The Amazon Wild slot is one of the newest additions to Virgin Games and I’m in love with the look of this slot. The background is a tropical rainforest with a Mayan pyramid in the background and the whole slot is almost Mayan themed. But we’ll talk about that as we go. The slot is a five reel, 100 payline game with each reel 4 icons tall, so you’ll find you need to rely on the game to tell you when you’ve won. Play starts at a penny so if you play all the play lines, the minimum bet is $1.00. Keep this in mind when choosing your wager.
The basic icons come in three groups – flowers, birds and animals. The lush tropical flowers contribute to the look and feel of the game but are the lowest paying win. The birds include a hummingbird, parrot and toucan and those move you up a bit in the pay table. The last group includes a frog, iguana, monkey and jaguar and these pay the most.
The Mayan sun god is the Wild symbol and will expand to fill all four rows if you get two or more on a single reel. The scatter icon is the Bonus map. Three, four or five of these on the reels will open the Amazon Map Bonus game. The in the game, you are a Conquistador wiping out civilizations in your quest for gold. Okay, actually you chose from the pyramids on the map to reveal hidden bonuses.
Now, this is the one part of the game where I had problems with the theme, not the play. First, there is the conquistador reference which rather ignores the effect that had on the ancient civilizations in the Americas. Of course, it also sort of misses on the historical aspect in another way. The Mayan civilization was well into its post-classical stage by the time the Europeans found them. So, as a conquistador, you’d have wanted to go after the Aztecs and Incas. Which brings in the treasure map. Which has you searching pyramids along the Amazon river, exactly where the Maya didn’t live. They were a Central American culture. (I grew up in Central America, so most players are unlikely to notice this.) But that taken into account, the bonus game is fairly easy to trigger and can help bring your winnings up.
The game features plenty of jungle sound effects, great animation and wonderful graphics. It has to be one of the lushest games I’ve played recently when it comes to appearances. But graphics aren’t everything. So for my up or down game finish review. I finished up in money. No huge winnings but this is a fun game that you can keep playing for a long time.