Siberian Storm MegaJackpots Pokie Machine
IGT have adapted a number of their most successful pokies to accommodate the MegaJackpots progressive feature, which carries a multi-million Dollar reward for those players lucky enough to land the prefect combinations. As Siberian Storm is one of the biggest games in their range, it was a natural choice and so, while the main gameplay remains much the same as in the original version, there’s added appeal that’s sure to attract even more fans to these tiger-themed reels.
Set in the frozen forests that seem to be so popular across lots of pokies, the reels of this game are arranged in a hexagonal format, where different numbers of symbols fill different ones. This is all part of IGT’s Multiway Xtra feature that gives a total of 720 different prize-winning combinations, with players needing to land 3, 4 or 5 matching symbols on adjacent reels running from either the left or right side. It won’t matter where on those reels they appear, and if more than one example of the symbol that makes up the win is on a single reel, the amount won is multiplied.
Playable from as little as 0.50 per spin, all parts of the game are permanently active, as there are no fixed paylines. It’s the 3, 4, 5, 4, 3 symbols format that creates the distinctive look however, and it has the effect of making it fairly easy to land 2 symbols across the reels, but trickier to get those all-important lines of 3 or more.
Playing Siberian Strom MegaJackpots
The symbols are all related to the theme, although lower value wins are made up of some strange tiger-claw shaped ornaments. Whatever they are, they look nice and colourful, with the smallest payouts awarded for landing 3, 4 or 5 of either the green or purple ones, while a blue claw, a claw-shaped carving and a pendant will make up the rest of the least valuable, although most frequent, winning lines.
Once we get to the pictures of tigers however, there’s some substantial prizes to be won, and landing the white tiger on 3, 4 or 5 reels at once will pay out wins equal to 20, 50 or 300 coins respectively, and the orange tiger returns 25, 75 or 400 coins. These are all topped by the game logo symbol and anyone lucky enough to land a line of these right across 5 reels will win the base game jackpot of 1000x, and of course, any symbol appearing more than once on a single reel will multiply the win.
If the ideal combination of 5 game logo symbols appears, with the logo stacked 5 high on the middle reel, players are looking at a win of 5000 coins.
Siberian Storm MegaJackpots
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Bonus Features
Wild tigers are dangerous animals, but players will be very happy to see the white tiger wild symbol, as this will help them to land additional winning combinations by acting as any other symbol, apart from the bonus and scatters. It can also be stacked on a reel, so creating a win is made even easier, although it’s got no value on its own and will only stop on the middle 3 reels.
A tiger’s eye bonus symbol pays out 50 coins if it lands right across all 5 reels, also triggering 8 free spins. This relatively low number of extra games can be boosted to a maximum of 96 spins if more than a single line of 5 bonus symbols appear at once, and although the game looks different during the spins, payouts are the same and the round can be retrigged to a maximum of 240 spins.
The scatter is the MegaJackpots symbol and it can appear in any 3 positions to award a prize of 2x the total bet per spin, while 3 scatters are worth 20x and if 4 turn up at once, the prize is 100x the triggering bet. But it’s the massive progressive jackpot that players are really hoping for, and anyone who sees this symbol in any 5 spots at once will instantly be awarded millions of Dollars.
The Verdict
Siberian Storm was already one of the biggest pokies in the IGT range, and was the most popular game at land based casinos in 2010. Now that it’s also online, this MegaJackpots version is a sure-fire success, and with so many more people all having a small percentage of their wagers put into the progressive pot, there’s going to be some happy players who land the triggering combination.
But let’s face it, most won’t be this lucky, so it’s nice to see that all of the things that made the original such a hit have been carried over, with the only real difference being the MegaJackpots symbol as a scatter.