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Wizards are very much in vogue at the moment, whether it is Merlin of King Arthur's court, Gandalf from Lord of the Rings or Dumbledore from the Harry Potter series of books and films, old men with white beards and magical powers seem to hold a real niche in the US public consciousness.
So with that in mind, Realtime Gaming have released another exciting slot called Wild Wizards. Now be careful here, this is a different game to the one with the same name released by Saucify a little while back, so ensure that you load up the right copy when you intend to play (better still, check out the fantastic casino sign up offer below offering you 100 Free Spins to make doubly sure).
So are these Wild Wizards going to leave you spellbound with delight, or are they as mad as a cauldron full of frogs? We'll take a brief look at the main points of the game first, and then we'll take a far more in depth review of the slot below.
Overview
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Presentation
The Wild Wizard slot is set up very much like most other Realtime Gaming slots and if you have played any of their output before at any US-based casino, then you will quickly be familiar with how the slot is set up and how it plays.
The backdrop for the slot is the Wizards realm which consists of green foliage and distant mountains under somewhat leaden skies. The progressive jackpots (of which there are two, Major and Minor) are displayed in the top right corner of the screen. The main controls of the slot are at the foot of the page with the ability to select the Speed of the slot, the number of lines in play, the size of your bet per line and the Spin button all easily visible. You can also use the Auto Play button to play through a predetermined number of spins.
The sound of the slot is nicely done and the way the game plays with little animations for the Wizards and the sound effects really enhancing the experience well.
What's on the reels?
The symbols on the reels are the usual mix of symbols that you will be familiar with if you have played any type of Realtime Gaming slot before. The lower value symbols on the reels are the playing card symbols, which run from 9 through to the Ace. You can win between 5 coins and 150 coins by landing between three and five of these symbols on a payline.
There are four higher value symbols on the reels too and they start with the collection of bottles and jars (presumably containing all kinds of strange wizard-made potions), the wizards hat, the wizards home and a rather wise looking owl. These higher value symbols offer payouts for just two landed on a payline (although these are small value wins of two to five coins, up to a maximum of 750 coins if you can land five of the owls on a payline.
The other standard feature on the reels is the Book of Spells scatter symbol, which offers you a chance to win 2x, 10x or 50x your total bet if you land three, four or five of them across the reels.
Wild Features
The Wizard himself is the in game Wild symbol and he appears on the second, third, fourth and fifth reels of the slot. The Wild can be used to replace other symbols to create winning paylines including the Scatter symbol.
The good news is that the Wizard is also an Expanding Wild which means that when one of the symbols is landed on the reels, it will expand across the reel to cover it entirely. This means that it is easier to trigger more than one winning payline, especially if you can land multiple Wizard symbols across the reels.
Free Spins Features
The good news is that there are a whole host of different bonus features tied in with the Free Spins round. You trigger free spins on the Wild Wizard slot in a slightly different way than usual too. You need to land the Book of Spells scatter symbol on the first reel followed by the Wizard wild symbol on the fifth reel on the same spin and that triggers the free spins bonus features.
When you achieve this, the Wizard then activates one of the five different bonus games available on the slot they are as follows:
Other Bonus Features
The other main bonus feature of the slot is the fact that this is a progressive jackpot game. There are two jackpots available to be won, which are the Minor and Major jackpots and these can be won at any time during the game as they are awarded on a random basis after a spin. Any progressive wins are added to any wins that you have achieved in the game on that spin.
Best Feature of the Wild Wizards slot
Without doubt the best feature of the Wild Wizards slot is the fact that there are so many different free spins games to try out. This does help you play through the somewhat repetitive base game to try and unlock the different bonus games and you'll quickly decide which ones of the bonuses offer you the best returns.
The presentation of the slot is also excellent and the game plays nicely even at a faster pace of spin. The novel use of the Scatter with the Wild symbol to access the Free Spins bonus is also a nice touch and the payouts, especially for five Scatter symbols on the reels are excellent value.
What does Wild Wizards slot lack?
If there is one thing that the Wild Wizards slot can be criticized for it is the disparity in its payouts. Unfortunately, if you are playing the maximum 25 lines on a spin, then you often need to hit at least four, if not five of a symbol on a payline in order to trigger a win that will offer you any sort of profit on your wager. Most of the wins of three symbols or below only offer a win that is less than your initial wager.
Unfortunately, this does impact on how attractive the base game is quite considerably and puts added pressure on you to get a decent return when you trigger one of the five bonus features (which admittedly do offer the potential for some excellent returns).
Conclusion
Wild Wizards is a real mixed bag for me and it doesn't quite conjure up the goods to lift it into the upper echelons of the slot industry. The base game is a tad repetitive and is stymied further by a lack of value wins, with so many wins being less than what you actually pay as a wager to get the reels spinning.
However, if you are patient and can play through this then you can find some real gems hidden in the bonus features, where some truly excellent payouts can be found. The way the slot uses scatters and wilds together to trigger the bonus feature is also nicely done and the fact the Wild symbols expand across the reels does offer you the chance of additional payline wins.
All in all, this is a decent slot but its lack of play value in the base game does not help its appeal, although progressive jackpots being available do help it appeal to more slot players.
Ratings
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