Rome: The Golden Age

Rome the Golden Age is our slot of the month for February. Released in early January 2021, this feature-laden five-reeler is proving very popular with players right now. Given that we haven’t mentioned the game in our new online slots category, we thought we’d give you the low-down on this multi-layered effort from Net Entertainment.

Theme/Visuals

The game is of course based on the Romans (the clue is in the name) – those pugnacious empire builders from ancient times who cornered the market in conquest and subjugation. And like classical Egypt, developers just can’t get enough of this historical epoch – there are hundreds of slots inspired by Rome, some of which leave a lot to be desired.

Happily, this particular slot is from NetEnt which means we’re in good hands. A brooding orchestral score accompanies the load up screen and accompanies play. The game area is set on a nicely-drawn temple balcony that’s flanked by pillars and a pair of marble statues.

Reel symbols include a gladiator helmet, a golden ring, an Aquila and for some reason a tiger. As with most games from the Swedish developer, it’s got ‘big-budget’ written all over it – so there’s little wrong in the visuals department.

How to Play Rome: The Golden Age

The five reels are arranged in a diamond-shaped 3-4-5-4-3 configuration from left to right. To win in the base game, you’ll need to create combinations of three, four or five symbols across one of 20 pay-lines. Playing card symbols represent low to value symbols. Of the medium to high symbols, the out-of-place tiger is the most rewarding paying out 5 times your stake if it appears five times.

Frames Feature

The Frames Feature is central to play, although it’s not exactly easy to explain via the written word. But here goes. It’s activated by the Golden Age coin symbol – each time it lands, its position is marked by a golden framed overlay. When the coin turns into a Rome symbol, the frame becomes active and turns into a wild following the next spin as do all nearby reel positions.

Both standard and active frames remain in play until they turn into wilds or if the free spins round is triggered. The wild can substitute all symbols apart from the scatter, Golden Age and Rome symbols.

Free Spins Multiplier Feature

Every time the Golden Age symbols lands in an un-framed position, one point is added to a progress bar which sits above the reels. If the position is framed, one to four points will be added. Once the progress bar reaches 200 points, a free spins multiplier is upgraded incrementally in the following order:

x1, x2, x3, x5, x7, x10, x12, x15, x20, x30, x40, x50, x75, x100, x200, x300, x500, x750, x1000

After you hit 200 points, the progress bar is set back to zero. However, should you accumulate more than 200 points the difference will be displayed after the reset.

Free Spins Round

Then there’s the free spin round. This is activated by landing three scatter symbols in the three central reel positions. During the round, all positions (apart from locked ones) spin individually with only Rome symbols in play.

All framed positions that didn’t turn wild during the round that activated the free spins remain sticky. They can award a random prize of up to 50 times your stake following the conclusion of the free spins round. But that’s not all.

If a Rome symbol appears in any unlocked position during the free spins, you’ll receive another random prize of up to 50 times your bet. This then resets the free spins counter back to three. When the round finishes (it does eventually), every prize is boosted by the Free Spins multipliers collected in the main game. Oh and an extra x2 multiplier gets thrown in if all positions are locked.

Conclusion

Although the above description may seem about as easy to understand as a Latin dictionary read through a mirror, its’ actually pretty simple when you start playing. The name of the game here is to collect Golden Age symbols in order to boost that free spins multiplier.

The free spins round is also potentially very lucrative – in the extremely unlikely event that you manage to fill every single position with frames, you’ll be the very, very, very, very lucky recipient of a 2000x multiplier.

Even though you can pretty much forget about this happening, the chance to win up to 100 times your stake in a single base game spin, as well as a 100,000 max stake win, should keep things interesting.

RTP: 96.06%, Minimum Stake: 0.10

Dale Shelabarger

Freelance Contributor, creating content since 2003

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