Beast Mode

Beast Mode is our very belated February slot of the month – apologies for the delay, it’s been crazy busy! Produced by Relax Gaming, this unique, slightly odd game is brimming with features including the choice of three bonus rounds, a random mystery spins feature and a potential maximum prize of 25,000 your stake.

Theme/Visuals

As mentioned in our new slot games section, Beast Mode is based on Muscle Beach in California. This is the birthplace of the US fitness that began in the 1930s. Originally frequented by gymnasts, the place was eventually taken over by fitness nuts and beefed up narcissists.

Instead of coming up with human renderings of these well-chiselled attention-seekers, Relax Gaming have opted for a cartoon animal theme that’s fronted up by a muscle bound lion. The 6 x 4 game area features an outside gym/beach front backdrop while the reel symbols are set against a kind of picket-fence. A fairly ordinary digitised track accompanies play which, tellingly, is muted from the get-go.

How to Play Beast Mode

Low value symbols are represented by graffiti playing card letters with a kettle bell, dumbbells, roller skates and a ghetto blaster signifying premium symbols. The lion is the most valuable symbol of all and will pay out 1, 4, 10 or 25 times your stake if you land him 3, 4, 5 or 6 times as part of a winning combination.

A chunky necklace serves as the wild and replaces other symbols to help create paying combinations. It appears on reels two to six. After each win, the cascade engine kicks in and all winning symbols are removed. These are replaced with new ones which drop down into their vacated position. This process continues provided you keep winning.

Random Mystery Spin Feature

A Random Mystery Spin feature is active during the base game and can award at least one mystery symbols. Should this become active, one symbol is chosen that remains in play for a cascading sequence. However, these are replaced after each cascade.

Free Spin Rounds

To activate the standout free spins round, you’ll need to collect three or four star bonus scatter symbols. If you trigger the round with three bonus symbols, you get to choose whether or not to gamble in order to receive upgraded free spins. However, you’ll get these should you trigger the round with four bonus symbols as well as the choice of three free spin modes. With each of the following modes, it’s possible to win one, two or three free spins when landing +1, +2 and +3 spin symbols.

Mystery Symbol Mode

You start with 6 spins with mystery symbols present on the reels. As in the base game, these reveal the same random symbols after each cascade and but reappear as new mystery symbols before the next one. Also in play is an expand bomb symbol that expands the reel height by one position on the middle four reels while also awarding three extra spins. It’s possible here to expand the reels by seven rows.

Multiplier Ladder

For this mode, you begin with 8 spins and a x1 multiplier. Following each win and between spins, the multiplier increases according to a ladder installed above the reels. Extra spins are also awarded at certain stages. The maximum possible multiplier available is x500.

Expanding Wilds

Here, you begin with seven free spins with all wilds expanding downwards when they appear on the reels. They also come with multipliers of up to x10.

Conclusion

Beast Mode’s retro theme looks great even if it’s been done before (see Iron Bank). And although game play seems a tad sluggish, it’s brimming with features including those three free spin modes. The best of these is the multiplier ladder round with its x500 multiplier – the reason why BM has a potential max prize of x25,000. While the volatility is rather high, there’s certainly plenty here to keep players engaged.

RTP: 96.32%, Minimum Stake: 0.01

Dale Shelabarger

Freelance Contributor, creating content since 2003

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