Wacky Races Slot
Wacky Races is based on the classic TV series from the 1960’s that saw a rich variety of crazy characters in their equally weird vehicles racing across the world for the title of ‘World’s Wackiest Racer.’ It may have taken 50 years, but there’s now an online slot machine dedicated to the mis-adventures of Dick Dastardly, his dog, Muttley, the beautiful Penelope Pitstop and others. It’s a mobile optimised game from the huge Bally company who have packed the 5 reels and 40 paylines with an amazing 10 bonus features, including free spins, stacked wilds, random wilds and more.
Casino games developer Bally is one of the biggest names in the business, having a history that also stretches back to 1968, the same year that the 17 original Wacky Races episodes started showing on US TV. With no internet to populate with their games, they were of course manufacturers of slots for land-based casinos but have been providing their range online for a number of years.
Wacky Races is just the newest in a long line of high-quality slots from Bally and sets the reels in the dashboard of a car, giving players a view down the road, where Dick Dastardly and his race car can be seen. Various control buttons are incorporated into the design, along with exhaust pipes and other bits of car-like decorations. It’s very effective and filled with images of the other characters from the show, so it’s certain to appeal to anyone who remembers it, which thanks to endless repeats, could be players from any age group.
Get Set…
Lining 3 or more of the same symbol across any of the 40 paylines, in a continuous run from the left side, will win a prize and the paytable lists how many times the line bet equivalent is awarded for each possible combination. It starts with the standard high-card symbols Q, K and A, which are all worth 2x, 5x, or 10x when seen on 3, 4, or 5 reels, and then moves on to the unique vehicles that the racers use.
There’s the tank used by Sergeant Blast and Private Meekly, the airplane used by Red Max, Professor Pat Pendings’ Convert-a-Car and the BoulderMobile that belongs to Rock and Gravel. The top standard icons are Penelope Pitstops’ Compact Pussycat car and the lady herself, plus Dastardly and Muttley, who pay out 25x, 125x, or 500x the line stake when landing across the reels.
Dick Dastardly also turns up as a wild symbol, so if you land a line of matching symbols, but there’s a break in the sequence, he can substitute if he’s in the right place and complete the line. This symbol is also worth 25x, 125x and 500x when it makes up a combination on its own, although he’s just one of several wilds that can appear in both the base games and during the bonus rounds.
Go! With Wacky Wild Features
Start your engines and hold on tight as we race through the multiple wild features of this game. There’s a couple of randomly awarded in-game bonuses, such as the chance to have between 3 and 11 extra wilds added to the reels after any spin, while you could also benefit from a wild reels feature, which as the name implies, sees entire reels turning wild at random.
If the Wacky Races symbol, or the Wacky Races Wild turn up in any 3 or more places at once, you trigger a multi-level feature that starts with the Racing Bonus. You will get paid an instant prize, then be shown 5 of the cars which will start to race. Whichever car wins determines which bonus feature then plays out.
Revving up the Bonus Rounds
The Creepy Coupe free games consists of 10 spins, with either random wilds or wild reels turning up in each spin. If the Gruesome Twosome appear, they become extra wild symbols, and if they are on reels 1, 3 and 5 at once, another 10 Creepy Coupe spins are added on, up to a theoretical, if somewhat unlikely, 200 spins. If Penelope Pitstop wins the Racing Bonus, you trigger 12 free spins and any heart symbols that appear are collected, turning between 1 and 4 entire reels wild for the rest of the round, depending on how many hearts you land.
The Muttley Wacky Scrapyard feature sees 10 items to pick, with some awarding real cash prizes or multipliers that take you to another level and more items to pick. But in the subsequent levels, there’s also the chance of revealing a bomb that ends the round. There’s up to 1000x the line bet to win in the scrapyard, but if you have a Better Bonuses wager active, you get spare lives, and any unused ones will be rewarded with up to 500x the line bet.
Professor Pat Pending takes you to a wheel of fortune, which spins up Mini, Minor, Major, or Mega jackpot wins, while Peter Perfect awards another simple feature, where you click on any of the 5 trophies to claim a win of between 220x to 2000x the line stake.
Betting Options
All 40 lines are active and while there’s a low limit of just 0.01 per line, because of the multiple features, 0.10 is added on for a minimum stake of 0.50 per spin. You can raise this to a high limit of 50.00 for each spin, but there’s also an interesting Better Bonus option available, which increases the stakes by 50%, while adding extra wilds and enhanced features during the side games.
It’s well worth it for the boost to winnings, although cautious gamblers can also practice on free Wacky Races video slots before playing for real cash.
Other Cartoon Capers
This isn’t the only online casino slot based on a cartoon from Hanna Barbera, as The Flintstones and Top Cat also star in their own games.
The Top Cat video slot comes from Blueprint Gaming and features the coolest cats in town across 5 reels and 20 paylines. Spin these funky felines into the right places and you can trigger several bonus features, with extra wilds, free spins and instant cash awards.
Reaching the Chequered Flag
The Wacky Races video slot piles on the bonus features at every turn, but even the base games can be quite rewarding, with the potential to land some decent prizes even before it gets into top gear. Extra wilds and wild reels are certainly going to help, but it’s the amazing array of special bonus rounds that gets this game speeding ahead.
While some of the rounds are simple click and collect games, others, such as the Creepy Coupe and Scrapyard bonus can go on for a while, giving spinners ample opportunity to collect some serious wins. If you liked the cartoons, you’ll definitely like this comic-themed slot game, and if you’ve never heard of Wacky Races, give it a try anyway.
