Wild West Duels: Slot Overview
Hey players, get ready to saddle up for a… wait;
actually, there's been so much saddling 🍉 going on courtesy of all these Western-themed
slots, we might start chafing in the crotch area soon. Why don't we 🍉 make the journey on
foot this time? However you choose to venture forth, today's destination is Wild West
Duels, an 🍉 online slot from the prodigious Pragmatic Play team. Now, being prodigious
doesn't always mean being original - Wild West Duels 🍉 is a classic example of
'borrowing' others' ideas. We won't give the name of the prior game up just yet, 🍉 but if
you're willing to risk a bit of saddle sore, players familiar with Western-themed slots
should be able to 🍉 pick it pretty soon.
Wild West Duels' setting is none other than a
dusty frontier town that looks like it might 🍉 have been abandoned a while ago. Perhaps
the local mine tapped out, or the train barons refused to build a 🍉 stop here or any
number of things that would lead to a town's demise. Then again, perhaps the population
are 🍉 too scared to venture forth onto the streets for fear of banditry? Whatever the
case, Wild West Duel's town feels 🍉 kinda desolate, its streets filled with tumbleweeds,
dust, and a couple of cacti. A twangy soundtrack has been supplied to 🍉 fill the audio
side of the bargain, which is pretty darn good, though also a little spoiled by the
xylophone-like 🍉 sounds for win count-ups. It's good, audio-visually, but nowhere near as
uniquely atmospheric as the slot it's trying to be.
Wild 🍉 West Duels is played on a 5x5
game grid, where 15 lines cross the gaming area for landing winning combinations 🍉 on.
That'll happen when three or more of a kind hit along a line from the leftmost side
over consecutive 🍉 reels. Highly volatile and rather unforgiving at times, no matter how
players approach the game – buying bonuses or betting 🍉 on individual spins, the RTP
remains the same. It tops out at 96%, though two lower settings have been produced, 🍉 so
a quick check of the paytable will clear up which version you've got. If it all looks
okay, then 🍉 stakes of 20 p/c toR$/€100 per spin can be selected to get the duelling
going.
On the symbol side of things, 🍉 Wild West Duels comes with 10 regular paying
symbols and a bunch of specials as well. Regular pays start on 🍉 the lower side with a
wanted poster, necktie, drink bottle, boots, and a hat, while the high pays include
five 🍉 various character symbols. Hitting a winning line made up of five matching symbols
awards 1x the bet for the lows 🍉 or 5-20x the bet for the premiums. Appearing on all
reels to help link symbols is the regular bag of 🍉 gold wild, which substitutes for any
normal paying symbol. In the base game or in the Duel feature, wild symbols 🍉 can
randomly expand to fill the whole reel, and two gunslingers duel it out. The winning
dueler adds their multiplier 🍉 of x2 to x100 to the wild. Expansions only happen if at
least one win will be formed.
Wild West Duels: 🍉 Slot Features
That brings us to three
special symbols which are used to trigger Wild West Duels' three bonus rounds – 🍉 the
Beer Game, the Duel, and Lost Relics.
Beer Game
Hitting 3 or more Beer Game scatters
triggers 10 free Beer Game 🍉 spins. In the Beer Game, when the wild beer mug symbol hits,
it gets a random multiplier of x2 or 🍉 x3 and sticks to its position until the round
comes to an end. Multipliers are applied to any wins they 🍉 are part of, and multiplier
values are added when more than one wild is involved. Expanding wilds are not part 🍉 of
this feature, which cannot be retriggered either.
Duel
When 3 or more Duel scatters
land in view, players win 10 free 🍉 Duel spins. During this bonus, expanding wilds are
present, and at least one wild symbol is guaranteed to land in 🍉 a random position on
each free spin. This round also cannot be retrigged.
Lost Relics
The last scatter is
the Lost Relics 🍉 scatter. Landing at least 3 of them triggers the Lost Relics round –
starting with 3 free spins. Before the 🍉 spins begin, though, players pick 9 out of 25
shovels shown on the screen to reveal either guaranteed wilds or 🍉 random multipliers.
Wild values are 1, 2, 3, or 5, while multiplier values are x1, x2, x3, or x5. Once 🍉 the
picks are done, the free spins are played. For each spin, the picked number of wilds is
guaranteed to 🍉 land in random positions, and each win is multiplied by the initially
picked multiplier. Expanding wilds do not feature, and 🍉 the round cannot be
retriggered.
Buy Free Spins
If possible in your country, players are able to buy any of
the three 🍉 bonus rounds. The cost of buying the Beer Game is 100x the bet, the Duel
costs 200x the bet, while 🍉 Lost Relics has a price tag of 400x the bet. As mentioned,
the RTP for all of them is the 🍉 same as when non-bonus buy playing.
Wild West Duels:
Slot Verdict
Okay, it's not pixel for pixel the same, but yeah, Wild 🍉 West Duels is, for
all intents and purposes Hacksaw's Wanted Dead or a Wild by another name. Wanted Dead
or 🍉 a Wild's crushing portrayal of the West came out around a year and a half before
Wild West Duels was 🍉 scheduled for release. Perhaps Pragmatic Play was banking on
memories of Hacksaw Gaming's popular slot dwindling since then, and maybe 🍉 no one would
notice. Then again, maybe Pragmatic Play cavalierly steamed ahead with its version
without little to no regard 🍉 for what other people might think. Hardly a new move. In
the world of online gambling, imitation isn't just the 🍉 sincerest form of flattery, it's
a fairly common occurrence.
Putting that to the side for a moment, what we've got left
🍉 over is an exciting Western slot, though be warned, one which displayed moments of
cruel brutality. Its bonus rounds have 🍉 the ability to pull its parts together to create
something special, but they could easily go practically nowhere as well, 🍉 making buying
them a precarious proposal. At least, it could be during our test sessions. Winning
potential is massive, though, 🍉 and at 20,000x the bet, there is more on offer here than
there was in the original Wanted Dead or 🍉 a Wild slot by quite a wide margin. Perhaps
big numbers will be the bait that hooks prospective players over 🍉 from Wild West
Duels?
It might have to be because the rest of the game feels like a distant second.
Wild 🍉 West Duels lacks the originality (in regards to things like artwork, gameplay and
oppressive atmosphere) that Wanted Dead or Alive 🍉 exploded on the scene with. It's hard
not to class Wild West Duels as a cracking good game, but only 🍉 really because it nabbed
its best ideas from a competitor.
