Wild Wolf Pokie
This 5-reel pokie from IGT follows a very popular theme, with native American culture being featured across numerous games. Wild Wolf has totem poles and perhaps unsurprisingly, various wolves creating the higher value wins, and playing card symbols filling out the lower end of the payscale, plus it’s got a free spins bonus game, wild symbol and bonus pays to help mix things up a bit.
This game is one of the most popular in the IGT range, although players looking for innovation and unique features may be a bit let down when they see Wild Wolf, as it’s a fairly ordinary pokie that has attracted fans for the very reason that it’s easy to learn, play and get wins from.
50 paylines run from the left to the right of the game, and any time 3 or more matching symbols fall across an active line on connected reels, players will win a prize, which is a completely standard way to operate and in keeping with the nature of Wild Wolf.
Playing Wild Wolf
A forest sits behind the reels and there are a couple of feathers making a decorative surround to the title, while the control buttons are set in a wood-effect backing. Bets can be placed on a single line for just 0.01, although this is going to leave players waiting a long time between wins, as there’s 50 paylines in total, so for just 0.50 per spin, all parts of the game can be activated. The maximum wager is 100.00 and wins are multiples of the amount staked on each line.
Playing card symbols 9 through to J are worth 5x, 25x or 100x when landing on 3, 4 or 5 reels at once, the K and A are each valued at 5x, 50x or 150x for the same combinations. IGT have decided to leave these symbols completely standard, with no reference to the theme at all, which some players will be disappointed with and others really not bothered by it at all.
There’s 2 different, and slightly weird-looking totem poles, 2 wolves and the top value symbol is the outline of a wolf howling at the full moon, with players winning 50x, 250x or 1000x their line bet when it falls across 3, 4 or 5 reels at once.
Wild Wolf
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Bonus Features
As well as being the most rewarding symbol to land, the image of the howling wolf is also a wild, so it will be able to act as any other, with the exception of the bonus symbol, if it’s possible to complete a winning line. It can create a win by filling in any gaps across a payline, or turn combinations of 3 or 4 symbols into higher value 4 or 5 of a kind lines, or even do both at once.
In a slight twist to the normal way these wilds work, the wolf and moon symbol can be stacked on a reel, which makes its job of completing lines a little bit easier.
Free Spins Bonus
A bonus symbol will appear on the middle reels from time to time, and when at least 3 land at once, players will be treated to a win equal to 2x the triggering bet, following which, they are awarded 5 free spins. Although this isn’t many extra games, it can be fairly easy to trigger them and if 3 more bonus symbols appear during this round, an extra 5 spins will be added to the end, potentially over and over until the maximum of 255 have been won.
To help make these a more rewarding set of spins, additional stacked wilds will be added to the reels, but with possibly only 5 chances to land a win, it’s by no means guaranteed that players will be better off at the end of the round than they were before, which is part of the reason for the 2x the total bet award given out before they commence.
The Verdict
There’s nothing wrong with a game like Wild Wolf, as it’s providing exactly what many players are looking for, namely a straightforward design, popular theme, decent bonus features and easy gameplay. It’s not completely without surprises anyway, as the stacked wilds and extra wilds in the bonus round shake things up a little, but basically, this pokie is about spinning up consistent wins and enjoying the extra games whenever the bonus symbol lands in the right places.
Perhaps it’s a shame that the lower value wins are created just by plain playing card symbols, but this is really a matter of personal taste and really isn’t a criticism of what is essentially a decent all-rounder that has lots of fans.