Slots Hero

Normally I am not a fan of online slots games that use the traditional 9, 10, J, Q, K and A symbols. Even when they are ‘dressed up’ to match the theme of the slots game, they still seem like a cop-out in terms of design. But the traditional symbols in Lucky Stars just do not seem to be ugly or out of space.

Visually speaking, Lucky Stars is a beautiful online slots game with bold colors used sparingly with parchment colored reels and a night sky behind it all. As far as the graphics go, this is a well designed game.

Lucky Stars is a five reel online slots game from Microgaming with twenty paylines. Wagers per line range from $0.01 up to $0.25, making this slots game playable for low-stakes and mid-stakes.

As I said, graphically this is a very cool looking slots game. Traditional symbols aside there is a human-esque representation of Water, Wind, Fire and Earth. But the White Globe and the Wheel are the symbols to look closely for.

The White Globe is the Wild and will substitute for all symbols other than the Wheel. But is the White Globe is a part of a winning combination it will double the winnings of the combination. On its own, the White Globe has the highest payout at 10,000 coins if five of them are landed.

The Wheel is the Scatter here and it offers a scatter payout multiplied by your total wager no matter where it lands on the reels. Landing three of more will award seven free spins and a 3x multiplier.

But before you can have your free spins you have to choose a star sign from the list provided and spin the zodiac wheel. If the wheel stops on your chosen star sign you will be given a choice of fifteen free spins with a 3x multiplier or a bonus game. In the bonus game you will choose five constellations to reveal bonus amounts. But if the wheel does not land on your star sign you will receive a bonus amount of ten times your triggering bet. After you complete the bonus game or the fifteen free spins, if you have won them, you will have those first seven spins.

Now about the triggering of the bonus feature. Unfortunately I have to say that it is not an easy one to trigger. While the White Globe will show up fairly often and two Wheels will land a fair amount, landing three or more of that Wheel just does not seem to happen. I attribute this to an abundance of symbols over all.

But if you are looking for a relaxing and beautiful online slots game to play for low-stakes or for fun this would be a good option.

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The bonus game on an online slots game is what slots players shoot for…or rather spin for. While the jackpot is what is ultimately desired, bonus games can offer some really nice payouts and help keep your bankroll alive until you hit a high payout or a jackpot.

What makes for a good bonus game?

First off a bonus game must be triggerable. I do not know how many times I have read through the paytables and rules, and read about a pretty cool sounding bonus game, only to find out when playing that it is almost impossible to trigger. There are too many different symbols, too many on the reels or just too many multiples to line up the required number of symbols to trigger the bonus game.

This is why I prefer online slots with bonus games that are triggered by the right number of symbols landing anywhere on the reels. The bonus symbol can be found on all the reels, and all you have to do is land three of them anywhere on the board. These are generally easier to trigger.

Then there are those online slots games in which the symbols can land anywhere on the reels but the symbols are only on certain reels. Like the symbol is only on reels one, three and five; and you have to land the bonus game symbol on all three of those reels at the same time. Still relatively easy, but not as great as the first one I discussed.

The last kind of bonus on an online slots game is when you have to land all three of the triggering symbols on an active payline. This one is just frustrating because you will see three of the bonus symbols land on the reels but they are not on an active payline. It has that ‘close but no cigar’ feeling to it.

I tend to look for online slots games with bonuses that can be triggered by the symbols landing anywhere on the reels. The bonus game is usually easier to trigger and game play is less frustrating overall. Because do you really keep playing a slots game that frustrates you? No.

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Yes, I know. That title sounds incredibly weird. But they are all in the online slots game Chain Mail from Microgagming.

This slots game is themed with the Price and his Stead on a mission to save Princess Roxy from the evil King Mordread. Apparently this is done with the Prince trying to contact Princess Roxy through a variety of means, the most prominent of which is good ol’ standard mail. How the Bucket of Chicken Legs, Ice Cream Cone, Chocolate Bar, Pizza and Kabob figure into the mail or rescuing a princess is beyond me, but they are all here.

…Maybe she got hungry waiting.

Wagers start at $0.01 and go up to $0.50, making this more of a low-stakes to mid-stakes online slots game. And while the choice of symbols is a bit odd, you will find yourself drawn into this strange fairy tale rescue.

There is a Wild in this fairy tale land of princesses and fast food. It is the Wax Seal. When the Wax Seal makes up a part of a winning combination it will double the winnings of the combination it completes. The Wax Seal will also payout the most in a regular game: 6,000 coins for five Wilds.

There is also the Mail Bag, which is of course made out of chain mail. The Mail Bag is the Scatter and will payout no matter where it lands on the reels. Only two are necessary to win a Scatter payout.

Then there is the Castle Door. A Castle Door must land on reels one, three and five. The do not have to be on an active payline to trigger the bonus game—just on those reels

The Chain Mail bonus game has five rounds in which the slots player choose a door from the first row. He will be awarded the amount behind the door, unless the door reveals Princess Roxy or King Mordread. Princess Roxy will award all the coins behind all the doors in that row. King Mordread will end the bonus game.

The graphics make this a rather intriguing online slots game. Fairy tale meets fast food. You keep playing it just because you cannot look away. Strange graphics aside, this online slots game seems prone to small payouts, but since the payouts are smaller than your total bet this slots game becomes like any other slots game.

The bonus game is not too hard to trigger. And as long as you don’t choose the door with King Mordread in the first three rows, it will payout pretty decently—and that is without opening a door with Princess Roxy behind it. If you open a door with her behind it, you will have quite the payout.

On the whole, food symbols aside, this is not a bad online slots game. And you get used to seeing buckets of chicken legs and ice cream cones spin past.

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For some strange secret reason casinos guard the par sheets for their slot machines like they are the most valuable treasure ever to be had. But as a special treat to loyal and long standing players, sometimes a casino host will reveal—reveal, not show—the par sheet of a loyal player’s favorite machine.

But what do these sheets really say and are they really worth guarding that closely?

A par sheet is a statistical analysis of a slot machine and its programming. It is not an analysis of its performance.

A slot machine is programmed when it is manufactured. This is when the par sheets are made. Since the slot machine has not yet been played in a casino, but it has a par sheet, so this proves that a par sheet is not an analysis of performance.

Really what a par sheet holds is information about how the slot machine is supposed to perform. Casino staff can see if a machine is performing ‘on par’ by checking its actual performance against what the par sheet says.

Par sheets give details such as how many times a symbol appears on a reel and the number of hits each combination should have. That last one, it is not used to predict when a combination will hit though. It allows the casino staff to monitor a slot machine. Say a combination is supposed to have 92 hits, but the recorded hits show that the machine is hitting that combination for a lot fewer hits, it means that something in the programming is off and the machine needs to be looked at, possibly repaired.

Another statistic given on a par sheet is the calculation of that slot machine’s payout percentage. This will be broken down by each number of coins wagered, with the payout percentage for each coin wagered given. This gives the slot machine a minimum payout percentage and a maximum payout percentage.

If you are ever given the opportunity to see a par sheet, especially one for your favorite slots, take a look. It will not give you any secrets on how to beat the machine or win more money from it—that sort of information is not on a par sheet.

But it is interesting to see the ‘behind-the-scenes’ view of you machine; you can see how many times a symbol appears on a reel. And while such information won’t help your slots strategy (it does not tell you the order of the symbols on a reel) it does make for interesting knowledge. Think of it as gaining trivia knowledge about your favorite slots machine.

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A few days ago I wrote a review of an online slots game from Microgaming that was very much geared towards lady slots players, Sneak a Peek Hunky Heroes. But Microgaming was not to leave guy slots players out of the Sneak a Peek fun. For the guys’ amusement there is Sneak a Peek Doctor Doctor.

Doctor Doctor is, in its design, the same as Hunky Heroes. The symbols have been changed to reflect a sexy stay in the hospital with doctors and nurses that a man would dream of having take care of him during a hospital stay. After the nurses and doctors, other symbols include a Band-Aid, a Stethoscope, a Thermometer, a Blood Pressure Machine and Medicine.

But there are three symbols that, after the hot hospital staff, a guy will want to see.

The first is the Patient. He is the Scatter and he will payout wherever he lands on the reels.

The next symbol is the Lips, the key to the Select a Smooch bonus game. Land three Lips on reels one, two and three and you will be awarded seven free spins with a 3x multiplier. During the free spins, a Blue Pill on reel five will add another multiplier up to 3x; and a Yellow Pill on reel four will add up to five more free spins.

But the best bonus game a guy could ask for is the Sneak a Peek Bonus. To trigger this bonus round, guys, you need to land the Zipper on reel one. A square will slide across that row and stop on reel five. If one of the nurses or doctors land inside that square you will be whisked away to the Sneak a Peek bonus game.

Here you choose twelve out of the fifteen blocks. Match any three pieces of the clothing type and it will be removed from the selected nurse or doctor. Oh, and a multiplier will be awarded each time a piece of clothing is removed. Not only is this a rewarding bonus game, it is also a lot of fun to play.

Naturally there is a Wild in this online slots game. It will help complete winning combinations, which means that it will activate the animation of the nurses and doctors, which gentlemen slots players are bound to find entertaining.

Visual appeal aside, the game play is not as great as its Hunky Heroes counterpart. This sneak a peek is not triggered as much as the Hunky Heroes version. And one wonders what this says about our culture—that men are more willing to sit in front of a slots game than women so that the Doctor Doctor bonus game will not trigger as often?

The game play is rewarding in that it is entertaining. This, like Hunky Heroes, is not an online slots game to play in a search for money, but simply for entertainment. And in that, this is a fantastic slots game to play. And ladies and gentlemen should thank Microgaming for their Sneak a Peek slots games.

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Another TV game show made into an online slots game is Vegas Technology’s The Right Prize. The Right Prize, a five reel online slots game with twenty five paylines, is taken from the classic TV game show The Price is Right.

The online slots game version has the same sort of feel to it—the flashing bulb lights, grand prizes, a Host—who in no way resembles Bob Barker—Game Show Girls and the Audience. And like most Vegas Technology’s online slots games, a whole range of players can play this one with wagers starting at $0.01 per line and going up to $10.

The Right Prize does feature some unique animation. While it is not uncommon for symbols to have some sort of animation when a winning combination is lined up, three symbols in The Right Prize do things a tad bit differently. The Cruise, Sports Car and Boat not only have their own animation, but a plane, car and boat, respectively, will slide out over top of the reels for some of its own animation.

The Wild is the Right Prize logo and it will substitute for all symbols other than the Scatter and the Bonus symbols. As far as non-bonus symbols go, the Wild is the highest paying one at 10,000 coins if five Wilds are landed.

The Scatter goes simply by its name. It will payout no matter where it lands, with a maximum of 100 coins for five Scatters. When at least three Scatters are landed ten free spins are awarded with a 3x multiplier, with the possibility of more free spins being won during the Free Spins Feature

The Wheel is the symbol that triggers, not a single bonus round, but one of four different games. A slots player could land the three Wheels on any active payline and trigger a bonus game, but not know which game they would be playing: Pick a Prize, Chip Drop, Spin to Win or The Right Prize.

I am going to assume since so much of the Right Prize’s framework is built off of the Price is Right that the bonus games will also be closely tied to the TV game show. I cannot tell you exactly how these bonus games work since in an hour and a half of play was not able to trigger one. So that right there tells you something about this online slots game.

Payouts in regular game play tend to be small but happen often enough to keep your bankroll afloat. Although I was not able to trigger a bonus game, I will say that the smaller payouts do not drain a player as fast as other slots games. This is a game that can be played for a bit without fear that your entire bankroll will be wiped out. But I would only recommend low-stakes play since we all know hoe finicky slots games can be.

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Typically when we come across monsters in old black and white movies and cartoons we are not scared of them. And when we see them in online slots games they do not scare us then either.

Certainly the monsters in Franken Cash are not scary, but that is not what makes this slots game frightening.

Franken Cash is a five reel online slots game with twenty paylines. The theme, you might have guessed, is Frankenstein. It has all the typical images that we associate with Frankenstein: the Bride, Igor, the Doctor, a Castle, a Brain and Frankenstein himself…or itself.

There are two bonus games for this online slots game.

The first is the Electrifying Bonus Feature. It is triggered by the Scatter symbol of Frankenstein. In order to trigger it, a slots player must land two, three, four or five of him on adjacent reels.

The other is the Free Spins Bonus Feature, which is also triggered by a Scatter symbol: the Switch. Landing three, four or five Switches will trigger the free spins with a 2x multiplier.

I would love to tell you more about these two bonus games but I was not able to trigger them. In fact, it was not often that I even got a regular Scatter payout from either.

And that is what makes this online slots game frightening. It does not even seem willing to make small payouts. I spent more time spinning the reels without landing any winning combinations. The only symbol that seems to be able to be landed is the Logo. But it seems that this online slots game sucks up your bankroll like Frankenstein does electricity.

It also does not help that there is not a Wild symbol. I believe it is the lack of a Wild symbol that makes it so difficult to land any combinations. As for the bonus features, it seems that an abundance of other symbols makes it hard to land the Scatter symbols on adjacent reels to trigger the bonus games.

Even though the graphics are visually appealing and there is a fun feeling with this monster-themed online slots game, I would recommend steering clear of this one.

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We all like bonuses at online casinos.

Since slots games are set against us and designed to take our money slowly over time, slots players like it when they can find large bonuses at online casinos. And Go Casino has one of the largest Welcome Bonuses that I have seen. They are giving their new players $20,000.

Now, new slots players do not receive the $20,000 all in one go, no pun intended. Players will receive up to $1,000 free on their first twenty deposits.

This Welcome Bonus works as a 100% deposit match bonus. Whatever the slots player deposits, the casino will match 100% up to $1,000 for the first twenty deposits. So to take full advantage of this deposit a player must deposit $1,000 on their first deposit and all other deposits.

Now if a slots player is crafty and plays this right, he can take the first deposit and meet the play through requirement. Then, when he has made $1,000, withdraw that $1,000 and then re-deposit it to get the 100% match on the next deposit.

Granted, this method will take some time and careful monitoring of your bankroll, but then they say that good things come to those who wait.

Now for the play through requirements. Slots players must wager ten times the combined value of the amount deposited and the bonus amount given before any of the bonus amount of money. If you deposit $1,000 and receive $1,000 from the bonus you have a total of $2,000. So you must wager $20,000 before you can withdraw any of the bonus money.

As far as Welcome Bonuses and their wager requirements, the offering at Go is not all that bad. The ten times wager requirement is better than the twenty times stipulated by other online casinos.

If you are looking for a new online casino to sign up for, Go Casino is worth some serious consideration with their Welcome Bonus.

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This is one of the reasons why I like Microgaming. All ladies who enjoy playing the slots will love this game.

Microgaming has given us Sneak a Peek Hunky Heroes. And the sneak a peek part is exactly how it sounds.

This five reel, nine line online slots game features five very good looking guys whose day-in-day-out jobs make them our heroes: an Air Force Pilot, a Naval Officer, a Police Officer, a Firefighter and a Life Guard. Also on the reels are their respective head gear and the Male Symbol.

The Male Symbol is the Scatter. It not only pays out no matter where it lands, but it also has some rather suggestive animation. It does not trigger any free spins but once you read about the two bonus features you will not mind at all.

The first slots bonus game is the Pick a Package Bonus. Among the symbols on the reels are some Men’s Briefs. Landing a pair on reels one, two and three will trigger the bonus game, in which you get to pick one of the pairs of briefs. This is the how the free spins are triggered on this game. It is possible to win up to seven free spins with a 3x multiplier on them.

But the free spins may not stop at three. During the free spins landing a pink square on the fifth reel will add another multiplier to your remaining spins—up to 3x added. Or if you land a yellow square on the fourth reel will add up to five more spins. Each of those squares can be landed more than once while the free spins feature is active. In playing I have wound up with sixteen free spins in one triggering of the game.

But the best bonus feature is the Sneak a Peek. And one of the best bonus games offered on a slots game.

If the Zipper is landed on the first reel, it will slide a square across that row to the stop on the fifth reel. If, when the fifth reel stops, one of the five gentlemen is inside that square you can undress him. I am not joking.

The gentleman whose picture lands inside the square will then appear on the second screen along with fifteen squares. Three of those squares hide Bummers and the other twelve hide tiles with four articles of the gentleman’s clothing. When picking squares, if the tiles reveal three of the same article of clothing, that article of clothing will vanish off the gentleman.

Oh, the bonus amount! I suppose you would like to know what you win in this slots bonus game as well. Each time an article of clothing is removed a multiplier is revealed. After the slots player has chosen twelve of the fifteen squares all the multipliers won are added together and then multiplied by the total bet.

The payouts on this online slots game are not too bad. They can keep your bankroll afloat. But it is the game play that keeps players coming back for more. This is by far one of the most entertaining online slots games that I have played!

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When you think of a casino one of the things that comes to mind are the sounds. A casino floor is full of them. And the most prominent sounds come from the slot machines—the clicking of reels stopping and the sounds of coins spilling out.

Unfortunately such noises are no longer real. Video slots have taken over casinos and online casinos. The sounds we hear now are computer generated so that slots players do not lose any of the slots experience.

But how different are video slots from classic slots?

The most basic difference between the two is that classic slots have actual reels, whereas video slots have computer simulated reels. That, for the most part, is the difference between the two.

However, with the rise in technology, almost all the slot machines found in casinos nowadays are in fact video slots. So what’s the difference now?

To me the difference can be found in the style of the game itself.

When poking around online casinos players can find slots games that are very classic. They have three reels and only one payline. They also feature basic symbols, such as the BAR, Cherries and 7s. But they usually will not have any bonus games or free spins. These games I consider classic slots since they are as close to the original slot machines as you can find in a video format.

Slots games that have more than three reels—usually five reels—and multiple payline I tend to think of as video slots. They are not classic in their themes, but rather they feature monkeys, parties, game shows and any and all themes you can think of. Chances are if you can think of a theme, it exists somewhere in the slot world.

Another feature that I associate with video slots are bonus games and free spins. Classic slots games did not have such extras, which is why I associate them with video slots.

Another indicator of a video slot is its animation. Often in video slots the symbols are animated when a winning combination is landed. It is natural to think of video slots as having some sort of ‘video’ and the animation of winning symbols is just that.

So even though traditionally classic slots have actual reels, I tend to think of any three reel slots game with a traditional appearance, one payline and no bonus features as a classic slots game. And if it is a slots game with more than one payline, some sort of theme applied to it and bonus features like a bonus game or free spins, and some animation, I tend to think of it as a video slot.

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