Sonic Boom Pokies
The idea of supersonic flight brings to mind lots of fast planes and action, but the Sonic Boom pokie, from Microgaming, is a pretty standard 3-reel, single payline game that has the grand total of 1 image of a jet fighter to create the theme.
Players shouldn’t necessarily be put off by this however, as Microgaming are experts at releasing this format of Poker machine and this one comes complete with a couple of extra features to help it soar above some others.
Like all games from this developer, it runs on stable, trusted and reliable software, with a good return to player ratio guaranteed, while lining up the right symbols can result in some great jackpot wins, with Sonic Boom rewarding fortunate players with up to 2,500 coins.
Taking Flight
The layout of this pokie couldn’t be more conventional if it tried, although that’s no bad thing as players will be instantly familiar with how it all works and as it’s a proven format, why should it be changed?
With the top left side of the screen taken up by the reels, and the bottom left being the title and an image of a fighter plane, the right side is taken up by the payout table, plus some information about how wild substitutions work.
Underneath everything we see the standard Microgaming control buttons, with players able to adjust the value of a coin from 0.05 to 0.10, 0.20, 0.25, 0.50, 1.00, 2.00, 5.00, 10.00, 20.00, 25.00, 50.00 and finally 100.00, while they can also play with 1 or 2 coins for a maximum possible bet of 200.00.
The payout schedule is divided into 2 columns and the relevant one is highlighted depending on how many coins are activated.
Most of the symbols are as standard as the rest of the game, with the bottom of the table taken up by the cherry. A single cherry is worth 2x the bet, while any mix of the Bar symbols will be worth 5x. If 2 cherries stop on the payline, players will also win 5x their stake back, and next up is the single Bar icon that’s worth 15x.
It’s back to the cherry symbol again, and a full line right across the centre of the reels will pay 20x the stake, while double Bars are valued at 45x and the triple Bar will reward players with 60x their bet.
Topping off the regular symbols we finally get to the fighter plane and when this stops across the line on all 3 reels, players will win 120x their bet back.
Sonic Boom
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Booming Great Jackpot
The most valuable symbol of all however is the Sonic Boom logo, which has a couple of important jobs to do here. Firstly, it’s a wild, which means it can act as any other to complete winning lines, while having just a single wild do this will double the value of any combinations that it completes. If 2 wilds and a single example of a regular symbol land on the line, then the resulting payout will be 4x that symbols base value.
However, this is also the jackpot symbol that pays by far the biggest prizes when it lands across the reels on its own. If a single coin is being played, the win is 1200 coins, but if 2 coins have been activated, it gets a slight boost, with 2,500 coins being paid out. It’s a bit of an incentive to activate 2 coins, which can still be done for as little as 0.10, but many games offer bigger rewards when the maximum number of coins are in play.
Is It A High Flyer?
In most respects, Sonic Boom as a perfectly standard Microgaming 3-reel pokie and none the worse for it. Gameplay is easy and fairly frequent wins can be spun up as the basic symbols come in to land. It’s nice to see a wild multiplier symbol in effect as this can really send the frequency and value of wins sky-high, but it’s a shame the added benefit of playing with 2 coins is so small.
The majority of games will give players a 25 – 50% boost to the jackpot when they play with all coins, so this measly 8% or so seems a bit low. But the payoff is that away from the jackpot, there’s some good winnings to be had, so prospective players should give these reels a spin and see what high-flying prizes they can collect.