Are you nostalgic? If so, you can take a trip back to 2013 for this Reel Rush slot game, which looks back even further to the heyday of the fruit slot and the eight-bit video game with its bright acid colours, and super-simple symbols.
The stand-out feature of this game is a gimmick – the hiding behind tiles of some of the reels to give a more video game-like experience. However, unlike many a slot gimmick this one – like the more-than 3,000 bet-ways – has certainly stood the test of time, so perhaps deserves now to be given a more dignified title.
There’s a nice naïve feel to this game, for which the perfect word is “friendly”. But it’s not without serious potential for dedicated slot players, who will look at a top prize of 480,000 coins and make a real rush for these reels.
Should you click into this trip to the world of consoles past?
Let’s take a look in this Reel Rush slot review.
Let’s start with the two standout figures in this game. Normally, we can write these reviews and count on putting in the boring old industry-standard phrase, “on a five-by-three grid”. No such stuff here: the layout of Reel Rush is not fixed. It has five reels and has – from left to right (at game start) – one, three, five, three, one rows of symbols. This changes as you play, with an underlying grid of five-by-five being revealed or hidden.
The other figure that is unusual is a 97% RTP. This figure is not a measure of your expectations of a particular playing session, but a long-term measure of a game’s lifetime performance. And, this is only decimal places above the usual industry figures of 95-96%, but nevertheless, it is generous.
That figure is no doubt helped by the 480,000 coin top prize, that is awarded from bets that can start at 0.01 coins and rise to 2 coins (usually £). Please check the prizes, payout limits, and betting rules at the site you’re playing at. You can play this game anywhere where Flash is supported, which you may have to enable in your browser.
Strange-looking grids aside, you’ll be happily clicking or tapping on Reel Rush’s controls, which are completely approachable to anyone who has ever played an online video slot.
On your desktop, you’ll see a control panel at the bottom of the screen.
Here you’ll find a “paytable” button at the left, over a Bet window showing the total wager. Bets are set with a “level” meter that sits to the left of the main controls. They’re set up in the usual way with a big, central “spin” button, autoplay (offering the usual features), and a max bet button to the right. You can set the coin value to the right of that, and to the fight of that are a pair of windows showing your balance, and a Win window.
You’ll find settings, sounds, and help functions in the game frame.
What do you see when do click on that pay-table button?
The symbols are sweet-like, with the lowest payers being a set of ovals. The purple, lime green, yellow, orange and red all pay five, 15, and 50-times stake for three, four, and five. Then there’s a set of digitised fruits: the blueberry (we think!) pays 10, 50, and 100x stake. The raspberry pays 10, 60, and 150-times stake. The green fruit (is that a gooseberry?) pays 10, 75, and 200-tikes stake. The lemon pays 10, 100, and 250-times stake. The pineapple pays 10, 150, and 500-times stake. The strawberry pays 10, 250, and 1,000-times stake.
There are some generous numbers in there, and players who hit towards the top of the paytable will be rubbing their hands.
They’ll be even happier if they hit:
There’s a wild – just the word “wild” which is a bit dull – in the main game, but the big news here is a free spins game. This is played with the full reels – five-by-five – up, giving players access to the full 3,125 ways to win.
These spins are triggered via the respin bonus. That clicks in after any win in the main game. With each spin, the reel grid is revealed, racking up the ways to win count (135, 405, 675, 1,125, 1,875) with each succeeding spin that a win triggers.
If at the fifth spin you win again, you hit the free spins round, getting a set of eight free games.
There’ll you find some even bigger wins!
There are 3125 ways to win on this classic slot game which means you are going to have absolutely no idea which lines are winners and what you are looking for on the reels. Spin and hope the coin counter goes up in your favour is the name of the game. With a 97% RTP (return to player) you have a good chance of it doing so.
The whole aim of this game is to trigger the “Free Spins” feature which will give you an immensely satisfying crescendo of wins. You will get three or four re-spins fairly routinely, and each re-spin increases the pay-table If you manage to get lucky and get five re-spins you’ll trigger eight free spins and 3,125 pay-lines or “Winways”.
Because the focus of the Reel Rush slot game is on triggering the re-spins, there are no other features in this game to distract you. Gone are “Sticky Wilds”, “Avalanche Symbols” and the other innovations that Net Entertainment has woven so successfully into its slots games over the years.
The additional feature of this game that makes it so enduringly appealing are the sounds and music which will appeal to fans of the “Candy Crush” game that swept across mobile devices in 2015. It makes for an incredibly addictive gaming experience, and if you’ve played the Candy Crush game (and who hasn’t!?), then you’ll know exactly what to expect.
There are no jackpots or progressive slots in the Reel Rush slot game, so it’s not going to swell your bank balance by a life-changing amount, but that’s not the point of this slots game.
The point is FUN, and this slots game has it in spades. Once you start the free spin feature rounds you’ll be locked into an energetic “Reel Rush”, and that is the whole point of the game. You’ll experience a constant winning feeling and just like playing on the Nintendo 64 when it’s time for a manic action you won’t be disappointed.
Forget the old-fashioned theme, this game’s retro-futurist take on a classic slot is bang up to date, really clever, and super playable.
Clever design, graphics, effects and sounds combine to produce a compelling theme that has depth and adds dimension to your gaming experience.
Rather than add on complicated, flow-stopping bonus games, Reel Rush slot sweeps you along into a big win sequence with a clever mix of respins-into-free-spins that will get your adrenalin rushing and your balance ticking up and up and up!
Messing about with the reels on a slot doesn’t always work. It can be confusing, and there’s a reason why the standard grid has become standard. However, there are no such problems here, and the tiles that hide the corners of these spinners are cleverly integrated into the playing experience – the reel set-up is more than just a bolt-on and more than just a gimmick.
A great top prize, good gambling options, and a super-generous RTP also offer some seriously good returns from a seriously light-hearted game. The bonus games work beautifully well, and – if you see that fifth respin click in a big win – could see players picking up some very big prizes.
Try something different, but reassuringly familiar, by checking out Reel Rush at your favourite online casino site now. We reckon you’ll be rushing back to play it again if you do.