- Joined
- Mar 25, 2012
- Location
- IOM
The single biggest problem with Scarface is the dreadful, awful, unspeakably tedious 'Last Stand' bonus round. As a player I genuinely groan when that bonus round drops in, because I know I'm going to have to manually take control of a long-winded bonus round where I inevitably fail and I'm going to be doing well to win more than 10x my stake. Looking at the help file this round appears to be capped at 40x stake, which is a derisory payout for what should be a 'centrepiece' bonus round.
Now I'd don't know how limited NetEnt were by the licence, maybe they weren't allowed to have him escape or kill the assassin who sneaks up from behind him or anything else that isn't true to the film, but they really needed to do something to give that bonus round a decent pay potential, even if it only crops up rarely. I mean, even if the round doesn't change at all in how it operates, just have it drop in five times less frequently but boost the pay range to 25-200x stake, that alone would give it some decent pay potential.
(Or, at the very least, put a bloody autoplay on it!)
As for the other two bonus rounds, the Free Spins look like they should be alright on paper, but in reality I've never had them kick out more than about 75x as best I can recall - adding some extra wilds to the reels and making the round somewhat rarer to compensate, would have made it far more interesting.
The Nudge Wild is just an exercise in frustration, but at least it's over quickly.
Now it isn't clear from the paytable or the help file if all the full wilds can drop in on a single spin, but getting 2-3-4 completely wild with good symbols on 1+5, and then getting the bonus rounds off them would equate to a potentially very big pay - but I've never seen it. (And whilst I've played it a modest amount for real money, I've lumped some serious spins through this slot in free play.) The one time I did get more than one full wild it was 2 and 4, with nothing on the other reels to make a decent pay......
Then there's the partial wilds you can get on 2-3-4, again these do have some reasonable pay potential, but I've never seen it be fulfilled.
OVERALL - I just do not understand where the potentially big pays are on this slot to justify its incredibly tedious behaviour most of the time. Lest we forget that a high variance slot is basically a boring affair. BDBA/Reel Steal are boring slots in the main, BUT WE KNOW that they have that HUGE hit potential and that's what keeps them interesting.
Scarface manages to be as boring as the dullest high variance slot, and yet doesn't seem to compensate with any real big win potential.
Maybe it is in there and I've just never seen it (and nor has anyone else, if the Winners Screenshots thread is anything to go by) - but for me this slot is a spectacular misfire.
FOR THE RECORD - In terms of presentation, graphics, design, sound and music it's a great slot - the thing that absolutely bombs this slot to destruction on the runway is the choice of pay profile/variance that NetEnt have given it.
