Tiger Vs Bear Pokies
Who would win a battle between a Tiger and a Bear? One of those questions that seldom gets asked, but Microgaming have decided to answer it across the reels of an online pokie that takes a swipe at the normal wildlife themed games and instead sees cartoon creatures facing off against each other.
This game could easily claw its way into players affections thanks to a fun design and a great bonus game, plus there’s scatter wins, wild substitutions and multiplier payouts to enjoy along with a wide range of accepted bet sizes. So let’s head off to the frozen forests of Siberia and watch some of the local wildlife fighting each other.
Battling Beasts
Tiger Vs Bear has a conventional 5 reel, 25 payline format which sees players winning whenever 3 or more matching symbols stop across an active line, on adjacent reels, with the line needing to run from the left side. The more symbols land on the line, the bigger the prize and each type has a different value.
Behind the reels is a nice image of a snowy forest and snow even covers the control buttons and the reels themselves, giving this game a definite chilly ambience.
The amount staked per spin can be adjusted using the control buttons, with as little as 0.01 being enough to set the reels spinning, although this will only activate 1 of the 25 lines. To get them all in play takes a minimum of 0.25, and then by adjusting up, players can bet a maximum of 250.00 per spin.
The least valuable symbols are the playing card 9, 10, J, Q, K and A, which are popular across many pokies and have been redesigned in this one to look like they are covered in snow. Values range from 2 coins when just 2 examples of the 9 land, up to 100 when a full line of them appear, going up to 10x, 75x and 250x when 3, 4 or 5 of the A symbol stop across an active line.
There’s also snowflakeand frosty leaf symbols before we get to the grumpy looking bear and rather smug tiger, each of whom are worth 50x, 250x or 750x when landing on a line.
Tiger vs Bear
Unable to connect to MySQL: SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] No such file or directory
Bonus Features
The Tiger Vs Bear logo is a scatter symbol which only needs to appear in any 2 positions across the reels to pay out 2x the total stake per spin, while landing 3, 4 or 5 of them is worth 5x, 10x and 50x the bet.
The other bonus symbol is the wild, which unusually, doesn’t have any value on its own, but will double the value of any winning line that it completes when it substitutes for all except the scatter symbol. Scatters are often the trigger for a bonus round, but in this case the job is left to our combative creatures when either the bear or tiger appears on reel 1 and whichever is the other appears on reel 5 following a spin.
Players are then taken to the Siberean Standoff feature which finally sees the long-awaited battle commence. Rather than the blood and guts that would probably be the result of a real fight, this is a far more civilised affair, as they arm-wrestle each other for victory in a nicely animated sequence.
Before they start however, players need to pick who they think will win, with different bonuses playing out as soon as the fight is over.
If they chose the tiger and he won, 8 free spins will then begin, but if turned out to be a soft simian and he loses then just 4 will be awarded.
If players picked the bear and he wins, they get to enter a Bear Claw feature where they see 15 bear footprints and click on each to earn prizes which are doubled in value. If the bear has lost, the same bonus round is awarded, but without the doubling of each prize. The round ends when the ‘Collect’ paw is found.
The Verdict
This fun pokieis a worthy addition to the Microgaming range. It’s got a slightly odd theme but it really works well and the bonus game is a real highlight. Although the animations are relatively simple, they are still quite entertaining and both characters have been well designed, although maybe some more picture symbols instead of the playing card icons would have been welcome.