I've been thinking about this slot over the last few days (not always happy thoughts either, as deposit after deposit has disappeared), and I honestly think it's the 'lumpiest' slot I've ever played in terms of how the wins are stacked.
There is basically nothing of note on this slot outside of 5OAKs, both in and outside of the free spins bonus round.
Good 5OAKs are pretty rare in the base game, and if the free spins use exactly the same reels in exactly the same way as the base game, then it follows on that hitting those already rare 5OAKs inside those small 'windows' of free spins is going to be even rarer, especially if you want to hit them with the (relatively rare) big multipliers.
It also means that the 100 free spins at 10x pays could be spectacularly disappointing, because this slot likes to do lots, and lots, and LOTS of dead spins. If the 100 free spins round isn't controlled in any way, then once in a while it's going to pay
terribly.
As it stands for me, in 30,501 spins my single best pay by a country mile has come from a three scatters trigger where I just happened to get a good-paying 5OAK on a big multiplier, and it outpaid the 100x10 top bonus round by a factor of some 300%. (A round which I've only seen once in 30,501 spins.)
This slot is crazy, stupidly high variance, and the distribution of the pays on the paytable is badly misjudged IMO. It's an absolute recipe for player disappointment and disenchantment, and it came very close to breaking me at 3Dice this month (not financially breaking me, but putting me in a place where I was honestly starting to think 'Fuck this, I'm not playing here again' - 3Dice's CS team are pretty much the only reason I'm still playing there, thanks to their quick responses in live chat, sympathetic responses to my awful runs, and generous comps in the face of some bloody awful statistics).
It's only that very late save last night where it FINALLY coughed a properly solid pay that's saved the day (I'm still horribly down on it, and my RTP is still shocking, but it's that psychological 'big pay' that I needed to see), and that only came about thanks to a no-nonsense and quickly added comp from Jared.
3Dice need to get this slot flagged as VERY HIGH - CAUTION variance ASAP, it's an absolute psycho bastard of a thing and the idea that Super Suits + is 'Very High' whereas Arctic is only 'High' is nonsensical.
Check out my Neteller history for this month (so far), they're some bad numbers and they don't take into account the three comps I've had either, plus I've redeemed quite a lot of comp points that aren't on there, plus Enzo gave me another comp for pointing out an error on their website, which isn't on there either.
Arctic has caused a good chunk of this carnage at 20p spins.
I will play this slot in the future, but make no mistake, it's in the 'couple of hundred spins and hope for a big win' category - this is NOT a slot to get overly involved with.
Dangerous, dangerous thing.
