300 Shields Review

300 Shields takes you back in time, and from the moment you load up the slot, you’ll find yourself joining the warriors of ancient Sparta as a recreation of the infamous Battle of Thermopylae takes place.

As mentioned earlier, 300 Shields is a slot machine from a game developer called NextGen Gaming. However, you may see the slot pushed out via Microgaming’s Quickfire platform due to a licensing agreement.

Visually, 300 Shields isn’t the most up-to-date video slot we’ve ever seen, but given it was released several years ago, this is somewhat expected. What’s more, NextGen Gaming has recently “ported” the slot from Flash to HTML5, so you can now enjoy playing their 300 Shields slot from your mobile devices.

In terms of the game’s layout, 300 Shields is built around a 5-reel, 3-row format. There are 25 fixed paylines in play, and fierce, intense music accompanies every spin — especially during the free games bonus.

We should point out here that 300 Shields is highly volatile. It’s arguably the most volatile slot machine NextGen has ever created, and this high variance math model is needed in order to be able to dish out the whopping max win of 17,773X your stake.

Still, the base game can churn out some nice hits, and if you manage a decent free spins feature, you could find yourself comfortably walking away with 1,000X wins — or higher.

In regards to RTP, 300 Shields is a little below average, with the return to player fixed in place at 95.3%. This is a tad lower than many of the video slots we see at online casinos today. But again, for a slot with the potential 300 Shields offers, it’s to be expected.

From the moment you begin playing the base game, you’ll notice that the software provider has chosen playing card values, including 10, jack, queen, king, and an ace, to represent the game’s lower-paying symbols. In addition to these, they’ve also added a “9”, which is the game’s worst-paying symbol.

The theme-specific symbols are the higher-paying ones, including Swords and Arrows, Ships, and a Warrior.

The Warrior is the highest-value symbol in the 300 Shields slot, awarding a payout of 10X for matching a 5-of-a-kind combo. That may not sound like much, but this payout can grow insanely big during the free spins round!

There’s also a Spartan Warrior wild present on all reels and substitutes for all symbols bar the scatters. Incidentally, the scatter Shields represent symbols; they’re key to triggering the main free spins round, details of which we’ll cover later.

From the moment you begin playing the base game, you’ll notice that the software provider has chosen playing card values, including 10, jack, queen, king, and an ace, to represent the game’s lower-paying symbols. In addition to these, they’ve also added a “9”, which is the game’s worst-paying symbol.

The theme-specific symbols are the higher-paying ones, including Swords and Arrows, Ships, and a Warrior.

The Warrior is the highest-value symbol in the 300 Shields slot, awarding a payout of 10X for matching a 5-of-a-kind combo. That may not sound like much, but this payout can grow insanely big during the free spins round!

There’s also a Spartan Warrior wild present on all reels and substitutes for all symbols bar the scatters. Incidentally, the scatter Shields represent symbols; they’re key to triggering the main free spins round, details of which we’ll cover later.

<PAYTABLE IMAGE>

Bet & Game Options

As 300 Shields is what’s known as a “fixed payline” slot, the minimum number of lines you can play is 25, which means the minimum bet is $0.25.

The max bet is also pretty low when compared against other online slot machines, with NextGen Gaming choosing to cap the maximum stake at just $12.50. The reason behind this is that the game’s capable of paying wins of up to 17,773X your stake. So, they set a low max bet to ensure that online casinos aren’t putting themselves at too much risk financially.

Unfortunately, as is the case with all of the software provider’s slots, 300 Shields doesn’t offer much in the way of in-game options. The only real feature you’ll have available to you is the autoplay.

This feature lets you set up to 100 spins to play automatically, saving you from having to press the spin button per spin manually.

You’ll find just the one bonus feature in 300 Shields. While writing this slot review, we managed to trigger it several times. Learn more about how the free spins feature works below.

Free Spins

The free spins battle feature is triggered by landing 3, 4, or 5 of the scatter symbols anywhere in view.

Once the battle feature free spins bonus has landed, you’ll be awarded five free spins. Each time one of the warrior wild symbol icons lands in view and forms part of winning combinations, your win will be multiplied by 2X for warrior wins.

Now, each time a Shield scatter symbol icon lands in view, they’ll be added to a meter which is shown to the right-hand side of the reels. If you manage to collect two of these Shield scatters during your initial batch of free spins, you’ll progress to the next level.

You will then be awarded five more spins (bringing you up to 10 free spins in total), and for the second half of these spins, any wins formed using the warrior wilds are multiplied by 5X.

If you manage to then collect another four of the scatters during this part of the battle feature free spins feature, you’ll unlock the next stage of the game — receiving an additional five free spins.

During this third stage, all wins formed with the Warrior wild are multiplied by 25X, and it’s here that the game starts to show off some of its win potential.

If you manage to collect another six shields during these five free spins, you’ll unlock the top level of the free spins bonus game and be awarded an additional five free spins. During these spins, however, any wins formed using one of the wilds will be multiplied by a whopping 300X multiplier — and this 300X multiplier can lead to some tremendous wins.

Honestly, if you reach this stage of the bonus spins, get the 300X multiplier unlocked, and land the wilds in the right place, it’s possible to win thousands of times your stake per spin. This edges you closer to the game’s max win of more than 17,000X your stake!

300 Shields Extreme Slot

Due to the success of the original 300 Shields slot, NextGen Gaming decided to release a sequel to the entertaining slot — 300 Shields Extreme.

Their 300 Shields Extreme slot is identical, except for one critical feature. The 300 Shields Extreme slot offers what’s known as the Buy Pass.

You can use the buy pass to purchase directly entry to the main game free spins bonus round. This is ideal if you want to play 300 Shields’ main free spins bonus but won’t want to wait around for the feature to land naturally!

The 300 Shields Extreme bonus is exactly the same; you receive five free spins initially, with additional free spins awarded for collecting the Shield scatter symbols.

However, if you want to play 300 Shields Extreme, you’ll need to make sure you’re in an eligible country. This is because not all online gambling regulators allow the bonus buy mechanic, so if you do want to play 300 Shields Extreme, you should ensure it’s available in your region.

Like its predecessor, 300 Shields Extreme is incredibly volatile, has a low hit frequency, and uses 25 paylines. You’ll still be looking out for the wild symbols, and if you do manage to collect all 12 shields, the spartan warriors may just be on your side, helping you hit a big bonus thanks to the 300X multiplier!

300 Shields is an excellent game from NextGen Gaming, and we’re not surprised to see them following up the release with 300 Shields Extreme.

We love the free spin mechanic in both slots; the free spin bonus works in a way that it’s possible to reach a huge 300X multiplier. If you manage to full 20 free spins, both of these high volatility slots can award mega wins.

In fact, you don’t even need to reach the 300X stake of the bonus in order to hit big wins. During the 25X multiplier wild part of the games, it’s more than possible to hit great hits. If you manage to get five symbols from left to right on the 25X multiplier — i.e. across all five reels — you’re going to walk away with a fantastic bonus, even if you don’t get all the way up to the 300X!