Batman Rogues Gallery Slot
If, like me, your Sunday mornings as a child were mostly spent watching re-runs of classic TV shows on a comfy couch, then this slot tribute to the various villains of the classic 60's Batman series should be right up your street. It isn’t the first classic Batman slot from Aristocrat, but it may be their best so far. Adam West’s Batman may not be the definitive version of the role, which likely goes to Michael Keaton (My vote) or Christian Bale depending on your preference, but there is no doubting that it was the most comedic of the Batman representations.
This slot is based the same game mechanics as the popular Buffalo slot, so it’s 1,024 ways to win rather than fixed pay-lines with adjacent symbols forming wins. Expanding reels bonuses called reel growth can expand the standard 5x4 format to 5x6 at random times throughout play and there are two bet levels, varied bonus features and two progressive jackpots on offer – holy slots Batman – to the Batmobile!
Theme & Features
The new game in the series focuses heavily on Batman’s various villains, Cesar Romero’s Joker, Frank Gorshin’s Riddler, Burgess Meredith’s Penguin, Otto Preminger’s Mr. Freeze, Victor Buono’s King Tut and Julie Newmar’s Catwoman all appear either on the reels or in cut scenes which pop up on a 60’s TV set. The music, voiceovers and sound effects are liberally lifted straight from the show and are superbly entertaining, the ‘behemoth’ cabinet Aristocrat have used for this game is a massive HD display which really allows everything to integrate visually.
You get two slightly different game versions based on your min bet, at 0.50 credits you play the Batmobile bet and at 0.75 credits you play the Batman bet, each of these have a random bonus round attached to them so there is a clear advantage in playing the extra 0.25 credits to have both bonus rounds enabled. Multiples of these bets increase your multiplier on both the base game and the bonus features and free spins rounds!
The potential jackpot (5x in a row) and highest value symbol is Batman himself, the Batman logo forms the games scatter and of course the Joker is wild, replacing all symbols except for the scatter. Above the main reel symbols is a spinning wheel which is the random bonus attached to your bet size consisting of an inner and outer spinning prize wheel, the outer wheel awards either credits or a reel height increase whilst the inner wheel grants credits or extra Batman symbols on the reels, playing at Batmobile bet opens up the outer wheel and playing at Batman bet opens up both, the latter also opens up the minor and major potential progressive jackpots.
The scatter symbol triggers 8, 15 or 20 spins when you collect 3, 4 or 5 of them in a row, during the spins you can retrigger by collecting three more and you can add an extra 5 for just two scatters that appear which is a nice extra! The joker wilds become more important during the free spins bonus as they grant a 2x or 3x multiplier when they appear on reels 2, 3 or 4.
Summary
This is a really well integrated DC comic book slot, it’s entertaining visually and audibly, it keeps you engaged and the gameplay is varied enough to be interesting over a long play period, the random bonus structure in the base game adds excitement and the spins bonuses are easy to retrigger. The downside of the non-stop action for some players will be the relatively low variance, wins come frequently enough but rarely seem to be of a large size.
