Batman Slot
Batman is a 5-reel, fixed 50-pay line online slots game from NextGen Gaming in participation with DC Comics. Super heroes, eh? We just can't seem to get enough of them. Long gone are the days when the only super heroes on TV and in movie theatres were Mighty Mouse and Adam West's camp caped crusader. There's at least three new super hero movies at the cinema every week, and a quick scroll through Netflix will reveal that 99.8% of the site's content is super-hero related. Online slots and super heroes marry together perfectly and it's always been a theme grasped by software providers. The world of super hero slots was recently dealt a blow with Playtech's loss of the Marvel Comics' licence, but now here comes NextGen Gaming with three new games based on DC Comics characters – The Green Lantern, The Flash and here, Batman.
This slot is based on the comic book version of the caped crusader, so there's no appearances from any of Michael Keaton, George Clooney, Val Kilmer, Christian Bale or Ben Affleck, and definitely not Adam West. On the reels you'll find plenty of Batman's famous gadgets, such as the Bat-mobile, Bat-scooter, Bat-harpoon, Bat-erang and Bat-toilet-brush (okay, we made the last one up). Also along for the ride are the Joker and Commissioner Gordon. There are fifty lines in total and that's a fixed number. You can choose your coin size though – anything from 0.01 to 2.00. Your final wager is always your coin size multiplied by fifty. You can pay an extra ten coins to activate the 'bonus bet' feature. When you're ready to switch on the Bat-signal, hit the spin button.
Payout & bonus rounds
The biggest pay out is for five 'bat bonus' symbols, which wins 5,000 coins, however this is ONLY available if the bonus bet feature is activated. If no bonus bet, five scatter logo symbols also win you 5,000 coins. The lowest possible payout is for two of Commissioner Gordon which wins double your coin size.
The Batman symbol is wild here and appears on the central three reels. Our favourite bat lover substitutes for all other symbols aside from the scattered logo and bonus logo symbols. All prizes are doubled in the base game when Batman appears in a winning combination.
If Commissioner Gordon appears on the left-hand reel, and the bat signal appears on the right-hand reel (or vice versa), then you win three re-spins. Stacked wilds appear randomly on the central three reels and are held throughout the feature. All wins during re-spins are doubled.
If you land three or more bonus logo symbols left-to-right and you have the bonus bet activated, then you win through to the 'Descent into Madness' feature. First, you must clear escaping prison inmates armed only with your baterang. You must then defeat the Joker by hitting him three times. Beat the Joker to win a prize of up to one hundred times your triggering bet.
All pay outs can be gambled. Guess the colour of a card to double your win, or the suit to quadruple it. You can gamble up to five times in succession, but once you guess wrong, your winnings bat-moosh!
You can't knock the music and effects of this game, and the graphics are nicely authentic (i.e. as you'd see in the DC Comic of the same name), but we were hoping for a little more panache from this slot from NextGen Gaming. Gameplay is reasonable if not thrilling, but the real blow is the lack of animations. Batman is a huge name, media-wise, and we don't think NextGen have done enough here to really capitalise on it. Oh well, back to the bat-drawing board … at least it's not a complete bat-astrophe!