Hockey Hero

I’m no fan of ice-hockey, but I am a sports fan, so I don’t mind playing a game or two of ice-hockey, the slot game version that is, like this Hockey Hero game. It’s an oldie from the stable of RTG games, so nothing extraordinary in its graphics, animations or sound can be expected. 1 star down.

One way to get massive wins is from a good paytable, and this is exactly why I put quite a lot of emphasis on this aspect of every game. A low paytable usually means a lot of small tiny payouts and hardly any big ones, and we players want only the big ones. In Hockey Hero, the Player Wild symbol doesn’t pay for itself but doubles every win, the Penalty Box Scatter symbols pay the usual 200 x total bet amount, while the highest paying symbol, the Logo, pays a lovely 10000 x the line bet amount, taking over the usual Wild symbol win value. Other payouts are from the Win-Win feature, which can pay up to 200 x the total bet amount. 1 star down.

Free spins with a Win-Win feature is the only thing in Hockey Hero that players can derive real fun and excitement from. There are no other thrilling free games or special features, except for the random Minor and Major Jackpots, which would only drop like a bomb, when you least expect it. There’s up to 18 free spins to be won in the free spins feature game, and if the free spins payout is less than the bet amount, the Win-Win feature will award a 200 x total bet win. Thrilling enough? No way! 1 star down.

The most important aspect of the game – does it play well and pay well? For me, it was mostly like hell! The free spins feature game came quite regularly at certain times, but the payouts were nothing much at all, mostly within 10 x - 20 x my bet amounts. In one of the free spins game, the spins were completely blanks, no win at all, so the Win-Win feature paid out a 200 x total bet win, but that didn’t excite me at all. Seeing a zero-win from a free spins game was a real killer! If it can pay zero, it can pay peanuts most of the time too! The number of spins for each feature game is awarded randomly, from 8 free spins up to 18 free spins, can be retriggered, but play ends when two timer clocks appear anywhere on the reels. The chances of big payouts are there, but they have all eluded me. The best I got was just a 50 x total bet amount win, worth a tongue out from me! 1 star down.