Bear's Corner Slots
If you don’t like large carnivorous animals, then bear with us as we review a slot game from DLV. Bear’s Corner features grizzlies, panda’s brown bears, black bears and polar bears who line up across the five reels to give you steady wins, especially in a bonus feature where they all go back to nature and turn wild. That doesn’t mean they’ll attack you, but simply that they become wild symbols which will help to complete lots of winning lines during a free spins round. There’s plenty more to enjoy as these creatures lead to scatter symbol payouts and a gamble feature that can multiply winnings over and over.
Let’s paws for a bit and have a look at the design of the Bear’s Corner video slot. It’s a well-known fact that bears tend to do their business in the woods, and this is the setting for the slot game, with mountains and forests stretching out behind the five reels. The view extends to the main game area which doesn’t have clearly defined reels and we think it looks all the better for it, as we can see more of the attractive landscape and the colourful symbols stand out nicely against it. The timber of the forest has been used to carve out the main title, with lower-value playing card symbols also seeming to be made from brightly-painted wood. It’s a nice design and to emphasise the theme, the realistic bear symbols give out roars when they become part of a winning combination.
DLV have come a long way since the company was founded in Latvia in 1994. They have become one of the top supplies of casino gaming equipment to the local market and are now developing a range of mobile optimised slot machines that can be played across many countries. The DLV slots range is fully licensed, delivers high returns and has been independently certified for fair play. It’s time to get our claws into Bear’s Corner and see what these cuddly critters can bring us.
If you go down to the Woods Today
There’s winnings to be had when there or more of the same symbol land across any of the ten paylines, without a break in the sequence from the left side reel. In common with many slot machines, the playing card symbols pay out the smallest prizes, with the 10, J and Q each being worth five times, 20x, or 100x the amount staked on a line when seen on three, four, or five reels. The K and A are both valued at 10x, 40x, or 150x and the bears are all worth more.
A panda and black bear each pay up to 500x your line bet, while the salmon-fishing brown bear is worth up to 750x and the polar bear returns a maximum of 1,000x. The top predator on these reels is the grizzly, who not only pays you from 50x to 1,000x your line stake, but is also a wild symbol. The grizzly can act as any other playing card or bear if he can then complete winning lines, filling in any breaks in a sequence, extending a run over more reels or even doing both at once.
The bear Necessities
On top of the high payouts and extra wins from substituting other symbols, this furry friend will also trigger a free spins feature. Three grizzlies will launch 10 free games, any four at a time starts 15 extra spins and you’re awarded 25 free spins in five or more grizzly bear symbols appear at once. He can be in any places to trigger the bonus round and won’t need to complete a line or substitute for anything beforehand.
All of the bears are wild during the free spins, so with a little bit of luck, players should be picking up lots more prizes before this bonus feature is over. They can’t be retriggered though, so once the 10, 15, or 25 games are done, you collect any wins and go back to the base games.
Grizzly Gambles
If you want to try and double a prize, potentially over and over, then you have the option of entering the woods and playing with the grizzly in the gamble feature. The bear is on a playing card that’s flashing between red and black and there’s coloured paw prints to each side. The aim is to click the correct colour paw in time with the flashing card to double the win. Get it right and you can either collect the prize or try again but get it wrong at any point and the round is lost, along with the triggering win.
A wide Choice of Wagers
As wins are set as multiples of the line stakes, you will win more at higher bet levels. Coin values can be adjusted from 0.01 to 5.00 and with all 10 paylines active, that means total stakes of between 0.10 and 50.00 per spin.
Other control buttons launch a Quick Spin mode and an Autoplay function. Slider buttons are used to change the number of automatic spins from just 10 to infinity, as well as setting win or loss limits that will stop them.
Other bear-based slot Games
The Bear Tracks video slot from Novomatic also fills its reels with all things ursine (that’s the technical name for bears. Where else can you learn about slots and entomology at the same time?) Back to the Bear Tracks game now, and the various creatures can pay out some handsome rewards, especially when they land stacked on reels, while a paw print opens up a free spins bonus round. During these spins, a ‘Bear Trap’ feature is in play, but not to worry, as it means that any stacked bear symbols will be held in place and as more of the same type appear, these also stay on the reels. Hopefully, this can create lots of high-value combinations in the round.
A more cartoon style is taken in the Bonus Bears game from Playtech. Comic symbols of bees, a skunk in a gas-mask and a cool-looking bear are joined in the woods by a high-paying and beautiful park ranger. The bear is a wild symbol and a beehive takes you to a bonus round that sends the bear up trees looking for honey pots. The more he finds, the higher the prizes, but the sting in the tail occurs when he finds a hive and the feature ends. A free spins game where winnings are tripled in value is another sweet spot of this fun slot game.
A game that Pandas to a wide Audience
Wildlife themed online slot machines such as Bear’s Corner are quite popular and while this game doesn’t offer anything particularly new, it’s fair, reliable and mobile optimised. The extra wild bears in the bonus round should ensure that it’s a feature with high returns and as the grizzly is both a wild and scatter symbol you could collect multiple rewards at the same time when it turns up in three or more places across a payline.
We like the option to play free Bear’s Corner video slots before committing to cash spins, although it’s an easy game to play and most people will probably want to start spinning up real cash prizes right away. If there’s anything we would like to change, it’s the fairly annoying soundtrack, which is a series of beeps and bloops. We think most punters will be silencing the game pretty quickly.
