Detroit Red Wings Winged Reelers

Detroit Red Wings Winged Reelers: Slot Overview

Detroit Red Wings Winged Reelers from Play'n GO is a branded PokerStars Michigan exclusive that isn't just tailor-made for fans of the iconic Detroit-based NHL team, it's also a clear shot at captivating the US market. FYI, the Detroit Red Wings are a professional ice hockey team based in Detroit that competes in the NHL or National Hockey League. It would seem that Detroit Red Wings Winged Reelers has a rather narrow scope of prospective participants then, though in saying that the NHL is a popular league in North America, and ice hockey, in general, has a certain appeal in some European countries, as well. What might put some gamblers off, though, is the way Detroit Red Wings Winged Reelers has been remade from the bones of Legion Gold, a decidedly average Ancient Rome-themed game.

For Detroit Red Wings Winged Reelers, willing players take their seats high up in the crowd to view an ice hockey rink, the audience, and a hockey stick-flanked gaming grid. A short ice hockey intro animation puck off, or whatever it is called, sets an okay scene before launching into the action. Like a lot of sports slots, if you aren't down with the sport in question, it'll be harder to be won over. Detroit Red Wings supporters might be feeling an adrenaline rush from the get-go. Others, though? Hmm…

Detroit Red Wings Winged Reelers skates around a 5-reel, 3-row gaming grid with 25 paylines, awarding left to right winning combinations starting from the leftmost reel. Stakes of 5 c to $/€100 may be selected, so there are plenty of options for a wide variety of gambling appetites. A medium volatile math model powers the game, and a variety of RTP configurations are available, with the default value being 96.23%. Hit spin, and the game plays a neat sort of swishing skate noise as the reels rotate.

Blocky sports style J to A card ranks are the low pays, shoving off a win of 2 times the bet for a 5-matching royals line, followed by a hockey stick, skates, and two players as the 4 high pay symbols. Hitting a line of 5 matching high pays awards 8 to 20 times the bet. Wilds appear on all reels as well. Wilds substitute any regular pay symbol and are worth up to 20 times the bet for a 5-wild winning combination.

Detroit Red Wings Winged Reelers: Slot Features

Just like Legion Gold, Detroit Red Wings Winged Reelers comes with two bonus features. One is a gold coin triggered hold' n win style round, while the second is Mega Free Spins, where an outsized symbol moves about the grid.

Gold Re-spins

In the base game, landing 6 gold Coins triggers Gold Re-spins. For this feature, the triggering Coins are brought over to the bonus round, which ends when no more spins are left or each position on the board is filled with Coin symbols. When respins end, all values in view are added together and awarded to the player. Filling all reels wins the 1,000x Golden Prize.

Mega Free Spins

When 3 scatter symbols land on reels 1, 3, and 5, players are awarded the free spins bonus round. The 3 scatters merge to form one big 3x3-sized symbol, and 5 Mega Free Spins are awarded. On each Mega Free Spin, the big symbol moves to a random position anywhere on the grid. The big symbol counts as a block of 9 regular symbols for calculating wins.

Detroit Red Wings Winged Reelers: Slot Verdict

Yeah, it's hard to see many but hardcore ice hockey zealots, or Detroit Red Wings for life supporters getting much of a kick out of Detroit Red Wings Winged Reelers. The game it's been ported over from, Legion Gold, was already something of a write-off, and nothing's been done to improve the gameplay experience for its ice hockey offspring. In some ways, it's kind of cool that Play'n GO has drilled down on one specific team to make the game, very likely in some sort of business arrangement, but by the same token, will doing so seriously restrict the number of people who might be brought on board to give the game a spin? Seems so.

One issue is that certain stats and features are a tad weak. Winning potential of 2,000x the bet for one is hardly a headlining number, and the combination of hold' n win round and roaming big symbol free spins was cool when a game like Wolf Gold did it back in the day but is old news now. Admittedly, a certain level of tension may be created when reels start to fill with Coins in Gold Re-spins, or the big symbol lines up with matching symbols to fire off a decent win during Mega Free Spin.

There might very well be a few people out there who are bouncing wildly off the walls at the prospect of trying their luck alongside their favourite team. Or a few ice hockey fanatics who are thrilled by the idea of seeing their sport on the reels and are dreaming about a day when Play'n GO picks their team to be glorified in a slot. Other than that, outside of what feels like a relatively restricted number of potential punters, Detroit Red Wings Winged Reelers lacks the goods to convert many non-hockey heads.