Play SunTide for Free

Evidently keen to keep up with other developers with great visual games this simple slot opens with a nice 3D video sequence, be warned – its bright – really bright – a yacht sails across a sunset lit ocean and the end image forms both the reel backdrop and the pictorials on the games scatter symbol.

The music on the game is pleasant enough, it reminds me of a club med or cruise lounge backing tune, fruity, fun and tropical. Chimes announce the big wins, it’s not enveloping or intrusive and manages unlike many slots not to have you reaching for mute immediately, it may not be as entertaining as some titles in that regard but it is hardly a key part of the games theme.

Microgaming have gone with classic summer fruit slot symbols for the low pay icons rather than playing card values, expect Strawberries, Cherries, Watermelon, Oranges and Lemons to be appearing with frequency. Gold bars, sevens and diamonds appear to be the key high value icons, a quick flick at the pay table will reveal all when the game comes out!

The icon you will want to see most of all is the solid gold medallion, we aren’t quite sure how this fits with the summer theme unless it’s an obscure reference to Egyptian sun god symbolism, but we do know for sure that it forms the games expanding wild symbol which is your key to scorching wins.

SunTide is far from a complex video slot, spin the 5 reels and aim for at least 3 matching symbols left to right to pick up wins, 4 and 5 symbol combinations will grant you larger summery rewards. It could have a few more paylines but it is easy to follow in this format, some 1024 multi way games are so complex that you have to wait for the game to clarify a win as you can’t remember where symbols need to be to grant a prize!

The base game will grant you a hot potential prize of up to 1222x your wager, but line-up 3 of the scatter anywhere on the reels to enter the free spins round where the max possible payout is now a burning 3333x your total bet for the 15 granted spins.

The games expanding wild also improves in the summer spins bonus round, in normal game play it expands in the middle reel only to give you one wild reel, in the bonus game it can expand on all 3 of the middle reels for some truly awesome winning combinations. 3 or more of the pictorial scatters during the spins game will retrigger for a max total of 30 spins.

SunTide is a low to medium variance game and the relatively low minimum bet combined with a decent max bet value gives it scope for a number of player types. The features are quite limited and the free spins bonus is clearly the only route to big wins. Overall it is not the most exciting release from Microgaming in recent times but it still merits a few spins whilst we wait for the summers hot games.