Original Release: Pragmatic Play, 2022
The sequel to Wild West Gold adds the thousands of “Megaways” paylines, though don’t expect your gambling budget to notice the difference
Wild West Gold Megaways (Pragmatic Play, 2002)
Review by: C. M0use
I haven’t tried it but this is apparently the sequel to Wild West Gold, a more standard 4×5 slot with 40 paylines. This one adds the “Megaways” feature, which I don’t personally find a selling point as the paylines usually seem rather arbitrary and non-intuitive. It’s like, “the game said I won? OK, I guess so.” But there are apparently up to 5,000 possible payline combinations, actually somewhat on the small side for these types of games.
5,000 combinations doesn’t mean your odds are any better than anywhere else, however. The game lists an RTP of 96.44%, which is definitely on the OK side, but also warns you of extremely high volatility at the outset. Oddly, I found it quite moderate during my test run of $250 total through (at $1 per spin). I was on my way to about breaking even at about $200 through, never up or down very much at all, when I happened to hit the bonus feature and got lucky with a $240 win. But the general pattern to that point seemed to be a few dead spins followed by a decent hit based on wilds that pop up pretty frequently, and when you land two on the board in any position it’s almost a guarantee you’ll recoup more than your wager and catch up some.
The bonus feature is a simple set of seven free spins, but with any wilds sticking and then expanding vertically with each remaining spin. You can buy in anytime with 100x to 200x your wager amount, apparently depending on casino, but given how often the wilds seem to pop on base spins I get the sense that’s the better play here.
Pragmatic Play games generally put a lot of emphasis on audio and that’s the case here, with some long and fairly well done moseying Young Guns type music. But the real winners are sound effects that are quite satisfying on headphones, nice revolver samples and plinking targets when the wilds show up.
It could very well be bias from one good session, but this really seemed like one of the more stable Pragmatic games for line wins despite the warnings about it being super volatile (in their own estimation). I wonder if that warning might be attached exclusively due to the possibility of bonus spin buys, for legal purposes. Whatever the case, maybe try it a bit at low bets first and see if the wilds are consistently popping, if they are you can up the action a bit if so desired.
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Play free online at Pragmatic Play’s site
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