Barkin' Mad

I was fascinated to try out a newer Barcrest game as so many on-line slots from this provider are simple conversions of ancient land casino games, but as they have been in business for such a long time I have to believe that they know what they are doing and have the capacity to create some really great machines if they put their minds to it! Whilst Barkin' Mad isn't what I'd call an amazing game it certainly beats the likes of Crown Gems and Action Bank which arguably should never have been converted for on-line play.

This game uses fifteen individual reels in the style of the Jack Hammer games, making it possible to score a full screen of any individual symbol if your luck is in and therefore the opportunity to win on all 10 paylines simultaneously. That's definitely a good thing as there isn't a great deal of interesting wins on the paytable if you only consider single line wins, but the game certainly has potential when you start winning on lots of lines at once.

Graphically it's still quite a simple game, everything looks very big and chunky and perhaps a little simplistic - Barcrest would do well to acknowledge the fact that most players are now using laptops or tablets with super high resolution screens and they should be including a whole lot more detail in their visuals to take advantage of that.

The games best bonus mode, the "Showtime Bonus" is only offered when playing in "Big Bet" mode. The exact stakes available differ from casino to casino but usually fall in the region of between 10.00 and 50.00 per five spins. The Showtime Bonus does seem to activate quite often when playing in this mode but you need to get lucky a second time to be offered any of the best prizes as entering the bonus merely promises a shot at a bonus wheel with a number of different cash and free spin prizes. If you hit the free spins item the game will offer you the chance to swap them back for a simple cash bonus, I'm not sure who would ever want to do this because the amounts offered are usually very low and as the free spins have "Locking Wilds" (AKA Sticky Wilds) you will surely always win far more by taking the free spins. Don't fall for it!

One final small-ish thing, I really don't like the way Barcrest displays the wins on their paytable as "x500" (for example) as it looks to me like it should be a multiple of your stake when in fact it just means 500 coins (or a multiple of your line bet, if you prefer to think of it that way). There's no reason to make things confusing or ambiguous like this and I can see it annoying quite a few players.