We love it when two big gaming developers battle one another. Obviously not literally. Although that would be pretty cool too. Especially when giants like Microgaming and NetEnt both go wild with magical themed slots – imagine the CEOs waving their wands at each other (ok that sounded wrong) and having a sparkly fight, a la Harry Potter. While we wait for that to happen at the next big expo, we’ll take two of the biggest slots and pit them against each other. Near enough.
The Power Of Gems And Crystals
NetEnt gives us a mysteriously named slot in Golden Grimoire, a nice new take on magic-based slots. Coloured gemstones with creatures embossed on them appear inside a giant tome of spells. Mystery Symbols pop out onto the screen and Free Spins make the Mystery Symbols sticky as we get our incantations right. Things get even stickier with Sticky Wilds and our spells bear fruit as we play for 200 times our stake on each free spin! Now that’s magic. What has Microgaming got?
Microgaming leads us into a deep dark cave for this particular wand-fight, but inside that cave wait brightly lit crystals that shimmer away when forming winning combinations. Such is the setting for Crystal Rift, a five reel, 25 payline slot that brings us cascading wins – symbols are blasted away and new symbols drop in place. This keeps happening as long as we score winning combinations. As well as this Bonus Falls feature we have the Wild Grid – a randomly chosen grid that appears before each spin. When we bag three cascades in a row we trigger the Wild Grid and any symbols that land within the grid then turn Wild! There are four different Wild Grids, with the Insane Wild Grid giving us an eight extra Wilds, helping us to play towards 1,000 times our stake! Things definitely get brighter in this deep, dark cave.
Magic Or Mining?
If the CEOs were having a magic fight we reckon NetEnt might have the edge. But we’re not. Which is why we reckon Crystal Rift really steals the show in this battle of the online slots. Its unique way to play, cascading symbols and Wild Grid is something different to typical free spins features. That’s why it wins the magical battle in our books. Or should we say grimoires?
