Highway Kings Slot Machine
Highway Kings sounds like an 80s road movie starring Patrick Swayze, but in fact, it’s the name of a 5-reel video slot from the Playtech gaming suite. If you’re ready to hit the road and win some cash playing the pokies, Highway Kings is a good place to start, as you can potentially be crowned to the tune of 10,000 credits.
The road-themed casino game is characterised by simple cartoonised graphics but a refreshing absence of playing card symbols. There are also scatter and wild symbols to watch out for, the presence of which can seriously multiply your winnings. Ready to get behind the wheel? Then let’s break it down.
The open road
There’s quite a retro feel about Highway Kings. The graphics are bright and colourful, but the symbols look like they were sketched in thirty seconds by a bored artist. All symbols stick closely to the theme, in that they are in some way associated with driving. Actually, there’s one exception – a pair of red dice – but thankfully there are no Aces, Kings or Queens.
The Highway Kings logo appears in yellow font at the top of the screen, flanked by massive trucks. Trucks are the main symbols of wealth in this game, although you can certainly win good amounts by finding matching combinations of other symbols. As ever, all wins pay left to right except the scatter, which pays any. The theoretical return-to-player is 97.06%.
As far as wagering is concerned, the coin size stretches from 0.01 to 5, meaning the maximum bet-per-spin is 45. There are nine paylines, see, and they are unfixed; click Bet One to activate just one line, or keep clicking to set all nine in play. You can also click into the Paytable at the bottom of the screen to check the pay values associated with combinations of three, four and five matching symbols.
Hitting the highway
There are 11 symbols in Highways Kings, each representing different pay values. Icons include a steering wheel, a tyre, a bolt, a pair of dice, a gas pump, a petrol can, a jump lead and three differently coloured trucks: one green, one yellow and one red.
Some of the symbols in Highway Kings grant pay-outs for combinations of three and above, but the better-paying icons award pay-outs for just two matching. The most generous symbol on the board – the red truck – even pays two credits for a single symbol on the reels.
On the whole, the pay-table is a generous one. The steering wheel and tyre icons are the game’s lowest-value, paying just 10 for four and 50 for five, but thereafter the sums increase quite a bit. At the top end of the scale are the three trucks. The green truck, for example, pays five for two, 20 for three, 150 for four and 1,000 for five. The yellow truck is better still, offering five for two, 25 for three, 250 for four and 5,000 for five. But even the yellow truck can’t compete with the red one, which pays two for one, 10 for two, 50 for three, 500 for four and a mammoth 10,000 for five.
The red truck is wild, and can substitute for all symbols to help you form pay wins. Also, the wild doubles any win in a combination it helps form, but not cumulatively. Which is to say, two wild symbols still multiply the win by two rather than four. The red truck symbol appears only on the central three reels.
The exhaust pipe with Scatter written on it is – you might have deduced – the game’s scatter. When you land two to five of these icons, you’ll win a pay-out. The scatters have to lie consecutively, starting from the leftmost or rightmost reel, but they don’t have to follow any set payline.
Dollar Ball
Highway Kings features a lotto-type progressive side game where you pick five numbers out of 49. Once you then start the main game, five numbers will be drawn randomly. The more numbers match your selection, the more you win. If all five numbers match, you win the jackpot. If you want to play the game, click Enable in the top right-hand corner.
King of the road
Playtech have designed a very good slot game in Highway Kings, though it could be improved with the inclusion of a free spins bonus or a multiplier. As it stands, there’s plenty of fun – and cash – to be had.
