September has come and gone, but how was it on the slots front? Here are the 10 best new slot games of the month, as rated by our expert reviewers.
The Grand Galore
Elk’s Grand Galore slot has a pretty basic set-up but the design itself still looks very elegant indeed. The 6 reels spin in front of what at first glance looks like some kind of Vegas entertainment venue. The golden cat symbol shows exactly which venue inspired the slot – the MGM Grand in Vegas – and it pays out the most in the base game. Anyway, you start off with 4 rows (4096 paylines), but the key to Grand Galore is the expanding reels, where each reel that is involved in a winning spin gains an extra row and then triggers a respin. That process can continue until you have 6 reels of 10 rows and a massive 1 million ways to win.
Toad’s Gift
This 5-reel, Chinese-themed slot from Playtech will never win any prizes for originality in design – it’s as kitsch as you would expect, with dragons aplenty. But the gameplay more than makes up for that, with the Toad’s Gift feature triggering several respins and the chance to enter one of 4 jackpots (top prize is 2000x). There’s also a free spins round where you can choose between 8 free spins and an 8x multiplier, or 4 free spins with an 18x multiplier.
Money Train 2
Relax Gaming isn’t as well known for high-payout slots as some of its competitors. But this follow-up to Money Train is set to change all that, as it comes with a max payout of 50,000x. Design-wise, this slot looks and sounds great – the action takes place in the engine of a train in the Wild West, with symbols made up of tough guy and gal characters, as well as a necromancer. The base game is dominated by a respins feature. It is triggered by landing 2 scatters anywhere on the reels and involves incremental multipliers on each spin until a win happens. Three scatters trigger the Money Cart Bonus, which is where those 50,000x wins are possible.
Hotline 2
NetEnt’s follow up to the Miami Vice-inspired Hotline has the same flashy neon-80’s-vibe which made slot fans fall in love with the original. As you spin the 5 reels, a soft jazz soundtrack which Jan Hammer himself would be proud of plays in the background. Hotlines play a key role in the game – these can be activated on the middle 3 reels – and selecting all 3 of them will increase the RTP somewhat. Any wild which lands in the selected zone expands to cover its whole reel. Three flamingo scatters landing in the hotline zone triggers the free spins, where you have 1944 ways to win and a chance to land the 5000x max payouts. For medium variance slot gaming with a dash of TV nostalgia, you can’t do better than Hotline 2.
Jolly Roger 2
Play n’ Go’s Jolly Roger 2 is yet another sequel in our list, but – like Money Train and Hotline – it is a definite improvement on the 2012 original. It’s a pirate slot (of course), and the graphics are top-notch, with skull rings, diamonds, and treasure chests making up the symbols. There are a ton of features in the base game, including a randomly triggered compass feature which adds multipliers of up to 10x on your spin. A bonus quest feature lets you choose from 12 scrolls, and matching scrolls trigger one of four further bonus features. The Battle Spins are the best of the lot, where you have an open-ended amount of free spins, but 3 lives – when these are exhausted, the round ends. This is excellent pirate-themed slot fun and we could play this all night.
Wild Wild Riches
This Pragmatic Play slot has a typical Irish theme, but the set of features is a cut above the rest. There are 5 reels, with the two leftmost having just 3 rows, and the remaining 3 reels having 4. It’s still easy to form paylines though, and the money collect feature is probably the most exciting one you will find in the base game. Here a series of money symbols appear on reels 3-5, and if wilds appear at the same time on reels 1 and 2, you win the value of all those symbols added together, along with multipliers. This feature also can trigger in the free spins round, and this is where the big wins will be found.
Lord of the Wilds
We don’t see too many Tarzan-themed slots, so when we heard that Red Tiger Gaming released Lord of the Wilds we swung from tree-to-tree to try it out. It’s a lot of fun, as we follow the adventures of Tarzan and Jane as they explore the jungle. The features nicely fit into the theme, with Jane’s kiss seeing all Tarzan symbols transformed into wilds, while Tarzan may randomly swing across the reels at any point, adding more wilds. The free spins are also heavily focused on wilds, with any that appear locking into place for the duration of the round.
Western Gold Megaways
The only megaways slot on our list, Western Gold comes courtesy of iSoftBet. As the title suggests, the slot has a Western theme, and is one of the best-looking in the genre, with hip flasks, guns, and other cowboy gear featuring prominently. There are no free spins to aim for, so the Western Gold Cash respins is the main feature on offer. Here we are sent to a different set of reels comprised only of scatters showing jackpot symbols or multipliers. Returns of 12,000x are possible in this main feature, and – depending on where you live – you can even buy it. All in all, Western Gold is one of the better releases we have seen in the Megaways genre this year.
Star Bounty
Pragmatic Play’s Star Bounty certainly looks like it is inspired by the Starship Troopers movie franchise. Like the film series, the symbols are made up of various attractive men and women brandishing oversized space-age weapons. However, no giant spiders are to be seen, making this slot playable by arachnophobes like myself. A missile feature may randomly land and fire off missiles to other reels, turning them wild. When this triggers in the free spins round, you can build up some colossal wins, with up to 25,000x possible. As well as that incredible max payout potential, Star Bounty also comes with a nice RTP of 96.6%, so if you like the space-age theme, we recommend you check it out.
Buffalo Hunter
This wildlife-themed slot from No Limit City has a beautiful design and allows players to take a flexible approach to their gameplay. Symbols are made up of typical North American animals, including deer, wolves, big cats, eagles and of course the buffalo himself (which pays out the most). Although there is only a very simple mystery features in the base game, the free spins round more than makes up for it. Three scatters give you the choice of extra free spins or increasing multipliers, while 5 scatters lets you combine the best of both these modifiers in the Stampede Super Bonus feature. Payouts of over 12,000x are possible here, so Buffalo Hunter can appeal to hunters of big wins as well as big game.
September 2020 wasn’t the best of months for slot innovation, with almost half our top list made up of either sequels or megaways. We are putting this down to the summer holidays, but we do hope that developers and designers will return with some creative inspiration for October. Halloween is around the corner, so we are eager to see what the studios have in store for us.