Basketball Star Pokies
Basketball Star is part of a range of sports-related pokies from Microgaming that includes Football Star, Tennis Star and.. oh, you get the idea. It shares some of the features with the others as well, and has a free spins round, the 243 'Ways to Win' system, extra wilds and Rolling Reels, where a series of wins is possible from a single bet.
Set against a backdrop of a Basketball stadium, the five reels are filled with images related to the game, like shoes, the court, drinks, medals and several images of players in various action poses. If the player symbols are part of a winning combination, they move around a bit, adding some interest to proceedings, although other symbols just flash on and off, which isn’t particularly exciting.
Players can bet from just 0.50 per spin, or go up to 50.00 with each go, and no matter what stake is chosen, all possible winning outcomes are covered thanks to the Ways to Win that does away with paylines and just requires symbols to land on adjacent reels, starting from the left.
Basketball Star
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Basketball Bonuses
First up is the wild symbol, with the Basketball Star logo doing the job very nicely, appearing stacked on the middle three reels. In practice this is a big help in boosting the ratio of winning spins, while a random feature turns reels 2, 3 or 4 fully wild which is guaranteed to result in a prize.
A basketball acts as the scatter symbol, and works in a pretty standard way by awarding a prize payout should at least 3 turn up at once, without needing to be in any particular positions and the prize being a multiple of the total amount wagered on a spin.
The main bonus feature is also triggered by the scatter symbol with 3 of them starting off 15 free spins, 4 will be the trigger for 20 spins, and should 5 scatters land at once, not only is a prize of 250x the bet paid out but players are then treated to 25 free spins.
Those spins can be more rewarding than they first appear, as a Rolling Reels feature will be in play throughout them. When the free games start, a multiplier table will appear above the reels, giving a hint that this round could be something special. Rolling Reels simply means that any symbols that are part of a winning combination will ‘explode’, leaving spaces for the symbols above to drop down into.
Because this will lead to different sets of symbols on the reels, it could lead to another winning combination being created, at which point the multiplier starts to kick in, with this second win being doubled in value.
Should third, fourth or fifth consecutive wins occur, then the multiplier can potentially go up to 10x the base value, but let’s be honest, that isn’t going to happen every day of the week.
Does This Game Make You Dribble?
Basketball is a fast paced, exciting game where the action is pretty much constant, and points are scored all the time. Basketball Star therefore, had a lot to live up to and while it’s by no means a dull game, fans of Basketball who may be looking for constant wins may be a little disappointed.
Everyone else should be pretty pleased with the gameplay and general feel of Basketball Star, with the wild symbol in particular seeming to have a big influence on the run of play. It often completes winning lines when it lands stacked on the middle reels, and the free spins round seems to get triggered a reasonable number of times.
As long as players are not expecting to get five Rolling Reels features in a row for that elusive 10x multiplier win, they should be okay, as Basketball Star is another high quality Poker machine from one of the top suppliers in the business.