Mega Boy Slot
If like me you are a child of the eighties and your first gaming system had the words Nintendo or SEGA emblazoned on it then I have just been treated to a preview of a game you will absolutely adore – welcome back to the wonderful world of 8 Bit arcade but now in a slot game format.
As a developer iSoftBet are known for being a little off the wall, with 3 reel slots featuring extra bonus reels and a wide variety of niche TV and movie based slots including my personal favourites Rambo and Platoon. With that in mind, I shouldn’t be surprised but pleased that the game team there managed to come up with this great retro video game style slot machine.
Whether your preference was Sonic the Hedgehog or Super Mario, you should find this 5-reel video slot fresh, fun and entertaining as beyond the theme it has some very good gameplay features added.
Theme
Just like the classic platform video games of many a misspent youth the backdrop features a clear bright blue sky, green grass and 2D flat-topped palms. The reels themselves sit on a vibrant colour display and are populated by the type of vibrant edgily rendered symbols you would expect on an arcade styled slot game.
The character symbols themselves are familiar fruit machine icons, playing card symbols through nine to ace, Cherries, bells, sevens and the like. What stands apart are the off reel characters, two cartoonish heroes who sit in boxes on the top left and right of the game reels waiting to pounce on winning combinations with special multipliers and bonuses.
Music and sound effects predictably are both cheesy and fun, I’m not sure how long the novelty or nostalgia will last with the high BPM jingles and zaps of the character actions but there is a mute button if it all gets too much and initially, at least, it is extremely entertaining. The bonus round initiating ring video sequence combined with chimes is very reminiscent of a certain blue spiky animal of my childhood!
Features
Mega Boy in its basic structure is pretty simple to follow, 5-reels, 25 fixed pay-lines, 3 symbols or more from left to right to form a winning combination. The min bet is 0.01 credit – max has yet to be confirmed but it has been stated that the game will have a max win of 60000 credits which is fair game indeed!
Bonus features are yet to be fully explained in the preview, however, there are both expanding and extended wilds available in gameplay and these can also be triggered by character interaction as can random win multipliers. This will hopefully appease fans of the scatter type bonus system as the game contains neither a scatter icon nor any other fixed bonus round to play.
Summary
I want to get my hands on this as soon as possible if I am honest, I love the idea of using the video game characters to interact with wins and bonuses rather than a fixed triggering scatter and can pass over the lack of a progressive jackpot. I do think that a free spins bonus of some sort is amiss but will give iSoftBet the benefit of the doubt until I get to try the game in free slots mode!
