Samba Carnival Slot
Samba Carnival is a 5-reel, max 15-pay line online slots game by Play'n GO. This fun-loving slot really ticks almost all the boxes, even though it's a pretty basic slot, and it's another example of how Play'n GO are beginning to become regarded as big players in the world of online slots. The theme of this game is … well … a samba carnival. Samba (the dance) originated in Brazil, and the biggest samba carnivals in the world take place in this footie-obsessed South American country. The biggest of all is the 'Carnaval do Brasil', which takes place over six action-packed days in February each year – so you can see why Play'n GO chose late January as the release date for this slot. During 'Carnaval do Brasil' the streets of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Vitória (among others) come alive with colourful, vibrant parades.
The symbols used in this colourful slots game are all samba-related, as you would naturally expect – multi-hued dancers, exotic (kind of) fruit and drums that are no doubt used to pound out that familiar samba beat. You have a range of coin values to select from (0.01 to 0.25), and you can bet between one and five coins per spin. All fifteen lines are selectable, meaning your final bet is your coin size multiplied by the number of coins you are gambling with multiplied by the number of lines you have in play. When you're ready to start dancing, hit the spin button.
Payout & bonus rounds
The lowest paying symbol in this game is the lime, which pays three times your bet-per-line if you land three of them in sequence on an active pay line. The biggest (in more ways than one) payer is the purple-feathered dancer – land five of her on an active pay line and you will be samba-ing your way to a 2,500x jackpot. Note that this is a 'all ways pay' slots game – winning combos do not have to begin on either reel one or five.
There are four wild symbols in this game, all of which are a number of maracas. Each wild symbol contains a multiplier, from 2x to 5x. When you score a win containing a wild, the total amount associated with that win is subjected to the mutliplier. If you land a win containing multiple multipliers then they are combined, so a x4 and a x5 multiplier would combine to make a x20 multiplier.
The bass drum symbol acts as the scatter symbol. You only need to land three anywhere on the reels to trigger the bonus game. When you do so, the drums will shuffle and the central one post-shuffle will reveal your cash prize, which can be up to a maximum of 150x your total bet. Scatter symbols only appear on reels one, three and five.
All wins can be gambled. You can play 'guess the colour of a playing card' to double your win, or 'guess the suit' to quadruple it. You can gamble up to five times in a row, or up to 2,500 coins.
Play'n GO must have enjoyed themselves putting together this slot, particulary the graphics person who made sure that certain … ahem … assets of the dancers 'bounce' when the reels settle into position. Aside from the glitz and the glamour, this slot is a bit of a let down. The lack of a genuine side game, or even free spins seems a bit of an odd decision on Play'n GO's part, and the game is definitely missing something. Not so much a Brazilian World Cup win then, but not a 7-1 semi-final defeat by Germany either.