King Kong
- King Kong Slot
- Overall Score: 4.9 /5
- Graphics:
- Sounds:
- Engagement:
- Overall rating:
When Peter Jackson, the man behind one of the best book-to-film adaptations ever, the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy (which won almost 500 awards, including 17 Oscars, thus making pretty much every single other movie franchise develop a serious inferiority complex), announced his plans to remake the 1933 classic “King Kong” for a modern audience everyone was sceptical of his success. “King Kong” was absolutely revolutionary, essentially singlehandedly creating the genres of “giant monster movies” AND “big-budget special effect flicks” while also telling a surprisingly profound and heartwrenching story about a beast who, most of all, wanted to be loved. Even with the original’s cheesiness, it’s still a film that holds up even today, and a remake was a tough act to follow. Did Jackson succeed? Well, the jury’s still out on this one – even though he assembled an all-star cast and eventually ended up making twice as much money as its budget and garnering an 84% approval rating from critics, many fans thought that the movie was lacking something. Soon enough, we realized exactly what it was – a slot adaptation! … Wait, what?
Basic Features
It’s important to note that there are two “King Kong” slots available right now – Cryptologic’s King Kong and Playtech’s Kong: The Eighth Wonder of the World (which is often referred to as just “King Kong” by casinos, which is why I’ll be calling it that too), but since the latter is superior, more widespread and also far more popular that’s the one I’m going to be reviewing. Playtech are no strangers to licensed slots – they’ve made so many of them that I’m something like 90% sure they’ve made more licensed slots than original slots! Sometimes they do a brilliant job, and sometimes they don’t, and I’m kinda sad to say that King Kong kinda falls in the middle.
| King Kong Slot | ||||||
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Software: | Playtech | Double option: | No | ||
| RTP: | 95.50% | Mobile version: | Yes | |||
| Progressive: | No | Coin value: | £0.01-£2 | |||
| Autoplay: | Yes | Bet value: | £0.01-£40 | |||
| Quick spin: | Yes | Max. bet: | £40.00 | |||
| Reels: | 5 | Free spins: | Yes | |||
| Paylines: | 20 | Bonus round: | Yes | |||
And don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad slot, it’s really, really not – the art is pretty great, its RTP is decent, it’s got a nice bet range that allows for a good variety of bets without getting ridiculous, its bonus games are interesting… If you’re just getting into slots then it’s going to satisfy your expectations in almost every way, but at the same time, if you’ve played them for a long time it doesn’t really offer anything that’s going to grab you. There’s no hook, no awesome special feature that’s going to make you want to keep playing, no risks taken, nothing new that no other slots (or hell, not even other Playtech slots) have ever done.
Paytable
I’m actually a bit disappointed with the symbols, in both how little effort went into making them and how little they pay out. There’s 12 unique symbols in this slot, half of which have two variations depending on whether you’re in City Mode or Jungle Mode (more on that later). Six of the symbols are screenshots taken directly from the movie. One is the movie’s logo, and the remaining five are letters. Which means that no original art assets were created for the slot as they are for literally every other Playtech slot out there.
As always, getting three Scatter symbols (represented by the movie’s logo) unlocks a bonus game, but interestingly, the Wilds here (represented by Kong himself) aren’t just for substituting other symbols in a payline – getting three of them on any of the reels will net you a nice bonus feature which is different depending on what mode you’re in. In Jungle Mode you get 3 free spins, and every time you land a Wild that Wild will remain in place for the next two spins. In City Mode you also get 3 free spins, with different reels becoming huge Wilds depending on what spin you’re on. I’ll take what I can get, but forgive me for saying that just three spins are far too little.
Bonus Rounds/Free Spins
The big feature of the game, and its only unique idea, actually sounds really, really fun on paper, but it’s not all that interesting in practice. We all know the story of the movie – King Kong was in the jungle on Skull Island and was later captured and brought to New York to be an exhibition before escaping. The game reflects that by featuring two modes – Jungle Mode and City Mode. When you get three Scatter symbols you’re going to get a bonus game which will allow you to win some extra cash – thus far that seems par for the course. But at the end of the bonus game you’re going to switch from Jungle Mode to City Mode, and vice versa. The visuals, bonus game and Wild feature change, but since the visuals don’t affect anything and the bonus features are rare, chances are you won’t really feel a substantial difference – I know I didn’t.
The two games are actually fairly interesting, even if they’re not all that creative (especially by Playtech standards). Remember how in The Avengers you got to choose between several different face-down symbols, and if you got three identical ones you’d activate their respective bonus game? Well, in King Kong this IS the bonus game. You just pick several spots on the island looking for dinosaurs, and the moment you get three identical ones you win a certain sum (different for each dinosaur, with a bonus if you manage to find Kong) and the game ends. In City Mode, the bonus game involves clicking on the planes coming to attack Kong before they reach him, which at first may sound like an awesome skill-based game and a nice change of pace until you realize that literally a toddler can do it. Overall, it really seems like the bonus games were there because the designer was told they had to be there – there’s little creativity involved.
Experience of Playing the Slot and Other Recommended Games
In a way, King Kong is kind of like cheap boxed wine – it tastes good enough and it’s going to get the job done, but it’s really nothing to write home about. I don’t want to leave the impression that it’s bad, because I assure you it’s not – it’s really decent, and I like it for what it is, as it hits all the spots that I would like a slot to hit, but it doesn’t really go above that. It has no personality. It’s got nothing to it to make me want to recommend it as the best above the rest. Let’s take a look at some of the best slots out there, such as Spider-Manor Gonzo’s Quest, slots with their own unique features which ooze personality and identity. Even now, weeks or months after I last played them, I can tell you exactly how each of the bonus games in “South Park” works, or I can hum you Iron Man’s theme from “The Avengers”. Meanwhile, in a few days I’ll have forgotten all about King Kong. I guess that sometimes, even if you do everything right, it’s still not enough without the magical spark of creativity.