Reel Strike Pokie Machine
Fishing is the most popular pastime in many countries, so it’s only natural to find lots of pokies dedicated to the subject of man versus fish in a competition to see who is the cleverest. Microgaming are angling for a pool of players to hook with the Reel Strike game, which sees various colourful fish and bits of boats across 5 reels and 15 paylines.
It’s comes complete with a potentially rewarding free spins bonus game, where players have to pick boats to reveal multipliers that will be in effect throughout them, plus there’s a wild symbol to help them net some bigger and more frequent wins.
Tackling Reel Strike
Although it’s not a particularly old game, Microgaming have gone for something of a retro look to Reel Strike, with fairly plain images while the reels take up virtually all of the screen and there’s no background picture, but we’ll forgive them and move on to how it plays.
Before spinning the reels, players will want to know how much they can bet and what they are in line to win when the right combinations of symbols are landed. The standard Microgaming control panel gives them the option to stake just 0.01 on a single line, although this will mean that any winning lines not on an active one won’t count, so rather than bet more on just a few lines it’s probably better to have something on them all and adjust up to suit the budget.
The maximum bet per line, with 10 coins is 5.00 which equates to an overall maximum of 75.00 per spin, so it’s a fairly reasonable range that should be more than adequate for the majority of players.
A paytable shows how many times the bet per line is won whenever enough matching symbols stop on an active line, on adjacent reels running from the left side. The different types of fish are at the bottom end of the scale, (get it? Scale? Oh never mind.)
Three examples of the flying fish pays 5x, with 4 of them being worth 20x and a full line of 5 pays 100x the line bet. The most valuable fish pays 5x when only 2 appear on the line, with up to 300x paid out when 5 are landed.
The boat throttle, fishing boat and Reel Strike logo pay the most out of the standard symbols, but there are a couple of bonuses triggered when special symbols stop in the right places.
Reel Strike
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Fishy Freebies
The fishing reel is a wild symbol meaning it will act as any standard one helping to create more winning lines, while also paying out up to 10,000x when it fills a line. Unusually, it will also substitute for the bonus symbol, which is the propeller of the boat and awards players with 5x, 20x or 50x wins when 3, 4 or 5 of them land on a line. This symbol also starts off the main feature which is a free spins game, but before the spins commence players are taken to the dock where they will see 6 boats lined up, waiting to be picked.
The first boat picked reveals the number of free spins that will play out, while the second gives a multiplier that will boost the value of any wins throughout them. Up to 7 spins with a 6x multiplier can be won, although the reels are standard throughout them, so there’s no guarantee that any winning lines will occur.
The last bonus symbol is the scatter, which is a nice image of a sailfish jumping out of the water, and this can stop in any positions to be worth a prize that will be a multiple of the total stake per spin. Just 3 scatters pays out 2x the bet, 4 will be worth 10x and having 5 scatters appear at once pays a nice 50x.
The Verdict
While Reel Strike may not look particularly flashy it’s still a decent all-round game that follows a popular theme. Sport fishing fans will certainly want to give this game a try, but even those who are not so keen on the hobby may appreciate the beauty of the fish.
The real appeal however, is the bonus round with the potential to get that generous multiplier. It’s a bit of a shame that there are so few spins then, with a maximum of 7 being pretty low, while unlucky players may only get a couple.