Gladiator: Road to Rome Slot Machine
The Roman Empire and its legacy have shaped and influenced our modern world in many ways, touching a wide range of aspects of modern day life, from politics and military to fashion, art, architecture, and even the gambling industry. Today, not only do we have major casino brands which built their image on popular icons and myths of the Roman times but we also have a whole world of Roman-inspired slot machines to enjoy. And nowhere is that fact as evident as it is in online casinos.
One of the newest Roman-themed slot games to arrive at online casinos is Gladiator: Road to Rome, which is a 5 reel, 25-payline game that offers online punters a progressive jackpot prize. Built by the kings of movie/TV-inspired slot games - Playtech, this slot machine is another game that borrows graphics and audio samples from the 2000 Russell Crowe movie. If you remember the hit Ridley Scott-directed Gladiator film, you have an idea of what this game looks like. Sporting licensed visuals like Commodus, Maximus, and Proximo that spin within a wooden frame to the sound of an epic soundtrack, the Gladiator: Road to Rome video slot lets you relive the battles of the iconic gladiator and win a bountiful prize when you step into the fighting arena.
No matter whether you're a fan of the movie or not, this online slot game will strike a chord with you as it is executed greatly. Leaving aside the design, which is up to the standard you'd expect from Playtech, this nostalgic slot brings with it extras like stacked wilds and free spins games with special bonuses to choose from, apart from its progressive jackpot prize. Learn more about each of these features by checking out the full review.
Are You Not Entertained?
The beginning of your road to glory starts when you choose how much you want to spend during your sessions. At this online slot, you can only choose the value of your coins but not how many paylines you want to play with or whether you want to bet multiple coins per payline. The smallest bet you can make is 0.25 credits or 0.01 credit per payline. Playing with the max bet, on the other hand, will cost you 125 credits per spin, or 5 credits per payline.
The slot pays only left to right, which means you will have to collect a combination of 2, 3, 4, or 5 identical symbols starting at the leftmost reel to win a payout. The gladiator is the one that gives the best payouts, starting with a reward of 5x your line bet when you collect 2 of the symbols and ending with a maximum payout of 1,000x your payline bet for a full set of 5 gladiator symbols. Payouts for 2-symbol combinations are also offered by the Commodus and Lucilla symbols, which pay the same 5x payout as the gladiator for that combination. These symbols also offer you the second-best max payouts of 500x and 375x your line bet, respectively.
Apart from this "holy trinity" from the movie, other symbols that pay well are Proximo and Tigris, which offer the same mid-level payouts of 25x-250x your payline bet. You can also win smaller prizes by collecting the 6 card symbols which are ranked in the usual order (A-K-Q-J-10-9). To boost your chances of winning some good cash prizes, the gladiator symbol can also appear as a stacked symbol, in which case it will become animated and turn into a stacked wild symbol, substituting all paying symbols but not the scatter or bonus symbols.
The scatter symbol represents a crossed sword and ax and it unlocks the Coliseum free spins games. The minimum number of symbols you need to trigger 5 free spins games is 3, while more scatters will unlock more free spins games. To prepare you for the battle ahead, before the free games start the slot will let you choose 3 special bonuses to "protect" you during the round. The choices include more free games, win multipliers on all wins, bigger payouts for a selected symbol, extra wilds, symbols that pay like a scatter, as well as a nudge feature that pulls up a stacked wild when it is barely visible.
But the highest prize hides in the special Gladiator Bonus round which gets activated when 3 helmet bonus symbols land on reels 2, 3, and 4. The bonus game is played automatically and it always pays out a prize. When you activate it, the slot will take you to a 3x3 screen upon which golden, silver, and bronze helmets randomly appear. Each helmet that appears will add a random cash prize to your total balance that can be small or big. If you are lucky enough to win 9 golden helmets, the slot will pay its progressive jackpot.
A Gladiator's Pay Doesn't Come for Free
If you want to claim the gold that’s hiding in the Gladiators’ arena, you will need to actually bet some real cash on the game at a casino online. Finding a casino where you can play the Gladiator: Road to Rome for real money will be an easy task, considering how many great Playtech casinos can be found on the web. If you're not sure which casino to choose, always look for licensed operators that offer secured platforms (SSL-encryption), good payment options, as well as 24/7 customer support. Alternatively, you can also have a look at our selection of best online casinos to find some of today's top operators faster.
One big advantage of online casinos is that they also let you enjoy their slot games for free. To play a free Gladiator: Road to Rome slot machine, just find a Playtech casino and register. Once you are logged into your account, just choose the game from the list of available slots and select the "Play for Fun/Demo" mode. When you use this mode, you will get the same experience as when playing for real money but you won’t' actually get to claim the cash you win. On the other hand, if you want to try the game first before you sign up with a casino, you can also use our own free game demo.
How Many Gladiators Are There?
If you've played in a Playtech casino before you will surely remember that this isn't the first licensed Gladiator game to be produced by the studio. Playtech also has an older Gladiator slot that was first released in 2009 as a regular game before being re-made into a different slot machine with a progressive prize that was simply called Gladiator Jackpot.
All three slots are quite similar to one another and have a 5x3 screen with 25 paylines, with the first game being the only one with active paylines instead of fixed ones. Similar to the Gladiator: Road to Rome video slot, the previous installments also featured a 3x3 bonus game with helmets and no Russell Crowe pictures. But where the first slots differed is that they also had a bonus game of pick-and-win as well as gamble feature that allowed you to place a 50/50 bet on your winnings.
What You Do, Echoes in Eternity!
With several Gladiator slots so far, all sporting similar features, one has to ask whether it was really necessary for Playtech to release another game. Well, considering how big of a hit the first games were, releasing a newer and improved slot doesn't seem like a bad idea. Offering mid-variance sessions with a 95% RTP, progressive jackpots, and free spins, the new installment in the franchise is worth looking into, if not only for the chance to relive the nostalgia of the epic film.
