Crown Of Egypt Pokie
Although casino games developer IGT already has a hugely successful series of ancient Egyptian themed pokies with their Cleopatra games, there’s always room for one more, so we now have Crown of Egypt available, which has a few interesting features to make it stand out from this crowded genre.
Something that’s immediately obvious is the extremely high standard of the symbols, with photo-realistic pharaohs, queens, statues and pyramids across the reels, but the other features are not quite so obvious and players will need to dig deeper into this intriguing game to uncover the secrets of this particular Crown.
Playing Crown of Egypt
Although this game looks like a traditional 5 reel pokie, where the symbols are arranged in 4 rows, what we have here is IGTs’ Multiway Xtra format, which sees all 20 spots act independently.
It’s an option though, and will cost more to activate, but it sees wins coming from the conventional way, with symbols lining up across a horizontal payline, and also from vertical lines of matching symbols.
With a combined total of 1,024 different ways to win, this can lead to multiple winning combinations in a single spin, but it’s completely up to the players, who need to decide if the extra stakes are worth the extra wins. It pretty much balances out.
The symbols themselves consist of the usual playing card J, Q, K and A icons, which seem to turn up on most games and will make up the lower-value, but more frequent, winning lines.
Assuming the Multiway feature is activated, players win between 10x and 40x the line bet for the J symbol, while the picture symbols of statues will pay more and the queen will be worth the most, with up to 500x the line bet up for grabs.
If the Multiway isn’t in play, then it takes fewer examples of a matching symbol across a horizontal payline to pay a prize, but the win will be a bit smaller.
Crown Of Egypt
Unable to connect to MySQL: SQLSTATE[HY000] [2002] No such file or directory
Bonus Features
The game logo is a wild symbol and whenever possible, it will act as any other, with the exception of the pyramid to help complete a winning line, or extend a winning combination for a bigger prize. It will only appear on reels 2 to 5 however, so it can’t make up a line on its own.
This pyramid isn’t an ancient ruin, but instead shows what they may have looked like thousands of years ago, covered in limestone and shining brightly in the sun. Landing 2 pyramid symbols on the middle reel will trigger 10 free spins, while 3 of them will start 15 spins and if all of reel 3 is filled with pyramid symbols, 20 free spins will begin.
However many free spins are awarded, the reels are filled with richer symbols throughout them, so it’s easier to get a nice win during this round than it is in the base game. It’s not absolutely guaranteed that players will win anything, but it’s going to be a pretty unlucky person who doesn’t spin up at least a few prizes during this round.
If the pyramid appears again during the free spins, in any 2 or more positions on reel 3, the free spins will be retriggered, with the new games added on to the end of the current round. It’s possible, although let’s face it, unlikely, to retrigger the free games over and over, with a maximum of 130 potentially waiting to play out.
The Verdict
There’s a couple of features that make Crown of Egypt stand out in what’s a very competitive market, with the most obvious being the way it looks. The symbols are highly realistic and although many games have similar items across their reels, this one does them in lots more style than most.
Next up is the MultiwaysXtra feature, which is found in a few IGT games and gives players an interesting option. Although they will need to stake more on each spin, the fact that wins come from vertical lines as well as horizontal ones should see lots more combinations landing in the right places, but overall it won’t dramatically improve the return to player ratio.
Aside from these obvious features, there’s nothing particularly special about this game, as the bonus rounds are fairly standard. Richer reels in the free spins games should result in a few more winning spins and the fact that they can be retriggered several times over is a welcome treat.
Anyone who likes the theme, and the fact that there are so many that cover it means most players do, should certainly take a trip down the Nile and try on the Crown of Egypt.