LIKED
Some casinos don't have it, but some do, and that's how I came across this Merry Xmas game from Play'nGo. As Christmas draws nearer, I have already played quite a number of the season's games, but I know that there are still a few more games out there that I have probably seen before but haven't tried them out yet. In fact, there are many more games from other 'minor' or new providers that I haven't focussed on as yet, simply because I tend to stick to a few providers at a time, and hardly venturing out to try as many as I can. Sooner or later, I will get to them, in time.
Well, looking at the game for the first time, I was expecting the usual game play like in most other similar games, but I was damn wrong. Here is another case of Playn'Go doing a direct cloning of one of their other games. Merry Xmas makes the third game to share the same design concept and gameplay with Lady of Fortune and Samba Carnival. When I realised this upon looking at the game's paytable, my immediate reaction was "oh god, not another one!" The other 2 games were disappointing for me, which most probably would end the same way with this Merry Xmas game too. I was very hesitant to play the game, but since I have already deposited and intended to play a christmas-theme game, I finally continued on.
The paytable is exactly identical to the other 2 games. The Wild symbol doesn't pay for itself, it substitutes for other symbols except the Bonus symbols, and award a random 2x to 5x multiplier for wins with it. The Wild symbol only appears on reel 3, so don't expect much of it appearing on the reels to give wins. There aren't any Scatter symbols because there aren't any Free Spins game. Argh! The Bonus symbols appear only on reels 1, 3 and 5, and getting all 3 symbols trigger the Bonus game. A very simple game but never to my liking. Pick 1 of the Present symbols to win an instant cash reward of up to 150x the total bet. Easier said then getting. As for the other normal symbols, they are stacked on all reels, and pay from 2500x (Santa) down to 75x, all per line bet for 5 of each kind. As with the other 2 games as well, this paytable is also low.
DISLIKED
What would you say if you had to wait 460 spins just to get the first Bonus game? And what would you say if that Bonus game paid only 10x the total bet amount, after eating about 80% of your starting credits? Sounds impossible? That was what exactly happened to my first game on Merry Xmas. I was blardy infuriated with such a damn low payout after losing most of my starting balance, only to get 10x my bet back. What the argh! That's not all. After playing a total of more than 600 spins, there wasn't any single payout that exceeded 25x the total bet amount, and that was blardy ridiculous! Merry Xmas is the first Christmas-themed game that I now hate! I thought the game 'A Christmas Carol' was very bad, but Merry Xmas takes the cake!