Wild Catch Pokies
Fishing is arguably the most popular sport in the world, so it’s not surprising that so many pokies are dedicated to the pastime and Wild Catch is a good example of the genre from Microgaming which features boats, fish, lures and trophies across 5 reels and a 243 Ways to Win layout.
Players will also find they can hook some nice bonus features such as wild substitutions, a couple of free spins rounds with multipliers and scatter payouts, so they should be able to reel in real winnings on these reels.
Casting Off
A calm sea and the stern of a fishing boat sit above the game, giving it a relaxing ambience, while the colourful symbols and control buttons give Wild Catch a lot of visual impact. This game uses the popular 243 Ways to Win system whereby players get a prize whenever 3 or more of the same symbol stop on adjacent reels. It doesn’t matter which part of those reels they land on, just as long as the line runs from the left side, with bigger rewards coming from getting a line of 4 or 5 matching symbols.
The control buttons are just as colourful as the symbols and players can activate a single coin for 0.01 which means a starting bet size of 0.30, or adjust the value up to 0.50 per coin and play with 10 coins for a maximum bet of 150.00. Because of the Ways to Win system, there’s no option to play just a line and all positions on the reels are active at all times.
The playing card 9, 10, J, Q, K and A symbols that feature on so many games are prominent here and while some players like to see them, others would rather everything was related to the theme, but at least they are all presented in various shades of purple, blues, red and yellow. It’s just a pity that they haven’t been designed to fit in with the topic by adding some fishing-related features to them.
A scale, (the type you weigh fish with, not the sort that covers the actual fish themselves), is the lowest value picture symbol, with a lure, the fishing boat and the trophy paying out bigger rewards respectively.
Wild Catch
Unable to connect to MySQL: SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] No such file or directory
Fishy Features
The wild symbol is a very happy looking swordfish, leaping out of the water and substituting for all except the scatter when he appears on reels 3, 4 or 5. There’s no value associated with our fishy friend, but he will trigger 5 free spins when 3 or more stop on the screen at once.
Should the wild complete any winning combinations during these spins an extra spin will be added, plus any prizes are tripled in value throughout this round and it can be re-triggered if 3 wilds land again, with an extra 5 spins added on to any remaining ones.
A smiling fisherman, boasting about the size of his catch, is the scatter symbol. He can appear anywhere to reward players with 5x, 20x or 50x their total stake when 3, 4 or 5 land at once. After this is paid out 10, 15 or 20 free games will commence, with the number depending on how many scatters landed.
There’s an interesting twist to these spins, as any time the wild symbol completes a line, a multiplier will take effect. The first time it does this, it’s just a regular prize payout, but the next time it’s a 2x prize and then 3x and so on, up to a maximum of 10x.
OK, so it’s going to be a very lucky player who manages to get 10 wild substitutions in this round, but it’s not unrealistic to get a few, so this free spins game is well worth the wait.
Catch of the Day, or Throw it Back?
Those players who like fishing will probably want to give Wild Catch a go, while anyone who likes free spins and multipliers may be tempted to dip their toe into these particular waters as well. It shouldn’t get too choppy either, as Microgaming are a respected pokie developer and fair payouts are guaranteed.
The bonus features are pretty good, so the only real downside is that the standard playing card icons will tend to fill much of the reels and even that depends on whether you like to see these symbols or not.