Buffalo Gold Pokies
Aristocrat have scored a big success with their Buffalo-themed pokie range and now look to add to it with Buffalo Gold, which has all the features of the original game but mixes in a shiny new twist.
This pokie comes with 5 reels and has the symbols arranged over 4 rows, giving players a grand total of 1,024 different ways to line up winning combinations, and while all Buffalo games come with free spins, multipliers, progressive jackpots and wild substitutions, the Gold version sees players collecting golden buffalo heads for extra rewards.
Available at casinos around the world, Buffalo Gold comes with an attractive design, thunderous soundtrack and immersive reels that are sure to attract herds of people who are looking for a quality pokie.
Playing Buffalo Gold
A stake of 40 coins, or 0.40, activates all of the reels in this pokie, with players able to raise their bets from there to suit their bankrolls.
To get a total of 1,024 ways for symbols to line up, Aristocrat have done away with paylines and replaced them with an ‘Xtra Reel Power’ system, with winning combinations formed by players landing 3 or more of the same type of symbol in any position on reels running in an unbroken line from the left side.
Anyone who wants to count up the number of ways that this can be done is welcome to try, but we are assured that there’s 1,024 different possibilities and we will just take Aristocrats’ word for it, as they have a great reputation for dependability, fair play and high returns to players.
Aristocrat pokies tend to use the playing card symbols 9, 10, J, Q, K and A for the lower value wins and this game sticks to that tried and tested formula, which means that much of the time, the reels will be dominated by these icons.
But when the picture symbols start to fall into place, players will be in for some bigger rewards, with a moose, a white wolf, lynx and eagle all being worth more and more, but the top wins, naturally, come from the buffalo, which only needs to land on reels 1 and 2 from the left to be worth a win of 10 coins, while a line of 5 pays out 300.
This symbol will also appear stacked on the reels, which has the effect of making it easier to line up several winning combinations in a single spin, and as it’s worth so much, the more buffalo appear, the bigger the potential payouts. Which is lucky really, because as we shall see, that’s what the ‘Gold’ part of this game is all about.
Buffalo Gold
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Buffalo Bonuses
There’s a couple of special symbols that take players to the bonus features, with a nice image of desert mountains against a sunset being the wild. It can land on reels 2, 3 or 4 and by acting as any other symbol, apart from the scatter, it can help to complete those unbroken lines of symbols and pay out prizes accordingly.
The scatter is a gold coin, and this will trigger a free spins bonus game whenever it stops in any 3, 4 or 5 positions at once. Depending on how many landed, players will see 8, 15 or 20 spins play out, with a couple of extra rewards thrown in for good measure.
Any wins made from the wild symbol substituting for another one, will be multiplied by 2x or 3x, but the real reason for this Gold version is that players collect gold buffalo heads during the round. The number collected is added up above the reels and once enough have appeared, the higher-value animal symbols will turn into additional buffalo icons for the remaining free games.
This can lead to much of the reels being covered in this high-paying symbol for multiple winning lines being created with each spin, and just to sweeten this even further, the free spins games can be re-triggered by any 3 or more scatters appearing at once, with the new games commencing as soon as the triggering round has finished.
The Verdict
The Buffalo range has been a success story for some time now, and players are drawn to these games because of their great reputation for frequent payouts and potentially lucrative bonus rounds.
Even in the main run of play, it’s common to see frequent winning combinations spun up, although it’s perhaps a shame that players only see symbols turning to extra buffalos in the bonus game, as having this happen in normal play would make it even more exciting, although probably not good for the casinos.