Great 88 Pokie Review
The iGambling community is used to see Asian-themed pokies. The overall ambiance of dragons, vivid reds and yellows, dragons and jade stones is very charming and appealing for gamblers and people in general.
This year, Betsoft announced the launching of Great 88, expanding their portfolio to this popular concept, which is used by almost every developing house today. From Microgaming’s Tiger Moon, to Aristocrat’s Double Happiness, there is one Asian themed video-pokie in every developers’ repertoire.
Great 88 is a part of the Pokie3 series of this well-known developer.
Developer
Betsoft is a popular gambling software developing company founded in 1999. They are now considered one of the top developing companies in the world, mostly because of their innovation in terms of graphics and gameplay.
They set a revolution in the online casino industry by the inception of their own 3D series of video-pokies named Pokie3.
Once they introduced high quality visuals with a video-game-like aesthetic, they forced the entire online gambling realm to step up and provide users and operators with high quality products.
After almost two decades of non-stop work, they are considered one of the most respected casino software development houses.
How to play the pokie
Great 88 is a 5×3 video-pokie with 30 paylines. The variance of this pokie is high, meaning that winning combinations are rarer and harder to hit. To get one of these winning paylines, you need to have at least three symbols of a kind in any of the 30 payline configurations, starting with the leftmost reel.
The symbols featured on this pokie are all very reminiscent of Asian culture, including two dragons, a jade sculpted frog, a traditional Chinese knot, red and green bamboo sticks and generic letters and numbers revamped in a far-east fashion.
The symbols we just mentioned were listed according to their preset coin value, being the two dragons the highest paying icons, and the Chinese letters the lowest paying ones.
There is also a dynamite symbol, which later transforms itself into a Wild, but we will talk further about it when describing the special features.
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Special features
The most special feature included in this pokie is that of the Lucky Boxes, which are basically Scatter symbols represented by red wooden boxes with lucky rewards on the inside. You have to get at least three of them on a spin to be able to redeem the prizes offered by them.
These prizes are offered in a wheel-of-fortune-like presentation called Bonus Wheel, and the potential wins consist in free spins and stake multipliers of up to 20x, as well as a Mega Win Spin Wheel. This last feature offers three different stake multipliers: the Mini Mega Win of 100x total stake, the Big Mega Win with a 750x total stake, and the Giant Mega Win with an amazing 6000x total stake multiplier.
There is also a dynamite symbol performing as a Wild symbol, substituting for all icons except for Lucky Boxes (which are Scatters).
Whenever this Wild gets aligned in a payline with other symbols, the dynamite explodes and reframes itself to the word Wild. If no payline is hit, then it just remains passive and you have to spin the reels again.
Maximum payouts
Betsoft states that there are chances of winning up to 1 million coins during this game, and that is definitely true. If you are willing to be patient and wait for the Spin Mega Wheel feature to appear, then you will be granted with big multipliers.
However, keep in mind that the high variance of this game makes this special feature a very rare one.
The chances of getting a winning payline are approximately 1 in 25, so you have to be patient while spinning through this game, and you have to get a low-expectation mindset.
Low, consistent wins are not that frequent either, but there are possibilities of hitting good paylines and leaving out with somewhat fat pockets.
Summary
Great 88 is an Asian themed pokie with a high variance and, therefore, it is not for everyone. The great odds faced when playing the game are hard to overcome, and the game tends to get boring and frustrating if you’re expecting big wins.
As always, the graphics and sound effects are beautiful and elegant, with a soothing Chinese garden background that gets very appealing to the gambler’s eyes.
Once this pokie machines reaches your favorite online casino, we recommend you to proceed with caution, without setting high stakes right from the beginning. Allow yourself to know the game and its dynamics first and always remember to be careful on this one.
