300 Shields Slot
300 Shields is a 5-reel, max 25-pay line online slot from NextGen Gaming. The '300 Shields' of the title refers to the tiny Spartan army that held back the invading Persians in around 480 BC, despite being heavily outnumbered. This became known as the 'Battle of Thermopylae'. Historical researchers now put the number of Spartans at being closer to seven thousand, but they were still heavily outnumbered by the 100,000-150,000 strong Persian army. This legendary tale was first filmed in the 1962 movie 'The 300 Spartans', which was seen by legendary comic artist Frank Miller, then a small boy. In 1998 he printed a stylised comic-book version of the legend, which later was adapted into a 2006 movie – '300' – which starred Gerard Butler, Lena Headey and Michael Fassbender. SPOILER ALERT It didn't end well for the Spartans.
The symbols in this game are all suitably epic, although we have to say they look more like Vikings than Spartans. They are joined on the reels by playing card symbols nine through to ace, all of which have been punctured by arrows, so obviously they are on the Persian side. They are twenty-five lines in this game, and you can select as many as you want in play with each spin. You can also select your coin size, from 0.01 to 0.20. Your final wager is your coin size multiplied by the number of lines selected. When you're ready to scream "This … IS … SPARTA!!!!" at the top of your lungs, hit the spin button.
Payout & bonus rounds
The lowest possible winning pay out in this game is for three nines or tens – that will win you four times your bet-per-line. The combination that will really have you yelling is five Spartans or ships, which will win your 250x your line bet.
A golden-helmeted Spartan is the wild symbol in this game, he will substitute for all other symbols aside from the shield shatter bonus symbol. Also, if you land five wilds on a pay line you win one thousand coins.
The shield is the scatter symbol here. Land at least two to win a cash payout, or three or more to earn 'Battle Feature Free Games' – a minimum of five free spins. During your freebies each additional scatter symbol that you land increases your 'shield count'. This will also increase the 'Warrior Win' multiplier which can reach a maximum of 300x. If you collect a dozen or more shields during your freebies you earn the maximum of fifteen additional free games, along with that multiplier of 300x.
All wins can be gambled. You can choose to attempt to correctly guess the suit of a concealed card in order to quadruple your win, or the colour to double it. Of course if you lose, then you lose your stake.
This game was quite a hit 'back in the day', but those glory days, just like the glory days of Sparta, are well and truly over. It's still an adventurous slot, though, but don't expect to get too excited.