Jurassic Island Review

Jurassic Island is a 5 reel dinosaur themed game from Ash Gaming/Playtech which aims to cash in on the popularity of the Jurassic Park movie. Of course Microgaming has the official licensed gamesfrom the movie, so it’s interesting to see how this game stacks up against the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World releases. Straight away there is a difference in tone, as in this game thedinosaurs are prey for a Victorian-era hunter sporting a pith cap and a monocle. The game reels are nicely illustrated with a variety of colorful dinosaurs as the big symbols, with minor symbolsusing 10 to A made out in the bones of luckless dinos.

The wild symbol available in this slot is the punky Raptor and this symbol replaces all others except for the Huntsman. The wild symbol can only show up on the middle three reels and the wildscan expand to cover the entire reel if by doing so it will result in a win. We all like an expanding wild symbol and the Raptor roars in triumph when this occurs. Meanwhile, the monocle Huntsmanbrandishing a rifle is the Scatter symbol in Jurassic Island. When you find 3 or more of these symbols anywhere on the reels one of 4 bonus hunting rounds is released. By finding more than 3Huntsmen you power up your chosen bonus feature.

The bonus features of Jurassic Island are especially successful. When you find 3 or more of the Huntsman symbol you get to choose between 4 bonus rounds: Multiplier Free Games; Carnivore FreeGames; Raptor Free Games; or Hot Shot Hunter Bonus feature. The Multiplier and Carnivore rounds are similar in that 3, 4 or 5 Scatters gives you 10, 15 or 30 free spins. You can also retriggerfree spins to get an extra 3 to 30 spins for finding 2 to 5 Huntsman symbols. In the Multiplier round all wins are tripled, and this is a high variance round meaning you get big wins but lessoften. The Carnivore game only features high value symbols and is a medium variance game.

The Raptor bonus game offers the chance for even more free spins, as you get from 16 to 40 spins depending on how many Scatters you had. Again these can be retriggered to give you 3, 10, 15 or 30more spins for 2 to 5 Huntsmen. This is another medium variance round, this time featuring stacked Raptor wilds. Finally the Hot Shot Hunter allows you to pick off dinosaurs as they cross thescreen earning you anything from 3 times you stake all the way to 180 times your stake depending on which beast you bag.

There is a lot to like about this Stone Age romp, with entertaining bonus game features and nicely illustrated symbols. In fact it more than holds its own against the more famous movie-based slotgames from Microgaming and is a great addition to Playtech’s stable of games.