Cafe de Paris Slots
J’adore Paris. Who the hell doesn’t? The Left Bank, the Trocadero, the Arc d’ Triumph, and the Louvre. Refined locals with small dogs. Postcard perfect streets. Beautifully preserved boulevard town houses. The faint whiff of arrogance and prejudice...
...Well, OK, perhaps that last side of the French capital isn’t all that great. Nevertheless, Paris is one of the greatest cities on Earth, and as such the opportunity to bring a little slice of this iconic metropole into your front room should not be overlooked. Even it comes in the form of a loosely-related 5-reel, 5-payline slot machine from GameScale.
Welcome to Cafe de Paris, then, where the cakes and eclairs are as delicious-looking as the winnings are up for grabs. It’s perhaps not the most immediately engaging game out there when it comes to the aesthetics – albeit that probably depends on how you feel about baking. Despite the somewhat static images of food that define this game, everything does look suitably polished, and definitely a huge improvement when compared with so many older, more dates efforts on the market. So, let’s see if it tastes as good as it appears.
Gateaux
If you’re unfamiliar with the workings of online slot machines then that’s most likely the best place for us to begin. The idea is that you match up like-pictures on the reels – combinations of threes, fours or fives of the same kind. Do this and you stand to win, although quite what you win comes down to a few variables.
The first of which is exactly what image you are matching up. In this game there is a strawberry cake, a plate of macaroons, chocolate cream slice, an eclair, fresh cup of coffee, and some pastries. Each corresponds to a different value of win. The strawberry cake is one of the lowest, but as a bonus even just matching a pair will payout on that. Not bad.
A Slice a Piece
You can also have some impact on both the amount you stand to win, and your potential chances of winning. The bottom of the play screen contains several controls that allow players to adjust variables. So, we can add more to the Bet Line, which basically means putting more money down on the table, thus meaning we can pick up more money if and when we finally win.
On top of that, you can remove or introduce further paylines. In order for a winning combination to be valid as a win, it must be on an active payline. The more paylines in play, therefore, the more individual opportunities you have of winning. Careful, though, throwing everything in at once – maximum bet value and maximum number of lines – can quickly add up in terms of financing.
Whipping the Cream
OK, so you know the fundamentals, time to hit spin. Once the reels are turning it’s important to get familiar with some of the special pictures that you’ll see crop up from time to time. In this area, Cafe de Paris is pretty limited up against many other games. There are no Wild cards and no Bonus rounds, but don’t worry too much, it’s still loads of fun to play.
So, on top of the standard pictures, there’s also the ingredients to a truly romantic night out in the City of Love – red roses, red wine, and candlelight. This is the most valuable item in the game – match five up and you’ll win 5,000. Which sounds pretty tempting to us.
In addition, you also have a Scatter, which is a black-tied waiter carrying some kind of chocolate and cream cake, which makes up the word ‘Scatter’. These will basically multiply your winnings by different amounts depending on how many have landed on the reels at once.
Say Bonjour to Café de Paris
While Cafe de Paris isn’t particularly romantic- you’re gambling, in your bedroom, most likely alone – it is really compulsive once you start playing. The music, for what it’s worth, isn’t that annoying (certainly up against many other games), and the graphics and animation work a treat, rather than creaking along their way like the rusty cogs in a wheel that should have been decommissioned decades ago (well, OK, years ago then).
The result is a great gambler that doesn’t go too much into the direction of being complicated, and themed, and filled with bonus material, but nor does it decide to offer nothing extra for players. Just enough to keep you interested after the first spin, we’d definitely rate this in the top 70% we’ve come across to date.
