Bust-A-Vault Slot Machine Review

Depending on how you look at it, there are either three kinds of slot games or two kinds of slot games. If you believe in two kinds then there are the games you play and the games you don’t play.If you believe in three kinds of slot games then there are the games that emulate vintage slot gaming styles, the intermediate games that offer multiple pay lines and free spins, and the modernslot games that break all the old rules.

Bust-A-Vault by Rival Powered is one of those games that emulates vintage three reel, single pay line slot games. The most famous of these games as the Double Diamond slot machine, which ruledthe land based casino floors in the 1990s. What made the Double Diamond so popular was that if you put in enough money for 10 spins you could expect to win something back. Many other slotmachines were avoided by players who could watch the reels go around dozens of times without paying prizes.

Only later did we learn to classify these games as “low volatility” (pays often) and “high volatility” (pays less often) games. The advent of multiple pay lines game slot gamers something to lookforward to, even though sneaky game designers might award prizes that were Pyrrhic victories in themselves, costing more than they paid.

Single pay line slot games are notorious for the Near Miss, where a blank slot on the reel hits the pay line and makes it look like the machine just barely missed paying you a nice prize. Criticsof these games convinced the slot gaming industry to add more pay lines so that you could at least win something.

Bust-A-Vault takes you back to the days when one-armed bandits really did rob the patrons of casinos. It emulates that single pay line mode relentlessly. Where memory tells you “the DoubleDiamond would have paid a 1-bar, 2-bar, 3-bar prize by now” you just keep spinning Bust-A-Vault. This is definitely not a low volatility game, even though the max prize is 2000 times your bet.

Bust-A-Vault is a 3 reel, single pay line video slot game. Because this is an online game it is entirely a simulation of classic slot machine games. All prizes are paid on a single pay line thatruns across the middle of the three reels. “Near miss” results do not count and there is no “bump” effect.

The Green Vault symbol does act as a Wild symbol substituting for all other symbols in the game, including the Cherry. So if the Green Vault and only one other non-Cherry symbol roll up on thepay line, the vault acts like a Cherry. If a single Green Vault forms part of a winning combination the combination pays a normal prize. If two Green Vaults contribute to the winning combinationthe prize is paid for three of a kind. Three Green Vaults pay 500 times your bet for 1 coin, 1000 times your bet for 2 coins, and 2000 times your bet for 3 coins.

The Cherry is not exactly a Wild or Scatter symbol. One Cherry pays 1 times your bet for 1 coin, 2 times your bet for 2 coins, and 3 times your bet for 3 coins. Two Cherry symbols pay 2 timesyour bet for 1 coin, 4 times your bet for 2 coins, and 6 times your bet for 3 coins. A Cherry, Orange, and Lemon combination pays 3 times your bet for 1 coin, 6 times your bet for 2 coins, and 9times your bet for 3 coins. Three Cherry symbols pay 100 times your bet for 1 coin, 200 times your bet for 2 coins, and 300 times your bet for 3 coins.

All of these symbols require that “three of a kind” appear on the pay line.

• The Orange symbol pays 75 times your bet for 1 coin, 150 times your bet for 2 coins, and 225 times your bet for 3 coins.
• The Lemon symbol pays 30 times your bet for 1 coin, 60 times your bet for 2 coins, and 90 times your bet for 3 coins.
• The Triple Bar symbol pays 25 times your bet for 1 coin, 50 times your bet for 2 coins, and 75 times your bet for 3 coins.
• The Double Bar symbol pays 15 times your bet for 1 coin, 30 times your bet for 2 coins, and 45 times your bet for 3 coins.
• Three White Bar symbols pay 10 times your bet for 1 coin, 20 times your bet for 2 coins, and 30 times your bet for three coins.
• Any combination of Red, White, and Blue pays 5 times your bet for 1 coin, 10 times your bet for 2 coins, and 15 times your bet for three coins.

The controls for the game are very simple. The player’s available balance may be displayed on either the left-hand side on the blue medallion or on the right-hand side of the screen below thegame area.

The pay table is displayed on the left-hand side of the screen.

The playing reels are displayed on the right-hand side of the screen. There are three visible slot positions on each reel, meaning that this is a 3 row, 3 reel game. The single pay line isdenoted by two small connecting bars between the reels. The pay line is the middle row.

The Coin Value widget contains a Minus and a Plus button. Use these to change the denomination of the coins you are betting on each spin. Values range from 0.01 to 5.00.

The Select Coins widget allows you to cycle through 1, 2, and 3 coins. The pay table highlights which column of prizes will be paid on the basis of your current coins selection. In other words,if you select 1 coin the first prize column is highlight. If you select 2 coins then the second prize column is highlighted. And if you select 3 coins then the third prize column is highlighted.

The Bet Max button selects 3 coins per spin (but does not change the Coin Value) and initiates one paid spin of the reels.

The Green Auto button activates the Auto spin feature. This is only available to real money players. After you choose how many spins you want the game to play for you the automatic spins continueuntil you exit the game, or until you interrupt the auto spin process, or until the last spin is played, or until your available balance drops below the current bet amount.

The current bet amount is the Number of Coins times Coin Value. Maximum possible bet amount is 15.00 (3 coins times 5.00 per coin).

The Spin button initiates one paid spin of the reels.

Unless you just like vintage style slot games there is virtually no reason to play this game. It does not pay often enough or high enough prizes to make it worth your time. Although thesoundtrack plays continuously, it does get kind of old.

The only special video effect worth mentioning is that when a higher prize is paid, several safes (vaults) drop down from the top of the screen and flood the screen with gold coins to celebrateyour win. But this does not happen nearly often enough to make the game exciting or enjoyable.

It’s hard to see why Rival Powered bothered to design a series of vintage slot games. While they do bring the highly respected artists at Rival Powered to the traditional slot market these kindsof games are really disappointing for fans of Rival Powered’s more interesting slot games like A Stitch In Time and Bulletproof Babes.