Alpha Squad Online Slot Machine Review
I have to admit being taken by surprise by this slot. While playing it, I was just about to conclude that it was another one of the solid, though unexciting games out there – when *boom* things suddenly went crazy. This was the free spins feature (more on that below). This slot seems to be based on a made up cartoon world, where the superhero’s battle super-villains. It loads in your browser, so no download is needed – and has the potential for some big wins.
The dramatic music struck me before the graphics did on this slot. There is a feeling of suspense from the film soundtrack background music, and lots of fight type effects when you get wins. Symbols themselves are strikingly coloured, and give the slot a crowded and hectic feel until you get used to them. There is a sense of movement and action across the different characters which make up most of the symbols. Add to this spaceships and a futuristic car and I am sure you’ll get a sense of what they are trying to achieve. Some of the animations are excellent; the hulk type guy punching the reels is a highlight (the ‘glass’ cracks). One thing Saucify could do better for me is to speed up the cycle through the wins a little after each spin. Those sound effects and repeated animations just take too long compared to some of their other slots.
Just as you think the colourful reels are all there is too this game, the free spins bonus will trigger. Here you’ll be treated to some serious 3D animations. This is based on one of 3 characters which will be randomly selected.
Setup and Play for Alpha Squad
You’ll find the usual 5 reels and 3 rows in this game – along with 25 selectable win lines. There are 3 factors in play to configure your bet size; the coin size, number of lines and the coins per line. Coin sizes are 1c, 5c or 10c, though you can bet up to 15 coins per line. This gives us a minimum of 25c (assuming max lines) and a maximum of $37.50c (10c x 15 coins x 25 lines). Auto-spin is available, with up to 100 spins possible using this.
The wild symbol has the biggest single prize. This is the metallic ‘A’ logo for the team. If you get 5 of these on a win-line, you’ll get 8000 times your line bet. 1000 can be won just for getting 4. The usual rules about substitution are in place – the wild replaces regular symbols though not the scatter or free spins symbols.
Regular symbols are all the characters. The names of 3 of them come up for the bonus games, though I’ll refer to them visually here. The purple superhero is worth 2000 coins for 5. The dark character with the fire-eyes comes next at 1600, with the sinister one with the white eyes at 1300. The hulk type guy and blue woman make up the rest of the character symbols and are worth 1100 and 1000 respectively for 5. There are no playing card symbols in this game, with the smaller wins coming from space-ship and high tech car symbols.
Scatters are the evil character’s base (as far as I can tell). 5 of these will win you 150x your total spin amount, with 80 times that amount for just 4.
The last symbol is the island base of the Alpha Squad. This starts the free spins game. You get 6 spins for 3 of these, 12 for 4 and 25 if you get 5 anywhere on the reels.
Alpha Squad Free Spins Game
This is the part which took me by surprise. You go to a break out screen where there are 3 full size characters from the game. These start to flash and the colour stops on one of them which will be your host for the spins. This character then becomes vividly animated and moves to the side of the screen. You’ll see a new section at the bottom of the reels, counting your spins and total wins. This is not the main extra though. Your character will appear in amazing 3D before each spin, and zap an extra wild onto the reels – for example in a fireball. This increases your wins, which are all doubled during the bonus feature.
You can retrigger, and once your bonus is complete you’ll see a report card of your results. This game is good enough to keep me playing to get all 3, and does feel like a stark contrast to the relatively simple in-reel play of this slot.
Alpha Squad – Conclusion
I enjoyed this slot, even though I was confused as to whether it was based on a ‘real’ cartoon or made-up for a while. The combination of graphics and dramatic music / sounds is excellent – and that bonus game is worth checking out. Saucify slots play in a web browser, so the games are perfect for those who like to play on Android tablets, or Apple iPads and iPhone devices.
