Irish Eyes Pokie
Well here’s something you don’t see every day. A pokie based on Irish culture that’s filled with green hills, rainbows, winding paths to pots of gold and leprechauns. Oh, hang on a minute, there’s hundreds of them and Irish Eyes from NextGen Gaming looks exactly like every other one.
Still, lots of people love the theme, like the connection to the luck of the Irish and enjoy familiar-looking games, so on we go and let’s see how this pokie plays out.
The backdrop of rainbows, four-leaf clovers and bright blue skies seems to take up much of the game, with the relatively small 5 reels sat on top of the image and indicators for the 25 paylines on either side of them. A control panel beneath the reels gives players the ability to adjust their bets per spin from just 0.01 to a fairly low maximum of 50.00, although to cover all lines and claim all wins, players should look at staking at least 0.01 on each of the 25 lines and go up from there to suit the budget.
Clicking the Info button opens up the payout schedule that details what will be won each time symbols line up across the reels on an active payline running from the left side, with the usual playing card icons 10, J, Q, K and A making up the lower value ones.
Irish Eyes
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They are fairly basic symbols without any added design flair, but moving up the scale we see a couple of extra icons that are a little more interesting and pay out more when they land across a line.
The clover and pot of gold are both worth the same, with players winning 3x the amount staked per line when just 2 of them land in the right spots and should a full line of 5 appear, the win will be equal to 500x the amount bet on a line.
The clichéd winding path to a clichéd rainbow is the highest value regular symbol, being worth from 6x to 1250x for the same combinations, while there are a couple of extra symbols that trigger the bonus features.
As if the Irish theme isn’t clear enough yet, there’s a leprechaun who acts as a wild symbol, so when the little fella turns up on the reels he can substitute for any other, with the exception of the scatter, to help complete winning lines. He’s also the most valuable symbol, being worth 1x the line bet when just a single example lands on the left reel, and should the row of leprechaun’s stretch right across a line then players are in for a treat with a 10,000x payout.
If he lands anywhere on reels 1 and 5 at the same time, he also triggers a Pick Me bonus game where players see a number of objects and simply click on one to reveal prizes that can be coin values, the option to pick again, or the Win All symbol that pays all the hidden coins out at once.
A red-haired Lady is the key to the other bonuses here, with 2 or more appearing anywhere on the reels not only paying out a prize of 2x, 5x, 20x or 100x the total triggering bet when 2, 3, 4 or 5 land, but also starting off a free spins round should at least 3 appear.
Players win 12 free games, and should they get any winning combinations during them, the amount paid will be tripled in value, while 3 or more scatters will re-trigger them again.
If players want to have a go at boosting their bankrolls, any wins, apart from jackpot payouts, can be gambled. All that’s needed to be Dublin’ the amount won is to correctly guess if a playing card will be revealed as red or black, or to quadruple it, they need to get the right suit. There’s the option to go again, up to 5 times if they are right, but of course a wrong pick along the way loses the gamble winnings and the bet that triggered them.
Is It A Cork-er Or Should Players Tipperary It Over The Edge?
Anyone who enjoys Irish themed pokies will find plenty to like about this game, as they will find all the elements that have made the genre so popular. NextGen Gaming haven’t taken any risks by adding unusual features or symbols to the mix, which some will see as a positive and others will look at it and think it’s a bit unadventurous and a case of the same old thing again.
But with some nice bonus rounds and decent payouts, it’s a pretty good all-rounder.