’s “Evil Twin,” the “Satan’s Mother,” and “Pig Princess,” who add enjoyable and profitable options to the lock-and-spin bonus from the unique. All seem on the display screen periodically to reinforce the bonus options.
Stuffed Cash • Konami Gaming, Inc.
I at all times cherished community-style bonus occasions, and this sport has a very good one. Featured on the brand new “43×3” cupboard—that’s three stacked 43-inch displays—the Stuffed Coin collection reprises the favored “Large Coin” thriller function first seen within the sport Ocean Spin. The highest display screen streams bonus awards and 4 jackpots throughout all machines on the financial institution. Randomly, the sport’s major character—pig or toad—will seem on the display screen to award one or two of the quantities streaming throughout the highest, in a bank-wide group play expertise.
Squid Sport • Mild & Surprise
This sport relies on the Netflix collection Squid Sport. This system is a fantasy collection depicting groups of contestants enjoying youngsters’s video games—for his or her lives. Losers of the competitions, together with a tug-of-war, Crimson Mild/Inexperienced Mild and Glass Bridge, fall to their deaths in a fantasy drama not not like Starvation Video games. L&W has boiled all these fantasy competitions into bonus rounds in 4 inaugural base video games, during which gamers watch competitions wrapped into different slot mechanics.
Tarzan vs. Wild Aristocrat Gaming
Aristocrat’s Tarzan collection has at all times been in style, however this sport is particular as a result of it’s introduced on the brand new King Max cupboard— the identical outsized cupboard that homes the first NFL sport. The massive display screen is used for sweeping visuals of Tarzan swinging via the jungle, to gorgeous effect. The sport facilities on a twolevel wheel function during which a wheel spin can yield credit, jackpots or free video games.
An outer wheel awards multipliers that improve the inner-wheel prize by 2X to 20X.
