The Wombat says: ELK Studios are back, and have resurrected our favourite characters from their earlier game, Bloopers slot!
Yes, Wombat Fans we’re heading back to Hollywood with the Platooners slot but this time we’re behind the scenes on a war movie film. Think Platoon or Full Metal Jacket but with three weird little cartoon guys – The Platooners – as the main characters). As you’d expect from a war film, there’s an enemy on hand; yes the bad guys are called the Snakes of Fortune. Let’s see if we can’t take of few of them down…lights, camera action!
Look and Feel
This game has more toons in it than Play’n GO’s Reactoonz slot and Tomb Raider combined! The reels are set against a backdrop of a lush rainforest film set, with the lights and cameras at the front of the screen (just to remind you that you these guys are making a movie). The soundtrack is pretty awesome too, as we are treated to a whole load of animal jungle noises, including the odd hiss of a snake.
All in all, it’s a visual treat of a similar standard to Napoleon Rise of an Empire slot and ELK Studios Wild Toro slot.
As always with an ELK Studios game, the reels are see through, so you can see the cool graphics at all times (and to make it much easier to play on smaller screen devices). We’re also big fans of the cool little intro – which is a mini movie featuring the Blooper soldiers on a dangerous night-time face off with some sneaky enemy snakes!
All in all, it’s another superb looking game, the kind we’ve come to expect from ELK Studios. It’s head and shoulders ahead of more traditional cartoon games like Fishin’ Frenzy from Blueprint Gaming, Irish Eyes slot and Eyecon’s 99 Time. Not that we don’t like playing the traditional fruities from time to time!
Platooners Slot Game Play
Platooners is a 5 reel slot with 4 rows and 178 Ways to Win. Your symbols on the reels include a whole host of military props and paraphernalia including soldiers’ dog tags, a first aid military rucksack, a pair of army binoculars and a machete as your high value symbols, plus the standard J, Q, K & A playing cards that make up your lower value icons.
The wild symbol in the Platooners slot is the silver icon with ‘Wild’ emblazoned on it, and it will substitute for all other symbols on the reels to give you extra winning combos. Meanwhile the scatter symbol is the scary-looking snake thing with with razor-sharp fangs and glowing red eyes – it’s enough to give this Wombat the heebie jeebies.
Still, you need to keep on the lookout for this icon as it’s the key the game’s lucrative bonus.
Free Spins and Bonus Features
Action Spins
This cool extra is set off randomly in the base game where one of 1 Blooper soldiers will appear to launch rockets, throw grenades and fire heavy machine gun at the reels, giving you extra wilds and cash wins:
Green Rocket Blooper = Reels 1 and 3 contain matching symbols.
Red Grenade Blooper = Extra wild symbols are added to reels 3, 4 and 5.
Yellow Bullet Blooper = Gives you a 5-of-a kind win.
As base game bonuses go, this one is a cracker!
Snakes of Fortune Bonus
You can trigger off the Free Spins game in the Platooners slot by landing 3x or more of the Snake Scatter symbols anywhere on the reels and the soldiers will parachute onto a second screen.
You will begin with 15 goes. The Platooners then take turns in attacking the snake, the number of soldiers you’ll have at your disposal depends on how many Scatters you landed in the first place:
3x Scatters = 1 Platooner per Free Spin, 4x Scatters will give you 2 Platooners per Free Spin and if you triggered the bonus with 5x Scatters then all 3 of the blooper solidiers will appear per spin.
The aim of this bonus is to blow away the snakey bad guy made of coins using the Platooners weapons – and there are multiple levels where you’ll get more ammo and bigger cash wins each time you defeat a snake.
It’s a A LOT of fun Wombat Fans and there’s some moolah on offer if you´re lucky
Betting strategies
As with all ELK Studio slots, players can also control their betting strategy via the game’s Bet Level selector, which is a nice touch:
Optimiser: Will change the bet level automatically based on a % of your balance: (1%, 2%, 5% or 10%)
Leveller: Will raise your bet two levels after five losses in a row
Booster: Will raise your bet level by one after a single loss
Jumper: Will raise your bet by one level after every win
Conclusion
If you’re lucky there some wins available in Platooners slot, and we particularly like that the fact that the random Action Spins are also in play during the Free Spins round! Add to this the fun theme and crisp graphics and you’ve got a bomb-blaster of a slot. Hats off to ELK Studios once again!