King of the Nile Pokie Machine
Pokies themed around ancient Egypt are quite possibly the most common single type of game around, but there is clearly an endless demand for them, and games developer Aristocrat has fed that demand with the King of the Nile.
It’s a sequel to their already popular Queen of the Nile game and carries over some of the features that made that pokie such as success, with players enjoying wild multipliers, scatter wins and a free spins round which can be even more lucrative.
King of the Nile is laid out in a very conventional style, with 5 reels and 20 paylines, but even though it’s about as old as the pyramids, players should expect to find some pretty innovative features. They should also expect to land plenty of winning lines and like all Aristocrat titles, it’s a fair and reliable pokie which has a high return to player ratio.
A Pharaoh Time
Played out against a somewhat plain blue background, that’s only enhanced by a simple image of a winged statue, the reels are covered in symbols across 3 rows, with the typical playing card icons accompanied by such items as a scarab beetle, gold ring, Cleopatra and hieroglyphics.
Each time 3 or more of the same type of symbol land across any of the 20 paylines, players win a prize, provided the line of symbols starts on the left reel and runs across adjacent ones from there, while the bigger payouts come from landing 4 or 5 in a row.
Playing card symbols 9, 10, J, Q, K and A are the lower value ones, and they are the exact same style that’s seen across countless other games, so players will be seeing these land more than the picture symbols.
King of the Nile
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Bonus Features
What sets the King of the Nile pokie apart is the series of bonus features, which may not be stunning by todays’ standards, but for a game initially released in 2002, they are very impressive.
The King is a wild symbol, so he can help to make up extra winning combinations by acting as any other symbol, with the exception of the scatter. Players who land matching icons across a payline on reels 1 and 3 for example, wouldn’t win anything, but if the wild is on the line, on reel 2, it would act as a third symbol of that type and players win a prize.
The kindly King will also double the value of any win he helps to create.
The other bonus symbol is the pyramid scatter, which can pay multiples of the total bet, rather than the line bet that other combinations are worth, and doesn’t have to be in any particular spots to do so, as long as 3 or more appear at once.
These are needed to trigger the main bonus features, with 3 scatters launching 15 free spins, while 4 scatters will see 20 spins awarded and the maximum of 5 scatters landing at once will treat players to 25 free games. However many are triggered, any wins during this round will be multiplied by 3x, while any 3 or more scatters will re-start the spins once any left in the current game have finished.
At the end of the free spins, players are offered a choice of what they want to do next, which is an unusual feature in such an old pokie, but very useful anyway.
They can either collect the winnings from the round, decide to forfeit them and play the free games again, hoping for a better result this time, or go for a mystery prize.
The second and third options carry a degree of risk, as they could return less than the winnings already on the table, but it adds an element of excitement to the game and with a mystery bonus of up to 500x the stake, players could make a tidy profit from this selection.
The Verdict
Some aspects of this pokie are ancient, with the 5 reel and 20 payline format seen in numerous other games, but there’s lots of people who like them set out this way, as they know how it all works without having to consult a paytable.
The symbols are highly unoriginal, with the playing card icons being used across most Aristocrat games, while the scarab beetle, Cleopatra, pyramids and so on, are virtually identical across the endless array of Egyptian-themed games that fill casinos worldwide. However, many players like this familiarity as well, so who can blame Aristocrat for providing what the public wants?
At least the bonus rounds are something different, with the option to replay them or collect a mystery win being a fun conclusion to any free spins rounds.