King of the Pride Slot
The lion is known as the King of the African Savannah and, several times before, has attempted to become king of the slot machine world too, the most popular example being the famed 50 Lions slot from Australian based developer Aristocrat. Mazooma, as part of the Novomatic games family clearly don’t want to be outdone and as players we are rewarded with this stunning new online video slot showcasing the big cat and friends.
We say friends, though not all are, in a bout of confusion we find a Tiger as the second highest paying symbol on the reels, someone forgot to tell Mazooma’s game designers that Tigers do not, nor have ever, lived on the African Savannah, which is a good thing for the Lion as historically they didn’t tend to fare too well against their bigger feline cousin when interacting. The lion himself seems a little out of time as the black mane would indicate a Barbary lion, a species that’s been extinct for many years and was based hundreds of miles north from the African plains!
Hopefully despite the inaccuracies in the game theme, Mazooma will have done enough work with the audio, visuals and gameplay to ensure that this is a safari slot which is worth taking a tour on.
Theme
In addition to the Lion and Tiger, you will find a Rhino, Giraffe, Zebra and Majestic African Elephant on the 5x4 reels of this game. The images are very photo realistic and colourful, in fact, the whole game is a mass of colour, from the sunset background to the vibrant green reel frame, it’s a little much on the eyes at first but it certainly isn’t boring!
The low pay-out playing card icons get a similar go over on this slot game, decked out in various forms of foliage and in similarly bright colours to the rest of the game, what’s really nice with these symbols is that like all the others they can become stacked colossal symbols, so even these simple classic playing cards do have the power to excite if combined correctly.
The music is a traditional African beat and the animal sound effects are simple but pleasing, Mazooma’s parent company Novomatic could do well to take a leaf out of their proverbial jungle book here where that is concerned.
Features
The game is five reels, four rows and 50 pay-lines, which is a pretty solid format for the high variance games which Mazooma is becoming known for. The maximum stake of 50.00 credits should keep all but the highest limit game players happy whilst the 0.50 credit minimum gives lower stakes players a chance to hit that big variance win on any spin, with up to 500x an individual bet available as top prize.
Without a hint of irony, the lion is the wild symbol on this slot, sadly his roar is a little muted here and delivers only a standard swap-out for other symbols on the reels with the notable exception of the scatter symbol which triggers the games only big bonus, a free spins round.
If you collect three or more scatters a herd of wild Rhino stampede across the screen in a novel 3D video sequence and grant you 7 free spins, no it isn’t a mistype, you only get 7, but fortunately, like the rewards of hunting on the plains for reel, they are extremely valuable in their potential if you can track them down in the right combination. What makes this particular hunt so rewarding is the colossal symbols which appear stacked on the middle reels for the duration of the spins and the fact that a 3x multiplier applies to the whole bonus round.
Summary
King of the Pride is a colourful and fun slot to play, the video and audio aren’t quite up there with titles from the big Video Slot manufacturers know for that style such as BetSoft and NetEnt, but it’s close enough to be competitive. It very definitely outplays older slots in the genre such as Pragmatic Play’s Hot Safari slot machine Roar your way through the free spins rounds on this game and, if you can beat the wild volatility, you may be taking home some king size wins to your own pride.
