Winstar

I like the fact that the symbols are stacked across all reels, as this makes it possible to win on a lot of paylines at once - you can even fill the screen with matching symbols if you are really lucky. It does sometimes result in a lot of dead spins though, so I guess in reality you are trading a few bigger wins for lots of smaller losses.

The "All wins pay adjacent" payout mechanic is quite interesting too, as you can score a small win just from three matching symbols on a payline on the center three reels. I am so used to slots paying out left-to-right that often I don't spot this type of win, or even those in right-to-left order, and it's quite nice when what you thought was a dead spin turns out to be a winner!

The paytable is quite generous, especially for the three of a kind wins. If you win on this game, you have made a profit - it might just be 1x your stake of profit, but that's better than those games that have a tonne of tiny wins that don't even give you back your stake!

The mystery symbol is the gold star, and if you have a bunch of them on the screen at the end of your spin then they will all begin to spin, finally converting into a set of matching symbols. Quite often these seem to end up being the one you need to complete a few wins, but that isn't always the case - I can't tell if it's random which one will land or if it does sometimes deliberately choose to give you a big win. Either way, it's really the only thing to look forward to when playing this game.

This is a perfect example of a game that worked pretty nice for twenty big money spins whilst on a night out in the casino, but doesn't really translate so well to the online world. There just isn't enough to keep you interested for more than a few minutes of play, and the mystery symbol feature can often be a huge disappointment, as opposed to a huge benefit.