Queen of Rio Pokies
Welcome to Rio De Janeiro, where the carnival is in full swing across the 5 reels of EGT’s Queen of Rio video pokie. There’s colourful flowers and cocktails, plus some partying locals featured in this game, and when the carnival Queen stops in the right places she can help players towards extra wins, while Copacabana Beach is the key to a rewarding free spins bonus round.
Because it comes from the EGT range, we can expect to see a couple of features common to all their pokies, such as the option to play a double or nothing gamble game and a 4-level progressive jackpot that can be triggered at any time.
A view of the city from high up in the mountains forms an attractive backdrop to the main game. It’s all in the pinks and purple hues of a tropical sunset, or maybe a sunrise, but whatever time of day it is, this image contributes to a great-looking game. Surrounding the reels, there’s the rising values of the Club, Heart, Diamond and Spade-level Jackpot Cards progressive prizes above, to the sides are the payline indicators, which will show how many of the 20 lines are in play, while below the reels, is a set of control buttons that’s used to determine bet sizes.
Playing Queen of Rio
The bet options range from a low limit of just 0.01 per spin, which will activate just a single payline, so to get them all in play, the smallest wager is 0.20, although free Queen of Rio video pokies can also be found. In the base game, players will need to see matching symbols landing across an active line on adjacent reels starting from the left side, although this pattern can vary when the wild or scatter symbols appear.
A review of the pay table shows us that the playing card symbols Q, K and A, in bright green, red or yellows, will each pay out 5, 20 or 100x the line bet when landing on 3, 4 or 5 reels of an active payline. An elaborate carnival hat and the pineapple cocktail will be worth 10, 50 or 200x, while a purple flower and the maraca-shaking guy are each valued at 20, 100 or 400x. A trumpeter is worth a bit more, but the best wins come from the drummer, who returns 10x the line bet when he’s on reels 1 and 2, topping out at 750x for a full run of 5.
The Queen of Rio finally turns up as a wild symbol, and although she can’t make up a winline on her own, she’s able to act as all but the scatter symbol if it’s then possible to complete a combination.
Queen of Rio
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Free Spins Bonus
A night-time view of the beach and the towers that line it, is the scatter symbol, and whenever it lands in any 3 or more positions, players win 15 free spins. To improve the odds of each spin being a winner, the wild symbol will be stacked, so the job of completing winning combinations is a little easier.
The bonus round can be retriggered by any 3 scatters turning up in a free spin, and an extra 15 games are added to the end of the current ones.
Other Features
The option to gamble any win of less than 700 coins is offered. To double the win, players will need to correctly predict if a playing card is from a red or black suit, clicking on the right coloured button as it rapidly switches between the two. A further option to double again or collect the win is available to anyone who times it right, but a wrong click at any pint will lose the gamble.
Anyone awarded the random Jackpot Cards round will collect 1 of the 4 progressive prizes, although which is claimed depends on which suits are found as they click on the 12 face-down playing cards shown to them in the feature. Each jackpot is worth a different amount, so with luck punters will find 3 high-paying Spades before they uncover the much less valuable Clubs.
The Verdict
By theming the Queen of Rio pokie around such as colourful city, EGT have been able to bring an attractive game to the market. The features are fairly standard, with the slight exception of the stacked wilds in the bonus games, but apart from the design, there’s really nothing that makes this pokie stand out.
It’s mobile-optimised for use on phones and tablet computers, and like all EGT games, there’s a reliable return to player percentage. Those of us who like the sights and sounds of Rio, but can’t stretch to a vacation there, could enjoy a few spins of these colourful reels.