Wild Orient Pokie Machine
Beautifully drawn Asian wildlife decorates the 5 reels of the Wild Orient pokie that comes from the Microgaming developer and it has a couple of interesting creature features that players should find pretty rewarding.
Spinning these reels can trigger free games, see extra wins created by a wild symbol and give second chances to turn a losing spin into a winner, while lining symbols up is made easier by the inclusion of Microgamings’ 243 Ways to Win format.
A bamboo forest, rendered in a nice 3D effect, forms the backdrop to the reels, that are themselves framed in yet more bamboo which sets the scene and makes this an appealing pokie to look at, but looks are not everything, so let’s see how it all works.
Playing Wild Orient
The first thing to note is the lack of any conventional paylines, which have been replaced by the 243 Ways to Win system where players just need to line up 3 or more matching symbols anywhere on adjacent reels running from the left side to get a winning spin. As the name suggests, there are 243 different ways that this can happen across all symbols and it tends to lead to more frequent wins, although they can be smaller value ones.
Something else that players will be quick to notice is the word ‘Respin’ underneath each reel, and this is an interesting feature that we will come back to in a bit.
A bet range from as little as 0.25 per spin up to 125.00 should make this pokie suitable for most budgets, although the Ways to Win system means that all positions are in play at all times and there is no option to place small bets on just a line or two.
Wild Orient has the usual 9, 10, J, Q, K and A symbols as the lower value ones, although some have been given little bits of decoration such as Chinese style umbrellas, dragons, fans and paper lanterns to help them fir in to the theme.
The real stars of course are the animals, and we have realistic images of various ones that can be found across Asia such as a wading bird, monkey, panda, tiger and elephant, each of which becomes animated when making up part of a winning line.
Wild Orient
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Wild Features
It’s only appropriate that the Wild Orient logo is a wild symbol, meaning that it can act as any standard symbol if it can complete winning lines, so for example, if there was a tiger on reels 1 and 3 and a wild on reel 2 it would fill in the gap and pay out for 3 tiger symbols.
The wild will only appear on reels 2 and 4 however, so there’s no value attached to it unless it makes a substitution, and it won’t replace the scatter symbol.
That scatter is a stone carving of the animals and it has a couple of useful jobs to do when it lands in any 2 or more positions at once, without having to be on adjacent reels to do so. Players win 1x their total bet amount when just 2 scatters appear, with 2x, 10x or 100x being won with 3, 4 or 5 scatters, while any 3 or more also starts 15 free spins.
During these spins, any wins are tripled in value, although the reels are standard with no richer symbols, so it’s not absolutely guaranteed that players will win anything, however, they would need to be pretty unlucky not to.
The free games can be re-triggered if more scatters appear, with a further 15 tacked on to the end of the current round.
Respins are a way for players to try and get an extra win and lets them spin a single reel any number of times to hopefully complete a line. It’s an interesting feature, but each spin costs money, with the amount dependant on the likelihood of getting a win out of it and the potential size of that win. Players will need to judge for themselves whether it’s worth it or not and will need to be careful as it is easy to spin a reel over and over until the potential prize is outweighed by the cost of the respins.
The Verdict
Just about any pokie that features cute animals will be guaranteed success and Wild Orient is sure to attract a wide audience of players who like the genre. Some of bonus rounds are potentially quite rewarding, with up to 60,000 coins to be won in the free spins game, but it’s a pity the wild only appears on a couple of reels and can’t make up winning lines on its own.
Other than this, Wild Orient is another high quality release from Microgaming.