Wild Pirates Slot Review

With a yo ho ho and a bottle of rum, it’s everyone’s favourite gaming trope – pirates, and wild ones no less. Brace yourself for mutiny and swash-buckling on the high seas in Spielo’s 5-reel maritime romp, Wild Pirates.

Pirates may have been done to death, but who’s to say they can’t be done to death some more? There’s always room for one more to walk the gangplank and spin the reels of yet another pirate-themed adventure, even one equipped with just 9 paylines. In Wild Pirates, the execrable puns are out in force. Were pirates of yore – the ones who actually sailed the seas in the 17th century, relieving frigates of their cargo and crew – to learn of the liberties taken with their craft today, they would surely grimace, facepalm and lock us all in the brig.

Spielo’s Wild Pirates slot is replete with such ‘authentic’ touches as an unfurled scroll that reads “Congratulations! Ye Win X Free Games!” There’s also a message inscribed above the reels informing players that “Bonus pays arrr tripled!” Lest that wasn’t enough pirate shtick for your liking, there’s a jolly jig of a soundtrack to factor in, played on the flute. It’s a cheery little ditty, but it’s one you’ll want to silence after about 20 seconds. Consider yourself warned.

A tropical beach forms the backdrop for the reels, replete with palm trees and Caribbean blue skies, while 5 grim looking skulls cling to the top of the reels, because as everyone knows, pirates were big on skulls.

Stake per Line

The stake per payline can be set from 0.01 (but you’ll play on nine reels, remember), all the way up to a max bet of 90.00, with the action taking place on a standard 5×3 grid. Set the bet to maximum and the most you can win out of the slot is 50,000 – theoretically at least.

There’s an autoplay option, which can be set between 5 and 100 spins, saving you the effort of having to button push repeatedly. Given that feature action is sparse in Wild Pirates, it’s probably wise to select autospin.

Intermingled with the pirate theme tune are a handful of other sound effects including the gentle ebb and flow of the waves which adds some atmosphere to the game.

Yo ho ho

Wild Pirates isn’t the prettiest of games, but then it’s not the newest either, which goes some way towards accounting for its shortcomings. The playing card symbols in particular aren’t much to look at. The themed symbols are more eye-catching, including a treasure map, parrot, cannon, treasure chest and various pirates.

Wild appears as a pirate galleon, and what’s more it’s an expanding wild that will fill 3 lines simultaneously when it sails over the horizon, ushering in wins aplenty. A subtle animation will cause the ship to bob gently on the water. The animations in Wild Pirates are very fast, incidentally; in autoplay the slot fairly canters along at a rate of knots. There’s also a scatter symbol, which appears as a skull and crossbones AKA a jolly roger, sending gold coins spilling across the screen.

Features

Free spins can be won whenever 3 jolly roger symbols appear anywhere in view. Three symbols will grant you 8 free spins, 4 will award you 20 and 5 will secure 100 free spins. What’s more, anything you win during the course of free spins will be subjected to a 2x multiplier. There are also two feature games in Wild Pirates: Broadside Bonus and Treasure Island Bonus.

The first one, activated via 2 or more bonus symbols featuring the cannon on a line, will oblige you to aim the cannon at the ship and fire at will. 3 of your 5 shots must hit the enemy ship for you to successfully sink it. In Treasure Island Bonus, you task is to collect all 4 pieces of the treasure map, a task which requires 1,000 bonus points. Achieve it and your next job will be to unearth the treasure that’s buried in the sand.

Fun to Play

Wild Pirates is a simple slot but it’s also a fun one to play. There are no airs and graces to be found here: just good old-fashioned entertainment that invokes every pirate cliché in the book.