Gold Pays Pokies
With a choice of 2 pokies and some bonus games where players decide what happens, the Gold Pays range is found at land based casinos and is designed to attract people who enjoy classic games and advanced features with lots of options.
The games come from Aristocrat, which is one of the top developers in the business, with a solid reputation for fair play, quality design and innovative extra rounds with potentially big rewards to claim.
The Gold Pays pokies are both Asian-themed, with Golden Festival and Golden Princess having the same features, but slightly different styles and symbols to appeal to different tastes. Golden Festival sees lots of colour and exploding fireworks, while Golden Princess is a far more serene affair.
Among the bonus features are free spins with extra wilds and 4 jackpots that are won by making the right selections in a side game, but even in normal play, these are attractive pokies which should keep players entertained for some time.
Playing Gold Pays
The games are housed in the Helix style cabinet, where the main reels sit on a lower screen and payout details, along with jackpot levels, are featured on an upper screen. Each game has 5 reels with the symbols arranged over 4 rows, and players win by landing 3, 4 or 5 of the same type across consecutive reels in a line starting from the left side. It doesn’t matter which row the symbols are on, which equates to 1,024 different possible ways to line up a winning combination.
The symbols can be configured by players, with extra wagers being used to add higher value gold symbols to the mix, and if the maximum number of 5 are activated, winnings should be substantially increased, although clearly there’s a cost involved in this, so the overall returns may not be very different. But it’s nice to have the option anyway.
Another aspect where players have an option is in how the bonus game works. It’s triggered by having the golden bonus symbol appearing on reels 1, 2 and 3 at once, whereupon a new screen will open up revealing 5 banners, each with a number of free spins on them, along with the number of extra wild symbols that will be added to the reels.
Players who like to see lots of free games can choose 20 spins and during these, there will be 8 extra wild symbols added, while the other options are for 12 free games with 18 wilds, 8 free games where 25 wilds will be added, or just 5 spins, but a massive 38 wild symbols will be in play.
The fifth option is for a mystery choice which will randomly allocate the number of spins and wilds for the players, with a potential for the ideal combination of 20 spins and 38 wilds, or at the other end, they could get just 5 spins and 8 wilds.
Gold Pays
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Jackpot Wins
The firecracker is a wild that can also be the key to unlocking the jackpot game. Any time a wild symbol appears, it can work in the normal way by acting as any other to help complete winning lines, or alternatively it can take players to a screen where they will see 12 tiles in a grid formation.
The aim is to touch the screen to reveal what’s underneath each tile, and once 3 identical features have been found, the player wins the corresponding prize. They can land a Mini, Minor, Major or Grand jackpot, although the first 2 really aren’t much to get excited about, as they are only a few Dollars, while the Major and Grand are far more rewarding.
The Verdict
Popular themes, classy design and lots of options should make the Gold Pays games highly successful, and Aristocrat know a thing or two about what makes a pokie stand out on a crowded casino floor.
Asian themed games are very common, and these don’t offer up much new in the overall design, but they aren’t supposed to, and anyway to a certain extent players can change how the game looks by adding the gold symbols to the reels, replacing the playing card icons with something more interesting.
The customisation options in the free spins round are equally interesting, and for those who like low volatility games, the 20 spins should suit them, while anyone who likes to take a bit more of a risk may want to go for just 5 spins and hope for multiple wins throughout them.
With the chance of landing a big jackpot prize and lots of nice winnings along the way, these pokies are high-quality games that should be worth trying out at the many casinos where Aristocrat cabinets can be found.