Galapagos Islands Slots
Genesis Gaming have gone for a Land Before Time type of aesthetic when it comes to their video slot, Galapagos Islands. A mouthful to say though it may be, this is a prehistoric animal themed real cash slot that delivers a cutesy visual alongside its gameplay. As you’ve probably already seen for yourselves, we’re back to a more typical approach with this matrix, with the 4x5 grid back, as well as a lacklustre layout.
Despite there being less about this slot machine, both visually and variance wise, don’t say goodbye to the game just yet, as the free spins scatter can still pack a punch with decent payouts. What is more, the general paytable, with its other 11 tiles, has a fine array of money for you to try and get your hands on; it doesn’t have to be all about the features. Genesis Gaming is a brand that’s done well on delivering lower variance, with their approach being to try and expand on one feature rather than provide two or three. A lot of the time it brings them big successes.
A Needle on the Compass
Triggering the bonus round, if you can even call the free spins that, is relatively easy to do: players need to get three or more of the scatter image (labelled clearly), and then they can begin spinning for free. There are only 5 rounds available, which is a lot less than what regular users with the company will be used to. This low return may be disappointing at first, but there’s some good still to be found here, mostly in the bird, seal and lizard symbols; when the round starts they change into turtles.
Having seen this for ourselves, we expected a dramatic prize for such a sudden change in icon, but all we got was the basic pay rate that’s available inside the base game. What the point of this is, we don’t know, but if nothing else it helps to make this slot look like its bonus round is better than what it actually is. Of course, that’ll only appease customers for a while, then they’ll start to move on in order to get their kicks. In terms of minimum and maximum stakes, that’s 0.40 and 4.00.
Other Journeys to Make
This might seem a bit soon into the game to start suggesting other slots to explore, but for us we like knowing where the next gaming fix is going to come from. Galapagos Islands may be a decent slot machine, but you don’t want to just rely on this one title to get you through every time you want a quick punt. That’s why we’ve found Ash Gaming’s Wild Gambler, a 20 winlines slot that brings the fun with even more free games. If you’re looking for exact matches to Galapagos Islands, you’re going to struggle, as hardly any slot out there is that similar in nature. Not that you should see that as a bad thing, quite the opposite in fact.
Too Cute and Cuddly?
When it comes to animal themes, we’ve seen a lot of them, most of which tend to opt for the cuter side of fluffy creatures than realism. Although that isn’t necessarily a problem, we have to address the fact that a lot of male users may not be comfortable with that type of aesthetic. As sad as it is to say, the more feminine a slot machine is, the more niche it makes itself, due to (old) stereotypes coming into effect; it’s an issue that definitely impacts on this title.
Genesis may not have gone all guns blazing with pink everywhere, but they’ve gone for the big puppydog eyes on all their characters, as well as a purple, almost magenta colour palette. As attractive as that makes the interface, it almost makes this game more limited due to the type of gamer it can bring in, and so the accessibility from a visual perspective is in doubt here. For us, this activity could have been just as fun to engage with, probably more so, if the brand had dropped the cute and cuddly and gone for something with more teeth.
Worth the Trip?
Maybe we’ve become so disillusioned having played so many Genesis titles over the last few days and weeks, but Galapago Islands just didn’t do it for us. We really tried to give the 5-reels the benefit of the doubt, and while we savour having the 1024 ways to play, it’s hardly something new from the brand. This is becoming their staple MO, and with it we’re becoming equally dulled in interest whenever they revert back to a game format like this one. Better luck next time… we hope.
