Zeus III Pokie
This is the third online casino pokie from WMS Gaming to cover the topic of Zeus, not the one-hundred and eleventh as players may think when looking at the title. Zeus and Zeus 1000 have already become big hits for the company and the Zeus III video pokie is sure to follow in their footsteps, especially as it comes with some decent bonus features including free spins and generous scatter payouts.
It also has an unusual reel structure and instead of 5 equal-sized reels, we have just 2 symbol positions on the left side and then 1 more for each until the right-side reel contains 7 symbols. This also gives the Zeus III video pokie 6 reels rather than the usual 5, while running across them, there’s 192 permanently activated paylines. It looks like a potentially complicated set-up, but once the game is running, it’s pretty simple for gamblers to follow.
Ancient Greece and their collection of Gods has long been a popular topic for pokie machines to follow, and this game has images of ships, coins, flying horses and helmets decorating the reels, all set against a background picture of clouds and the Temple of Zeus perched on top of them. Anyone who has played the other games in this range will be familiar with many of these symbols and a review of the pay table will show them what each is worth when 3 or more of the same type land across a line on sequential reels running from the left side.
Playing Zeus III
The control buttons underneath the game are used to set wagers from the low limit of 0.40 per spin, to the maximum stake of 120.00, while free Zeus III video pokie games can be tried out beforehand if players are cautious about wagering 0.40 on a new game.. At the bottom of the scale, we see the playing card Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds and Spades symbols which feature across so many WMS Gaming pokies, but they are colourful enough and will tend to form the most frequent winning lines.
Higher up in value, there’s the picture symbols that give Zeus III its distinctive design, starting with the silver coin and going through the vase, warriors helmet, warship and Pegasus the horse until we finally arrive at a picture of Zeus, looking all mean and moody as he stares at players from the reels.
The temple is a wildcard, so players who have a gap in a line of matching symbols, and the wild filling that gap, will still get paid. It can also extend winning lines across further reels, which will of course, lead to higher prizes.
Zeus III
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Bonus Features
The Gods will be smiling down on anyone who manages to land 3 or more lightning bolt scatter symbols anywhere on reels 2 through to 6. This will trigger a free spins game, but before they begin, a scatter award will be paid out, with the amount and number of extra games dependant on how many bonus symbols triggered them.
If 3 scatters appeared, 10 free spins will begin straight away, but if it was 4 scatters, then players are given an initial payment equal to 10x the total bet, followed by 25 spins. The maximum of 5 scatter symbols returns the top win of 50x the bet and then 50 free spins will begin.
There’s a couple of ways that the bonus games can create extra winning opportunities throughout them, with the most obvious one being the way that the reel layout is reversed, so we see the left-side reel having 7 symbols on it, and the right-side goes down to just 2. This should see more winning combinations spinning up, assisted by so-called Nudging Wilds, which are basically expanding wilds that fill entire reels with images of our friend, Zeus.
The Verdict
The Zeus III video pokie is one of the best-known games in the WMS Gaming range and can played at desktop or mobile-optimised sites, where the unusual layout, unique features and popular theme should ensure that it remains among their biggest titles.