Review of the new MG slots (October 2007)

[Zoozie]

Intro:

Making the reviews has been a blast for the last few months. Lately MG has released several good slots every month after a long period of mindless clones and half-finished standard slots with themes that was not appealing or interesting. So I am a little excited so see what is in for me this month.

Again I remind you MG slot have ~95% payout, so do not play for long-time wins. Even short times wins are hard against these odds. Do do not be ashamed of yourself if you only play slots with bonuses. Doing otherwise is very costly despite the many screenshots in the winning screenshot thread. Most of them is only *100-*200 bet-size, and this amount can easy be lost again in just 15 minutes.

News/Ramblings/Discoveries:

Wagerworks:
The Elvis slot is planned to be released in the next month. (November)


Net Entertainment:
This is the first time I write about this software provider. Their slots is better than I had expected. They are way better than the Boss Media slots I mentioned last month. The graphics and sounds will not disappoint you. However they are quite standard with no really interesting features. All features are picking or freespin features, though some of the picking features are well done. But the reason I write about Net Entertainment is actually because of a serious bug (or design flaw) in one of their slots. It is in "Lucky Frog" that I happen to like. If you hit 3 bonus symbol (left-to-right) on a pay-line, it triggers the jackpot wheel(small jackpots). The slot has 25 lines and the lines are defined so some of the lines share the same first 3 reel symbols. So hitting a feature on one of these 'shared' lines should reward two jackpot games, just like they pay for the line wins twice - You have paid twice for 3 symbol wins on this line! However this combination awards only one bonus feature! I estimate the this feature contributes 10% to the slot payout% . So you basically some of the lines have 10% lower payout% than other lines. And this breaks one of the golden Zoozie rules for 5-reel slot: "Payout% shall not depend on number of lines played". If you like this slot and want to play it, the solution is simply to only play 9 lines (maybe it is 15 lines)
for which there is no shared 3-reel left-to-right pay-line.

Review:

Boogie Monsters:
40 lines.
Medium variance

No intro. The symbol graphics are once again excellent. The background music is a little to intense, I prefer something more relaxing, but I can just turn it of anyway. It is a new slot but the Franken Cash mechanics are reused, they are quite similar. One of the symbols is a monster Elvis. Hopefully I will see more Elvis symbols in my next review.


Feature 1: 13 freespins with *5 multiplier.
This is triggered upon hitting 3 adjacent freespin bonus symbols, just like Franken Cash. During the feature the scatter-and-pay-symbol pays more if it is hit on a line, again just like Fraken Cash. So I will not explain this again.

Feature 2: Hitting 3 adjacent picking bonus symbols.
On Franken Cash you only need 2 adjacent btw. You win 3 to 5 picks and each prize seems to be in the *4 to *15 bet size range to this is not so exciting. I tend to get more and more bored of these pick and reveal a small prize features. Does anyone like those picking games???

I like this slot better than Franken Cash because of the *5 multiplier compared to the *2 multiplier. Just hitting 2 of the semi-scatter symbols on a pay line gives a nice win in the feature. I tend to like high variance slot more. Remember if you play 40 lines, you decrease the variance. I never play more than 25 lines. I classified it as a medium variance slot, but it had been a 9-line slot, I would have classified it as high variance. It will play this slot later and I prefer it to Franken Cash. It is a worthy release though is has stolen from Franken Cash. But I hope the cloning stops here and no future slots is released with exactly these mechanics.


No Worries:
9 lines.
High variance

The intro is very colorful and also weird. I am not sure I get it Anyway it is there and that adds that little more uniqueness to a slot. The symbol graphics did not impress and the Australia based theme did not appeal to me, though I do love Australia.

There are wilds on all 5 reels, but they only substitute the top-pay symbols and then doubles win. Also "No Worries" has the usual scatter symbol, but they do not trigger any features. To start the only on this slot feature you must hit no less than five of the left-to-right-scatter symbols.

Feature:
I could not hit this feature in 1000+ spins! My 50$ bankroll was decimated at 0.18$/spin. I will review it later in this thread when/if I hit it, but it could take hours it seems. And I want my reviews finished as soon as possible after the release. The feature does look extremely interesting. Multiplier or freespin booster is the flavor of the month (and a good one). It gives 12-25 freespins. During the freespins a special multiplier booster symbols appears on reel 5 and increase the multiplier by 1 during the remaining freespins. The feature can not be retriggered. So if you just win 12 freespins, it could be over before it started. And during my 1400 spins the highest win was around 2.5$. So it is like "Doctor Doctor" except you now are certain to at least 12 spins compared to 4 spins!

But overall it seems hard to hit and you win nothing at all trying to hit it. So my first date with this slot was a gigantic turn-off. It seems there is a design problem with the balancing just like "Doctor Doctor". Here it was not that hard to hit the feature, but it was over before it started, though it was potentially extremely fun with the two booster symbols.

Path of the Penguin:
25 lines
Low/Medium variance
The intro gives you the impression that this slot the the MG Blockbuster slot of the month. But this is not true. The penguin/ninja based theme is a little to far out I think. This slot has a lot of the low-pay symbols on the reels and since they are the 9TJQKA symbols( ice-styled), you will basically just feel you are playing a snow-themed slot.

It is a pretty standard freespin slot with normal scatter to trigger the feature(need 3 scatters as usual) and a wild symbol that substitutes for all symbols, but does not multiply win.

Feature: Freespins triggered when hitting 3 scatters or more.
You are awarded 5 freespins initially. You then pick from 3 boxed. Each box is either 5 more freespins or a small cash prize. Of course you want to hit the freespin ones. The freespin multiplier is *3. Unfortunately the feature can not be retriggered. But it is probably because it is easy to hit the feature on this slot. It is easier than "Thunderstruck" etc..

Playing it is pleasant and relaxing somehow which is a good feeling. As I have written several times about other slots: It is not a bad slot, but there is absolutely nothing new about it that justifies it release when there
are already 100 almost identical slots.


My favorite MG slots
#1 Isis
#2 Mad Hatters
#3 Hitman
#4 Avalon
#5 Moonshine
#6 Mega Moolah
#7 Harvey's
#8 Loaded
#9 Thunderstruck
#10The Osbournes




Earlier reviews:
September 2007:http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/...osbournes.html
August 2007:http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/...or-doctor.html
April 2007:http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/...il-2007-a.html
March 2007:http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/...ch-2007-a.html
February 2007: http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/...ry-2007-a.html
January 2007: http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/...ry-2007-a.html
December 2006: http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/...-december.html
November 2006: http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/...ga-moolah.html
October 2006: http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/...s-october.html
September 2006: http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/...september.html
August 2006: http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/...es-august.html
Juli 2006: http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/...ames-july.html
June 2006: http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/...ames-june.html[/QUOTE]

[jenn1381]

I am equally unimpressed with this months releases. Programers need to realize that we like something 100% brand spanking new, not cloned in the least. Boogie Monsters feels too much like Franken cash, and Path of the Penguin felt a lot like Dragon's Loot. No worries was fun however the bonus is so damn hard to hit because you need all 5 boomerangs. I wouldn't mind if there was only new games every 4-6 months, but they released 3-5 completely new ideas each time. New releases now are basically a bore, same old!

Great review Zoozie as always! Wish they had something a little more fun for you to review this month.

[Matthew23]

I finally hit the feature on "No Worries" I was only awarded 10 free spins.

I won 10X bet and was then given the option of replaying the free spins.... so I choose to but got an even worse result of only 8X bet.

very very disappointing

EDIT:

400 spins later I hit the feature again and was award 10 free spins... This time I won 12X bet, I was given the option to trade the winnings for the "Mystery Prize" So I did thinking it can't get any worse.......... but it did........the mystery prize was an amazing 2X bet.

Im shocked at how bad this slot is

[Simmo!]

I finally hit the feature on "No Worries" I was only awarded 10 free spins.

I won 10X bet and was then given the option of replaying the free spins.... so I choose to but got an even worse result of only 8X bet.

very very disappointing

EDIT:

400 spins later I hit the feature again and was award 10 free spins... This time I won 12X bet, I was given the option to trade the winnings for the "Mystery Prize" So I did thinking it can't get any worse.......... but it did........the mystery prize was an amazing 2X bet.

Im shocked at how bad this slot is

Got the free spins about 50 goes in. Got 22. Hit for 25x. Traded it in for 22 more and got 60x. Not sure about this one - not a stayer IMO - the fact you need 5 boomerangs to get the FS kinda puts me off.

[jenn1381]

There's something a little odd going on with Boogie Monsters... at the bottom of the screen during the free spins it will normally tell you how much you won on that spin - well on this game it tells you how much you've won overall so far with each spin - that kind of messed me up at first as I thought I was winning a whole crap load each spin until I realized it was only the total win so far.

Also, what's going on lately with auto spin? It's stopping to show each and every line you won on... I hate that! I use auto because I like it fast (don't take that the wrong way, gambling only, lmao ) and it's really starting to annoy me as more and more games are doing it! grrrrr!

[KasinoKing]

Also, what's going on lately with auto spin? It's stopping to show each and every line you won on... I hate that! I use auto because I like it fast (don't take that the wrong way, gambling only, lmao ) and it's really starting to annoy me as more and more games are doing it! grrrrr!

I noticed it was doing that on Franken Cash.
However, if you have it set to 'Quick Spin' it does not do it.

I haven't tried any of these new ones yet, but it might be worth a go...?

KK

[Simmo!]

I noticed it was doing that on Franken Cash.
However, if you have it set to 'Quick Spin' it does not do it.

Ditto that - i always run on Quickspin. Plus with most of the new slots you can click on the screen to speed up the calculation and move on.

[jenn1381]

Thanks KK and Simmo! I will have to try that during my next session... should make it more enjoyable

[brianzz]

Running boogie on quick spin doesn't remedy the free spin win display problem, another MG bug I guess, they should fix it, I like to know what I win on each spin.

The no worries bonus takes entirely too long to play, even on quick spin it's dreadfully slow.

[footdr]

Help!

Penguin game downloaded almost instantly. Can't even get the rest to start downloading for the most part. At grandbay started to download and next thing I know not downloading anymore.

Any thoughts