Power Stars Slot Machine

Power Stars is a 5 reel, 20 pay line slot machine produced by Novomatic for land based and online casinos.

This slot takes a classic approach by including various fruit and stereotypical sounds.

You won’t be overly impressed with this slot machine at first sight. In fact, you may wonder if Power Stars has anything more to offer than the classic 3 reel slot machines that dominated Vegascasinos decades ago.

Let’s discuss whether or not this is the case by covering Power Stars’ background, music, animations, pay table, bonuses, and betting options. We’ll also discuss how this slot compares to othergames.

The background of Power Stars is nothing impressive, but it’s better than most classic slot machines that deal with fruit.

The top of the background features different shades of red along with faint twinkling stars. The reels have a dark red color that’s only broken up by more faint twinkling stars.

You’ll also see the Power Stars title above the reels along with white and gold stars decorating it.

The atmosphere isn’t a reason to play this game, but it’s also not the most boring slot that we’ve seen either.

Every time you spin the reels, you’ll hear a generic tune that could come from any random slot machine.

Other sound effects consist of different jingles that play during winning payouts, some of which sound like they could be nursery rhymes. In any case, it’s nice that the jingles are more uniquethan what plays when the reels are spinning.

One tune that you’ll hear after every winning payout is a combination of a clock ticking and alarm ringing.

This music is meant to coerce you into making a decision on whether you want to collect your winnings or gamble them. Unfortunately, the tune becomes extremely annoying to hear after every win.

The most common animation is when symbols catch on fire after a winning payout. We don’t know what this has to do with the star theme, but it’s an entertaining animation nonetheless.

Another animation happens when you get a star on the reels. The spaces beneath and/or above it will explode into fire before changing into stars.

Again, we don’t get the use of fire and explosions in a game called Power Stars, but it’s better than merely having winning symbols disappear and reappear.

Power Stars Pay Table and Graphics

Power Stars’ payouts and symbols include the following:

• Star – The star is the wild symbol and substitutes for other symbols to form winning payouts. The star only appears on reels 2, 3, and 4, expanding to fill the entire reelwhenever it lands. This symbol offers no winning payouts on its own.
• 7 – The 7 pays 500 credits for 5 symbols, 250 for 4, and 50 for 3.
• Bell – The bell pays 250 credits for 5 symbols, 100 for 4, and 25 for 3.
• Watermelon, Grapes – These symbols pay the same, offering 100 credits for 5 symbols, 25 for 4, and 10 for 3.
• Eggplant, Orange – The eggplant and orange offer 75 credits for 5 symbols, 15 for 4, and 5 for 3.
• Cherries, Lemon – These symbols pay 50 credits for 5 symbols, 10 for 4, and 5 for 3.

While the symbol graphics are nothing special in this game, they’re clean and well designed.

The grapes, bell, and lemon are the best looking symbols, while the eggplant, orange, and 7 also look decent. The cherries and watermelon offer the least detail and are mediocre looking symbols.

Power Stars isn’t about impressing you with the latest 3D graphics, but you should be satisfied with the quality.

As its classic theme suggests, Power Stars isn’t a game that’s big on bonuses. The only special features that you get include an expanding wild and re spin – both of which are triggered by thestar wild.

The one other feature is the Gamble option, which gives you an opportunity to boost your payouts after wins. Below you can see more on the Gamble feature, expanding wilds, and re spins.

• Star Expanding Wild and Re Spin – As mentioned before, any time that you land a star on the reels, it expands to fill that reel with wild symbols. You’ll also get a free respin with the expanding wild stars remaining in place. If you land another star in one of the middle reels, you’ll trigger another re spin with star wilds remaining in place. You can win up to3 re spins if you’re able to fill reels 2, 3, and 4 with stars. But in our experience, you’ll be lucky to get 2 re spins since stars don’t land on consecutive spins very often.
• Gamble Feature – Following any winning payout, you can click the Gamble feature to try and double your prize. This takes you to a second screen, where you’ll see a strangeplaying card that looks like a blue eyeball. Beyond this, the playing card rapidly changes colors from red to blue while making an annoying sound. We’ve seen this in other Novomatic games andstill don’t understand the need to use this irritating sound effect. The goal is to correctly guess if the playing card’s color will be red or black. If you guess right, you’ll double your betand have the option to either collect your winnings or keep gambling. You can win up to 6 times before being forced to exit to the main game for at least another spin. The win frequency isn’tvery high in this slot, so we don’t recommend that you gamble your winnings often. But this can be a nice way to turn your small payouts into something more significant.

You can change pay lines from 1 to 20, using either the buttons on the sides of the reels or the arrows beneath them.

You can change your coin denomination from $0.01 to $2.00 with the arrows beneath the reels. This makes the minimum bet worth $0.01 per spin, and the max worth $40.00.

Considering that you can play all 20 pay lines for $0.20, this is a good way to maximize your chances of winning on each spin without putting your bankroll at risk.

You can make the screen full size by clicking the screen button in the lower left hand corner of the screen. This makes the game take up almost the entire screen and gives you a better view ofthe action.

Other options include the ability to change the language from English to Italian, graphics quality from high to low, and the volume up or down.

Changing the graphics quality is good for players who are using slower PCs / mobile devices and want to reduce the game’s lag.

Also note that Power Stars’ default language is Italian, and you’ll have to change it if you want English.

The win frequency for Power Stars is average, which surprises us considering the lack of special features and relatively low payouts.

We won about a third of our spins with 20 pay lines, including winless streaks that lasted for 6 to 8 spins.

Another surprise is that the star expanding wild doesn’t come up very often. Even when it does, you’ll have plenty of times where the star fails to win you any payouts.

Considering the average win frequency and our lack of success with the star wild, we can’t believe that Power Stars’ RTP is better than average.

This game is okay for players on a budget, but we recommend limiting your bets to $0.20 for 20 pay lines to conserve your bankroll.

Power Stars features straightforward rules that make this game simple if you’re an experienced slots player. Here’s a look at the main rules you should know:

• All winning combinations are formed left to right.
• Only the highest prize is paid in a single pay line with 2 or more wins.
• The pay table shows prizes for your selected coin denomination.
• Re spins are played at the triggering lines and bets.

Power Stars is one of several modern slot machines that incorporate fruit into the theme. Below you can see how this game compares to a couple of other similar slot machines in Betsoft’s FruitZen and Quickspin’s Second Strike.

Fruit Zen has one of the best atmospheres that we’ve seen in a slot machine.

It features rocks and a mild sea in the background, with light shimmering off the water. The music truly sets the Zen part of this game since it’s a tranquil tune that’s meant to reflect theJapanese inspiration.

Fruit Zen’s animations are also good because they feature lights going through winning symbols, and an expanding wild popping up with cherry blossoms.

The only downside to this slot is that the expanding wild is the only special feature. This game is more about showcasing an interesting background and peaceful music to help players escape fromreality.

Because of how well Fruit Zen creates a background that perfectly matches its theme, we place it on a level above Power Stars.

Second Strike features many of the same symbols as Power Stars, including cherries, grapes, a star, and watermelon. The graphics for these symbols are also good just like in Power Stars.

But one key difference is Second Strike’s music, which sounds like it comes from an upscale club. The music is key to giving Second Strike a unique atmosphere that separates it from Power Stars.

Another interesting aspect to this game is how it features a unique border with little spaces on it. Every time that you win, symbols that occurred in your win light up on the border.

A white light will also go around the border and stop on one of the spaces. If it stops on one of your lit up spaces, you’ll get the Second Strike feature, which sees matching symbols from theborder transfer to the reels as wild symbols.

This unique feature, along with a superior background, sets Second Strike apart from Power Stars and makes it more fun. But these games are largely the same in other aspects like symbol graphicsand animations.

Power Stars offers enough to separate it from most fruit themed slot machines, which is good given how cliché this genre is.

For starters, you’ll see the symbols catch on fire when they form wins, followed by nursery music while your payouts are added up. We can’t say that the animations and sound effects fit thetheme, but they do add something to the experience.

The graphics are above average for a fruit slot, with the bell, grapes, and lemon looking the best.

The primary feature in Power Stars is the expanding wild, which happens any time that you get a star on the reels. This expanding wild is accompanied by a re spin, which can lead to more re spinsif you get additional stars on the reels.

Another feature of this game is the Gamble option, which allows you to double up your payouts at any time. The Gamble feature isn’t unique to Power Stars, but it’s always nice to have thisoption.

The downsides to this game include that it has generic sound effects, limited features, and a mediocre background. You can see a noticeable difference in how Fruit Zen and Second Strike create aninteresting atmosphere, versus Power Stars and its lack of original music and background graphics.

Power Stars does just enough to distinguish itself from classic slot machines. But if you’re looking for something truly different, then we suggest trying another fruit themed game.