Racey Reels
When I first saw the Playboy slot on Wombat Casino, I was expecting a game about a racing driver or something. Playboy? I’ve never heard of it. Imagine my shock, when it a reel dropped in with a scantily clad lady on it! (Well, that was what I told Mrs Wombat, anyway).
It turns out that this slot from Microgaming is very tastefully done. It’s one of their 243 Ways to Win games and the graphics are all beautifully painted with images of four of the most famous Playmates (or so my friend tells me) all dressed up properly (OK, so Kimi is just getting dressed and Ashley has forgotten to button up her shirt). Microgaming have come a long way from the Big Top slot machine, that’s for sure.
The famous Playboy logo is wild and the scatter symbol (which sets off the free spins if you land 3 or more of them) is the image of the stacked Playboy mags.
If anyone asks you why you are playing the Playboy slot, you can spare your blushes by reminding them that P.G. Wodehouse and Ian Fleming once had short stories published in the magazine.
Oh, and if you play this at home, wear a shiny red silk dressing gown and a captain’s hat from the “Love Boat”. I don’t know why, but it makes it that much more enjoyable. The whole look and feel is something akin to the Finer Reels of Life slot, which I guess makes sense. Although I get the feeling that Jillian prefers a shot of tequila to a glass of Rioja.
Playboy Game Play
Let’s try and talk about the slot and steer away from the double entendres shall we? You won’t see any traditional fruity symbols on this slot like melons and so forth (oh hang on..), but you will see the four Playmates: Kimi, Sofia in her bikini, Ashley and Jillian who’s dressed up for a night out and reminds us of that nice lady on the Irish Eyes slot.
There’s also a symbol of a Playmate getting whisked off by a hunk in sunglasses (Mrs Wombat’s favourite), someone else driving around in a fast red sports car with the wind in her hair, and another lass hanging on for dear life sitting behind a dude with a big Chopper. They’re all living the Playboy dream of course! The other symbols are the standard playing card symbols, Ace through Ten.
Now it turns out that the game-play on this slot is fair dinkum good, and I enjoyed playing it. Select your total bet and off you go. There is no messing around with pay-lines, coin sizes and what have you. If you want to get to grips with the pay outs, just slide out the Pay Table by clicking on “View Pays” and you’ll see them displayed dynamically- they will change as you amend your bet size. So, select a £/$/€ 15 bet level, for example, and you’ll win £/$/€ 500 for 5 Playboy symbols and £/$/€ 50 if 4 Jillians show from left to right.
It’s a fixed 243 Ways to Win game which means if you line up symbols on the reels in any position going left to right, you win. They just need to be on adjacent reels starting on reel 1. Simple!
The Free Spins
3, 4 or 5 of the stacked magazine symbols opens up the free spins round which is also called the Playboy Club- and this is where things get interesting, because just like that other famous 243 Ways slot: the Thunderstruck 2 slot, there are multiple bonus offers available. You’ll need to get into the Club multiple times and then you’ll start to unlock more offers.
Kimi
Kimi will give you 10 free spins and will multiply all your winnings by 5. Thanks Kimi! The cool thing about Kimi is that she will let you re-trigger the free spins.
Sofia
Sofia turns her nose up at 10 free spins- she’s rather give you 15 and what’s more they come with the Running Wilds Feature. What this means, is that a Wild Stack will grow by 1 Wild per spin- nice for making up those winning combinations.
Ashley
Then there’s Ashley- you know the Playmate who has trouble with her shirt buttons. She’ll give you 20 free spins with Rolling Reels- that cool feature we have seen on the Rugby Star slot where you can see consecutive wins off a single spin- and the multiplier can tick up to 5x.
Jillian
Well, Jillian is dressed up for a big night out and it looks like it’s going to be an expensive one, so it’s just as well that she will give you no less than 25 free spins with the Wild Night Feature. This can trigger automatically turn up to 5 reels wild. Boom! A fair blinder of a Big Night Out indeed!
To enjoy all of the bonus offers you’ll need to unlock them, as we mentioned earlier. The Kimi bonus is available from the 1st trigger of the bonus feature, Sofia from the 5th, Ashley from the 10th and you can head for a big night out with Jillian from the 15th trigger.
Wild Playboy
The other symbols to mention are the Playboy symbols which are wild. They can stand in for other symbols like the Playmates to make up winning combinations. If you score a win using one of these wilds, they will also double your win. They won’t stand in for the scatter symbol- that’s pretty standard.
Summary
OK, so the theme might be a bit racey for work, but it’s very tastefully done and the game-play is excellent. We love all of the bonus options- it will take you a bit of time to unlock all of them though. Our only complaint is that you can only re-trigger the free spins in the Kimi bonus, but that won’t bother you if you scoop a large win in the other features.
The background music does seem to have been lifted from Hugh Hefner’s “Lurve” playlist. I can imagine this tinkling away in the Playboy mansion- you can always turn it down if it starts to feel a bit like “Medication Time”.
The only other thing is that you can’t play this game on your mobile (yet). We have our fingers crossed that the developers are going to launch a mobile version soon though!
Like all good Microgaming slots, you can spin the reels by hitting your space bar when you are on a desktop or lap-top. We do love that feature (I don’t know why, it’s one of those small things).
We loved it. Don’t tell Mrs Wombat.
Wombat Score: 5/5
This game is longer available at Wombat Casino. Sorry about that!