Play Criss Cross for Free

If you’ve ever played the JPM Interactive title Black Magic, think of Criss Cross Max Power as its older, more popular brother. While both machines feature 3 reels, the presence of 27 active paylines at all times in the latter makes it far more rewarding slot to play with a higher overall RTP statistic.

With players only needing to worry about their starting stake each spin, you can bet anywhere between £0.25 and £10 on a round of Criss Cross Max Power, making it a game that easily caters for most bankroll types. For your investment, you’ll have a shot at landing a top base game prize of 50x your stake for matching three star icons, but there’s also a progressive jackpot that can be triggered.

The way to activate the slot’s top award is either through the gamble feature – which lets players continually double their bet until the jackpot is hit – or by activating the bonus round by landing three Max Power symbols. This opens a special window above the reels where a series of prize multipliers are up for grabs, including a unique icon that instantly pays out the progressive prize.

In terms of aesthetics, Criss Cross Max Power is a very traditional game in the sense that it uses a selection of classic slot machine icons as its unique symbols. These include fruit symbols such as cherries, lemons, oranges, pears, plums, strawberries, grapes and watermelons, while a handful of other slot staples like liberty bells, lucky sevens and stars complete the game’s full line-up.

This understandably gives Criss Cross Max Power a very familiar feel, with the console itself also harking back to the land-based version of the game with its simple background and colour scheme. Featuring blue Xs and stacks of golden coins, Criss Cross Max Power looks exactly like a traditional fruit machine, with even the buttons designed to look like the ones you’d press at your local boozer.

Criss Cross Max Power also includes a range of sound effects that have been directly ported over from the land-based version, with a special piece of music playing throughout the gamble feature.

Speaking of the gamble feature, this is perhaps the most enticing aspect of Criss Cross Max Power for players who want to walk away with a tidy return on their investment. Triggered whenever a winning payline is activated, players will be able to participate in a 50/50 gamble that either moves them forward one space on the prize ladder and boosts their win or moves them back and lowers it.

This process can continue indefinitely until one of two things happens. Either players continue to lose their gambles and drop off the prize ladder entirely – thereby forfeiting their winnings – or they make it to the last step of the feature, where a final gamble will either result in a win of 5x their normal prize of the full progressive jackpot amount, which is displayed on the right of the screen.

The other bonus feature included in Criss Cross Max Power is activated when three Max Power logos appear on a valid payline. This opens a special window above the reels where a number of prize multipliers are displayed, with players merely having to hit stop to land the spotlight on their win amount. The progressive jackpot can also be won in this bonus feature, though it is incredibly rare.

While we’re big fans of Black Magic Max Power, it’s fair to say that Criss Cross Max Power takes the same winning concept and executes it even more successfully thanks to the presence of 27 fixed paylines. This means the slot provides the same top quality features as other games in JPM’s Max Power range, but with the additional paylines making it much easier for players to score a profit.