Reel Strike

Reel Strike Slot Review

Let’s take a trip down to the river bank to do some fishing. That’s the theme for ‘Reel Strike’ from Microgaming and it’s a jolly slot game with a little bit of a twist. There are still some good chances to get some big wins though.

The game has a total of five reels with three rows and 15 paylines. That’s not a fixed amount and you have to decide how many lines to activate, your coin level and how many coins to play on each game. As will be explained, the way the bonus game is triggered has a slightly different influence on your stake. Playing the game costs between just £0.01 and £75.

There’s no backdrop to the game but we do get a watery soundtrack. Symbols are fairly basic and include several fish with a shark and flying fish included. Not sure what the others are, if they’re not cod or plaice my fish knowledge is rather vague. There’s also a fishing boat, the Reel Strike logo and the throttle control for the fishing boat.

The wild symbol is the fishing rod and five of those on an active payline wins you 10,000x your line bet. The wild can substitute for all other symbols to get you wins, yes you read that right, it's all symbols. More about that shocking piece of news in a moment. The bonus symbol is the propeller and that helps get you into the bonus game.

The slot can be played in regular and expert mode. The only real difference is that in the expert mode there's the option to set an autoplay feature. For all the details about the game go to the paytable. Then have some free games to see exactly how the game runs.

Bonus Game

The bonus game in 'Reel Strike' is of the free spins variety but triggering it is slightly different from a lot of games. Usually we tell you how the wild can't substitute for the scatter or bonus symbols as that would help get you into the bonus game. Well in this game it can substitute for the bonus symbol and that's really helpful. However, you do need to get five of the propeller bonus symbols on an active payline to get some free spins. That higher number and need to be on an active payline probably explains why you need some help from the wild. This means you should be activating as many paylines as you can afford in order to give yourself a good chance of getting into the bonus game.

Once you have managed to get into the bonus game, the next job is to work out how many free spins you've won. You're shown six boats and you have to make a choice to determine your free spins which is between two and seven and then another to decide your multiplier which can be between 1x and 7x. Then the free spins begin and unfortunately they can't be re-triggered.

Conclusion

An interesting slot from Microgaming. The theme is a decent one and it's good to see there are no playing card symbols used. The bonus game is a good one and the fact that the wild can sub for the bonus symbol is interesting but can make it a more expensive game to play. Still worth a play though.