Dolphin Reef

Dolphin Reef Slot Review

It's time to take another trip under the sea for a dolphin slot game. There's a few about and it always seems to be a popular theme. This one comes from NextGen and is a fun game to play but there are better ones out there.

This is a five reel slot and has a total of 20 paylines for you to try and win some money on. The minimum cost of playing the game is £0.01 and the maximum £40 (20 lines at £2 a line). Just choose a betting level that you feel comfortable with.

The background to the game is an underwater scene but one that's nowhere near as spectacular as seen in
Microgamings's superior 'Dolphin Quest.' That statement is exemplified by the symbols in this game. Rather than going the whole hog like 'Dolphin Quest', this game has a lesser amount of aquatic symbols and pads the reels out with the playing card numbers. They must have been in a really lazy mood the day they designed the symbols because we get nine through to ace here.

The theme-related symbols we do get include a dolphin, sea horse, turtle, a starfish and an organe tropical fish. I'm not quite sure what that is specializing more in slot reviews than underwater biology.

The wild symbol acts a little bit differently in this game. It's the dolphin who substitutes for all the other symbols and that includes the scatter. When it does get you a winning combination there's a cute bit of animation to help you celebrate.

When you do get a win (apart from in the bonus game) there's a chance to gamble your winnings. This is another totally unoriginal part of the game. Yes folks it's the guess the next card gamble feature. Do I really need to tell you this one? Ok I will then, double your win if you can guess the colour of the next card or quadruple it by successfully naming the next suit. They could at least have had a dolphin on the pack of cards or something theme-related.

There's also a scatter symbol which is a locked treasure chest that was probably borrowed from a pirate slot game. The bonus symbol is the dolphin and this plays an important part in triggering the free spins round, more about that in a moment.

You can also set an autoplay allowing you some time away from the screen if you so wish. This ranges from five to 500 spins.

Bonus Games

You need the cheerful dolphin to land on reels two and four in order to get some free spins. This gives you five which doesn't sound all that generous but there's a bit more to this game. Reels two and four will expand and become totally wild. Now the chance of you getting plenty of wins suddenly increases. To make the game look better the dolphin swims between the reels during each of the free spins, possibly trying to make you forget you've only been given five of them.

Conclusion

There are definitely better dolphin related games around. The strong point here though is the bonus feature which includes the expanding wilds. You can get some decent wins from this. A lot more work could have been put into the graphics, gamble feature and choice of symbols.