Pirate From The East

Pirate from the East is a 5 reel, 15 payline slot by Net Entertainment which was released a few months ago. When I gave the slot a run for the first time and tested the waters with free spins, I came to realize this is a remake of Piggy riches slot. 15 paylines with a minimum bet of $0.15 per spin where you can win up to 28 free spins with a x6 multiplier for 5 scatters or if you lower the spin, you can get an amazing 15x multiplier or something.

Graphically, Pirate from the East is very simple and nothing really epic about it. If you compare it to other NetEnt slots like Planet of the Apes or Dead or Alive II, you will see the difference. Set on a pirate ship, you’ll hear the waves crashing against the ship. Symbols include A, K, Q, J and 10 as royals and you’ll also see Japanese sake, compasses, pistols and knives, pirate ships and treasure chests full of gold. The highest paying symbol pays x133 your total bet.

The most important symbol is the wild which is the male pirate. The wild substituting for all symbols but the scatter and it will give you a 3x multiplier when forming part of a winning combination. If you were to get 4 treasure chests full of gold as well as a wild on a payline, you would win about x400 your stake more or less.

The female pirate is the scatter symbol and 2, 3, 4 or 5 will reward you with 2, 4, 15 or 100 times your stake. 3 or more will trigger the free spins feature with each scatter giving you a free spin and multiplier combination. You choose your amount of spins and multiplier. Obviously the lower the multiplier the higher the free spins and vice versa. The more scatters, the more the values goes up.

The game is a bit boring and I enjoyed piggy riches way more. However, I was not a big fan of Piggy riches and free spins take forever to trigger. I could not win more than x100 out of a few features.

When I first saw this new game from NetEnt, Pirate From The East, it instantly reminded me of NetEnt’s oldie Hook’s Heroes game. That Pirate certainly looks a lot like Captain Hook, and being a pirate too, they probably are the one and same character, but never mind. Playing with 15 paylines, at $0.15 starting bet per spin, and with a win multiplier for the free spins, Pirate From The East commanded a comparison with my favourite Safari Heat game for its assessment.

Without going into too many details, let me highlight only the differences between the two games (Safari Heat values within brackets). The Pirate Wild symbol doesn’t pay anything for itself but triples all wins with it (666x total bet, double wins), 5 Scatters pay 100x the total bet (250x), the feature game offers 22, 15 or 9 free spins with either a 2x, 3x or 5x win multiplier (15 free spins with 3x multiplier), and lastly, no possible Retriggers but giving additional free spins (unlimited Retriggers). Straight off, it is no match for Safari Heat!

Nevertheless, in view of the current lowish trend of newer games nowadays, the paytable of Pirate From The East can be considered a reasonable one – not that bad but not that good either. But as games go, what you see in the paytable may not be what you actually get during play! Meaning, the win values of the symbols may not live up to expectations, or the overall gameplay may turn out to be dreadful instead. Very few games have actually succeeded in living up to what is expected out of them, such as Dead Or Alive, an excellent example indeed.

Initially, I was quite optimistic about this game. The Wild symbol tripling wins with it reminds me of Jack And The Beanstalk’s Wild symbol, and Jack is still one of my favourite games to play. The 5x win multiplier for the free spins looks promising indeed, but has yet to prove its mettle. I gave several runs on the identical 15 free spins with 3x multiplier, but the results I got were all very disappointing when compared to Safari Heat. All I can say for now is that this Pirate From The East game is designed for lowish payouts and could hardly deliver any nice big wins. I may give this game a few more plays in future, or I may not, because it simply doesn’t attract me much at all!