Steampunk Nation Slot
Steampunk Nation is a luverly-looking, 5-reel max 25 pay line online slots game from 888. 'Steampunk' is a theme that's kind of hard to define precisely, but it's one that has appeared in many forms of media. It's a branch of science fiction that deals with aspects of Victorian science but with a contemporary twist – speculation as to how the world may have developed if electricity had never been 'discovered' and harnessed. Some examples would be the recent Sherlock Holmes films directed by Guy Ritchie and starring Robert Downey Jr as the world-famous sleuth, and the 2004 Studio Ghibli cartoon Howl's Moving Castle. In the world of online gambling, there's NetEnt's 2015 release Steam Tower.
888 have now come up with their own Steampunk-powered slot, Steampunk Nation. This is a gorgeous-looking example of slotty loveliness, complete with a short video intro that's quite unlike anything 888 have attempted before, although their slot catalogue is hardly overly numerous. The symbols are all steam-related, including a red-haired vision of loveliness with definite steamy appeal. Added to the reels are playing card symbols jack to ace, plus a number of steam-powered pieces of equipment. Each round begins by selecting the size of your bet from 0.01 to 10.00, and the number of lines in play from one to twenty-five. Your bet is these two values multiplied together. When you're ready to indulge in some steamy action, hit the spin button.
Payout & bonus rounds
Payouts commence at 5x your bet-per-line for three jacks, queens or kings, and rise up to the jackpot in normal play of 2,500x for five steam-powered airships.
A pleasant scene of a railway track is the scatter symbol. You need to land at least three of them to acquire a cash payout. Landing at least three also earns you fifteen free spins. If you land four you are awarded twenty-five free spins, and if you are win five you are awarded fifty. You can re-trigger free spins during your freebies.
The 'Steampunk Nation' logo symbol is wild. It substitutes for all other symbols aside from the scatter symbol. All wins that contain at least one wild symbol are doubled.
There is a progressive jackpot attached to this game which rises in value as more players play the slot. The jackpot is awarded randomly – no special symbol combination is required to win it.
The best that can be said for 888's slotty steampunk effort is that is looks really impressive. The gameplay though is more a cold cup of tea than a steaming hot mug of cha. It has scatters, wilds and free spins – as do hundreds of other online slots. No bonus features or games are in evidence. Sorry 888, but the best slots around these days have much better gameplay that what is on offer here. Looks just ain't everything …