We'd hardly be living up to the name Wildz if we didn't have some headbanging riffs among our vast library of slot offerings. So here's a rundown of Granny's festival lineup of heavy metal favourites, ranging from hard rock superstars to a couple of deeper and more extreme cuts for the die-hard metalheads out there.
Dio: Killing the Dragon
For the first stop on our metal tour, we're taking a look at a slot based on one of the greatest metal vocalists, Ronnie James Dio, who first found fame in the 1970s as the lead singer for Richie Blackmore's Rainbow, then replaced Ozzy Osbourne as Black Sabbath's frontman for a couple of albums, before arriving at the solo career that's represented here in Dio: Killing the Dragon.
The music is, of course, classic heavy metal anthems powered by Dio's firebrand vocals. The gameplay doesn't disappoint either with its Lock up the Wolves feature turning any Wild Symbol that lands in the open cage on the first reel sticky and adding another open cage on the second reel, waiting for another Wild to turn sticky. This can continue across the width of the game grid.
3, 4, and 4 Scatter Symbols award 6, 8, and 12 Free Spins respectively. During the feature, The Lock up the Wolves cage is placed around the middle three reels of the grid, giving you a massive head start on creating those Sticky Wilds. To sweeten the feature even further, there's a special symbol that can appear on the fifth reel to grant +2 Free Spins and activate one of three modifiers:
- Fallen Angel: a wild that appears at the top of the first reel and falls one square with each spin until it drops off the grid.
- Symbol Upgrade: changes the lowest-paying symbol into the premium Dio Symbol.
- Wild Multiplier: gives one Wild Symbol a +1 multiplier, up to x5.
Testament
Though not counted among the household names of thrash metal - such as Metallica or Slayer - Testament are nonetheless legends of the subgenre, having been recording since the late 1980s and establishing themselves as one of the most popular and influential bands in the thrash scene.
The game has three mini features of 3 Free Spins to play through which are triggered by landing two Scatter Symbols anywhere on the grid and correspond to three songs from 2012's brilliant Dark Roots of Earth album:
- Dark Roots of Earth – Wild Symbols create duplicates of themselves above or below.
- Cold Embrace – Wild Symbols are sticky for the duration of the feature.
- Throne of Thorns – the grid is expanded to a 4-5-6-5-4 format, increasing ways to win to 2,400.
Meanwhile, getting a full three Scatter Symbols triggers the main event, Rise Up Free Spins. This feature awards 9 Free Spins, uses the format of the expanded reels from Throne of Thorns, and sees blockers put across 9 positions. These blockers are removed when scatter symbols land during the feature, increasing the number of ways to win. Removing all of these blockers triggers the Testament Free Spins feature, which adds +3 spins and activates all three song features at once!
Guns N' Roses
The biggest band covered so far, Guns N' Roses celebrates one of the biggest hard rock bands of all time in style, featuring massive stadium-filling classics like Welcome to the Jungle, Sweet Child o' Mine, November Rain, and Paradise City.
The base game riffs all over the place with a variety of features. Legend Spins, which throw one stacked wild for the first spin, followed by two respins, each packing two more Stacked Wild Reels. The cross-shaped Appetite for Destruction Wild consists of five symbols and randomly drops onto the centre of the grid. And the Solo Multiplier, a random multiplier symbol of up to 10x can appear on the first three reels.
There's also a Bonus Wheel to be spun, which is unlocked by landing three scatter symbols. The wheel offers up Coin Wins;Encore Free Spins, a round of 10 Free Spins with stacked wilds hitting the grid; Crowd-Pleaser Bonus, where you pick from 8 musical instruments to reveal coin wins, free spins, or extra picks.
Sabaton
Bringing the big guns now with Sabaton, a power metal band with a love for military themes. For the uninitiated, power metal is a style which favours melody and big uplifting choruses over pure heaviness.
The name Sabaton comes from the word for a medieval armoured foot-covering, basically a knight's shoe. The hardware on display here, however, is much mightier and more modern, as the game grid is perched upon the front of a tank that's absolutely teeming with guns.
The game features Metal Stacks and Mystery Symbols, which see one symbol selected at random to be added to the grid in stacks on each spin; Mega Symbols, 3x3 titans that slam down onto the grid to produce big combos; and Chained Reels, where 2 or 3 of the game's middle reels sync up, landing the same symbols at the same time.
Landing 9 Scatter Symbols awards the Battalion Spins Bonus Round, a round of 7 Free Spins, where one symbol is randomly chosen to be the Metal Stacks and Mystery Symbol for the duration of the feature. Better yet, the feature can be retriggered to keep the action marching on.
KISS: Reels of Rock
Finally, we take things back to the classic era with a tribute to one of the most theatrical bands in rock history, KISS, in a game that delivers on the kind of spectacle, fun, and over-the-top maximalism that made the band famous.
KISS: Reels of Rock has proven a big hit not just with the band's famous KISS Army fanbase but with fans of slots generally, as it delivers fantastic action and a great set of features to explore.
Lock and Load can trigger randomly on any spin during the base game. 2 symmetrical reels (1 and 6, 2 and 4, or 3 and 4) synchronise** to display the same symbols. Another feature that can come into play on any spin is Drive Me Wild, throwing another Wild Symbol onto the reels and applying a 2x multiplier to all Wild Symbols.
Three scatter symbols award the Free Spins feature, which presents players with a choice of world tour stops to play: Johannesburg, Sydney, London, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo, the trade-off being that less standard Free Spins in exchange for more Encore Free Spins. These Encore Free Spins are played on an expanded game grid, and both the Lock and Load and Drive Me Wild feature occurs on every spin, making for some thrilling slot action that'll make you want to rock 'n' roll all night and party every day.