ALL ABOUT MONSTERS OF ROCK MEGAWAYS™ SLOT
There have been many great rock n roll artists who have sung about the joys, and perils of gambling over the years. A quick scan through Spotify reveals songs like Motorhead’s Ace of Spades, Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler, and The Rolling Stones’ Tumblin’ Dice amongst many, many more. And of course, online gambling has flirted with rock n roll a few times in the past too – check out the NetEnt Rock series for some of the best examples, including Guns n Roses and Jimi Hendrix Slot. In fact, there’s even a slot site fronted by heavy metal icon, Ozzy Osbourne, called Metal Casino (what else?!). What brings these two cultural pastimes together? Well, maybe it’s something about the reckless nature of the gambler that chimes with the rock n roll dreamer, and vice versa, and the razzmatazz allure of gambling cities like Vegas that establishes them as mainstays of the gigging scene. But whatever it is, Storm Gaming certainly have spotted the connection, which is why they have based their third Megaways™ slot outing around a metal festival called … Monsters of Rock.
For those who don’t know, Storm’s two previous efforts, Magic Merlin and Bar X Megaways™, were fairly generic affairs, treading the well-worn Bonanza clone route and offering little to make you think they might last the distance alongside more creative titles from the series. Monsters of Rock shows a little more ambition however, and alongside some pretty tasty graphics and a monster (ahem!) soundtrack, boasts some extra features (including random multipliers and enhanced reels) that may mean it holds its own in years to come.
GAME SET-UP, SYMBOLS AND GRAPHICS
The game itself is set amongst the epic stage set that you might expect at a massive outdoor gig. There is a huge lighting rig as well as big speaker stacks all around the reel set which itself consists of six reels, each displaying between two and seven symbols after each spin. In Megaways™ that means up to 117,649 paylines per spin as the game pays out on any identical symbol landing on anywhere on adjacent reels from left to right. Three or more symbols are required to create a win.
The low value symbols here are the cards, Jack through to Ace, whilst the high value symbols are the four band members, either playing guitars or wailing into microphones. The highest paying symbol is the Monsters or Rock logo which pays out 50x for six on a payline. There is also a wild symbol that appears in the 4×1 reel set above the main one. Also watch out for V-Guitar symbol which is the scatter, required to trigger the free spins round where the biggest win sequences happen.
Whilst Monster of Rock is a Megaways™ slot it doesn’t have quite the same high variance as many of Big Time Gaming’s own releases in the series. We would place it at medium-high, meaning payouts may be a little more frequent. Whilst the game plays at a reasonable 96.29% RTP, the top payout of 2,500x will put some jackpot-chasers off.
GAMEPLAY AND FEATURES
Cascading Wins
Monsters of Rock adopts most of the tried and tested features of the best Megaways™ slots, starting with Cascading Wins. Here, after each winning spin, winning symbols drop off the reels, with a satisfying bounce sound, to be replaced with new ones. Sometimes this creates more winning lines. If so, the process repeats, and so on until no more wins are created.
Mystery Symbols
Another standard feature from this game format is the Mystery Symbols. Here they are represented by speaker stacks. When these land after a spin, each instance will turn into an identical symbol from the paytable, creating more chances to win.
Pick Me Feature
The Pick Me is the first of the new features added by Storm Gaming. You’ll need to land three or more LP symbols simultaneously to trigger this. Choose from the three album covers displayed on the screen to reveal a multiplier prize value.
High Voltage Feature
Ok, BTG fans got a bit excited right there. No, the game doesn’t morph into the reel-cloning monster slot that is Danger! High Voltage! Instead, something a little more modest, but fun anyway … when this feature randomly triggers at any point all low value symbols are removed from the reels to create an enhanced paytable. This feature is available in both the base game and the bonus round .
Free Spins
The main event here is of course the Free Spins round, triggered by landing FOUR OR MORE V-Guitar symbols. Four scatters will get you 12 spins, five will get you 17 spins and six will get you 22 spins. During the spins round, after each win cascade in a sequence, your win multiplier increases by 1x. There is no limit to how high it can go, and it does not re-set after each cascade sequence ends. It is also possible to re-trigger the free spins by landing more scatters in the top reel set – three gets you another 5 spins, four gets you another 10 spins.
OUR VERDICT
Monsters of Rock is certainly Storm Gaming’s best expanding reels slot so far. The studio have now recognized the need to throw in extra features if they want their games to stand out from the crowd, and thematically, and graphically it’s a fun game. However, it is still a little too close to being a Bonanza clone to have any real long-lasting appeal. Still, there’s enough here to keep us interested in what might be coming next from this UK-based developer.
