Wanted Dead or a Wild

This game is no longer available at Wombat Casino. Sorry about that chaps! Why not try Iron County Outlaw slot from Oros Gaming instead?

This town ain’t big enough for 2 Wombats. I am sure I have heard that line somewhere. Anyway, we are heading to the Wild West with Hacksaw Gaming, a partner of Games Global (formerly Microgaming) for the Wanted Dead or a Wild slot (geddit?) which uses a cluster pays mechanic to score winning combinations across the play grid.

Set beneath a blood red moon this gunslinger based game uses simple visual features to keep the excitement centred around the mechanics of play.

With some feisty main game play, Wanted Dead or a Wild slot comes stuffed with multiple bonus symbols that trigger some great features with different settings and levels to play. We’ve played quite a few Western games like the True Grit Redemtion slot and I have to say that this Hacksaw title is one of our favourites.

With a maximum payout of 12,500x your stake, I fancy trying my luck in this good old fashioned Western. Let’s take a look through some of the features.

Look and Feel

The backdrop to the play in Wanted Dead or a Wild is a Western desert scene set beneath a huge full bright orange moon. that must be the high plains dust I guess. The gnarled trunk of a dead tree silhouetted in front of the moon set the scene to the game play- I don’t fance swinging off that after a run in with the law. It’s pretty monochromatic compared to something like Play’n GO’s  Kiss Reels of Rock slot, but that’s the idea I guess.

The entire backdrop is designed to look as though it has been painted on a canvas-style fabric; brushstrokes across the background give an aged painted feel. The 5×5 grid of play symbols is positioned over a wooden notice board fitting of the game title which is plastered across the top with bullet holes visible throughout. There must be some bad hombres about.

The whole feel is a lot brighter than Nolimit City’s  Western game: Tombstone RIP, but it’s still designed to look like the 1800s.

All of the features of play are positioned across the bottom of the screen below the play grid: the spin and autospin features, up and down arrows to change the bet level of each spin (from between 0.20 and 100.00). Next door is the main menu with game and audio settings along with information such as the symbol values and pay-lines. All good so far.

Wanted Dead or a Wild Symbols

The lower value symbols are the 10, J, Q, K, A of a card deck. they look like they have seen a few rounds of Texas Hold ’em. These all pay out the same for combinations between 3 and 5 symbols with up to 2x the stake available.

Values increase with combinations of the skull and kerchief-wearing cowboy with up to 5x the stake wins available and again for the money bag and liquor bottle offering up to 10x the stake wins.

The highest value main game symbol is the 6-bullet revolver barrel, which along with the Wild symbol pays out 20x the stake for a combination of 5 symbols. There are several other symbols that access various bonus features, more on that below.

Bonus Features

The VS symbol can land in both the main game and Duel at Dawn bonus; when they land the symbol covers an entire reel and acts as a Wild. The VS symbols also bring a multiplier between 2x and 100x the stake; if more than one VS symbol lands in a single spin the multipliers are combined.

The Train Robbery bonus symbols access a feature that net you 10 Free Spins when you land 3 or more in a single spin. During these Free Spins all Wild symbols that land will remain sticky for the rest of the feature helping you to create winning combinations.

Another way to access the Free Spins is with the Duel symbols that trigger a Duel at Dawn bonus feature; this rewards you 10 Free Spins , during which the likelihood of landing VS symbols increases which could result in more Free Spins, Wilds and multipliers added.

Dead Man’s Hand Bonus

The Dead Man’s Hand bonus feature rewards with 2 separate features and is triggered when at least 3 DEAD symbols land in a single spin. To begin with, you  are rewarded with 3 Free Spins during which only Wild, Multiplier and placeholder symbols land.

Each time a Wild or Multiplier lands, it is collected and the spins reset to 3; this continues until 2 consecutive spins produce no Wilds or Multiplier symbols.

When this happens, you access the Showdown feature getting a further 3 spins during which all collected Wilds and Multipliers are in use.

Players can receive up to 10 Wild symbols and a multiplier up to 31x the stake for their Showdown 3 spins. as you can see, there are som epretty solid features here!

Conclusion

Fans of Western slots will appreciate this release that feels a little unique compared to other slot games. The large 5×5 grid offers a good cluster dynamic and the simple yet effective visuals set the scene without too much distraction from the game play.

The bonus features are the most exciting part of play with so many sub-games and symbols.

Wombat Score: 4/5