Gonzo’s Quest
Megaways™ Pokie Review.

Review

Playthrough Review of Gonzo’s Quest Megaways™ Pokie

Red Tiger Gaming has launched NetEnt’s Gonzo’s Quest to new heights by adding BTG’s iconic Megaways reel engine to the game. This provides an epic adventure title that offers over 117,000 payways on a single spin.

The original Gonzo’s Quest pokie has been a fan favourite since its inception into the market back in 2011. Such was the premium of the game, that it has remained a benchmark for 3D Video pokies for the past decade.

Red Tiger has gone on to enhance everything in the game – from the graphics and animations to the features. Not only are there more modifiers and add-ons, but the maths model has been tinkered with for a higher variance that can provide impressive wins of up to 20,000x your total bet.

Theme and Design of Gonzo’s Quest Megaways™

The Spanish conquistador, Gonzalo Pizzaro is still at it nearly 20 years later. This relentless little man just won’t give up on finding the lost city of Eldorado. Join him in the jungle and look to unlock combinations on the reels for a chance to move beyond the city walls and onto the riches that the temples and tombs hide.

Like the original game, the attention to detail is admirable. The rich use of colour and dimension brings the adventure alive on the screen. Gonzo is stationed to the left of the reels and keeps watch on the rollers for his opportunity to progress to the City of Gold when the main feature is triggered. His frequent animations are entertaining, especially if you manage to muster a big win. At this point, he will take off his hat and attempt to catch as many of the cascading coins as he possibly can.

Not only are the sights fancy, but the sound effects and musical accompaniment remain captivating and aptly support the theme. The sounds of the jungle come alive on the reels to engulf you and make it feel like you are right there in the thick of it all. A crescendo of tribal tunes and drumbeats accompany each spin and usher in each win as it falls.

While the background sights are beautiful, the focal point of the game is the reel set, itself. This sports tribal mask symbols, some of which you will recognise from the original game. There are 5 high paying symbols in total and 5 low payers. The addition of a special Wild symbol means that wins are made a little easier, as the icon will double for any of the standard game symbols to create a rewarding combination. Look out for the Free Falls Bonus icon too, as this tile is instrumental in triggering the game’s main bonus round.

Gonzo’s Quest Megaways™ Gameplay and Feature Set

While playing through the base game can land you with some incredible rewards, the whole point of playing pokies with as many rich features as this game has is to trigger the bonuses. After all, these rounds are where the bigger wins are stored.
The game is highly volatile, so you may have to exercise a great deal of patience if you want to trigger the main feature. Thankfully, some of the supporting modifiers will fill in the blanks along the way to keep you enticed.

The exciting features include:

Megaways™

Megaways is an innovative feature that was developed by BTG only a few years ago. The number of pokies that have adopted this feature (under license of course) is tremendous.

The feature allows for each spin to produce a random number of payways each time the reels roll. While 6 reels are the standard in the game, the number of rows on each individual reel can vary between 2 to 7 icons high.

Instead of using traditional payline patterns, Megaways pokies work differently. To land a winning combo, you need to match 3 of the same icons on adjacent reels to one another (any position on the reels) from left to right. So, with the potential of landing a full 6×7 grid, you could be looking at conjuring wins in 117,649 different ways.

Avalanche™ Reels with Multipliers

The original Gonzo’s Quest was the first pokie to ever employ the cascading/avalanche reel feature.

If you land a winning combination, the winning tiles will disappear from the screen and replacement blocks will fall into place from above to fill the spaces left on the grid. This effectively gives you a re-spin for an extra chance at wins.

Gonzo’s Quest Megaways has an added modifier attached to these avalanches. Each time a successive avalanche occurs, the win multiplier will increase in size. In the base game, the multiplier will grow by 1x each time, to a maximum of 5x. In the ‘free falls’ bonus round, the multiplier will climb by 3x each time, up to a maximum of 15x.

The multipliers reset after avalanches cease to trigger.

Unbreakable Wilds

Unlike all the other symbols in the game, when a Wild symbol forms part of a winning combination, it does not disappear. It will remain in play as long as consecutive avalanches continue. You can land a maximum of 2 Wilds on the screen at a time.

Earthquake Feature

This is a random feature. Suddenly, the screen will begin to shake and Gonzo will run for cover holding his head. Once the movement ends, you will find that all the low-value symbols on the grid disappeared with the cowardly conquistador. They will be replaced by high paying symbols, affording you a better shot at super rewards.

Free Falls

Free Falls is just a fancy term for free spins. This is the round that you will want to trigger the most, as there are massive wins in store here.

To activate the round, you will have to land either 3 or more free fall bonus icons or 2 bonus icons and a Wild. When this happens, the gates to the city will be opened and Gonzo will jump with glee at the exciting prospect of finding El Dorado. The bonus round will play out on a different screen set in the depths of one of the Mayan tombs.

The number of free falls you will receive in the game is dependent on the number of triggering symbols used to unlock the round. You will receive 3 free spins for every bonus icon landed. This means that you will play a minimum of 9 free games.

 

As mentioned before, the avalanche multiplier is much more lucrative in this round. It grows by 3x on each re-spin, with a maximum of 15x up for grabs.

Game Mechanics

The game is played over 6 reels with up to a whopping 117,649 Megaways available on each spin. Each round will cost you between AU$0.10 and AU$4 per spin. The bet spread is very low, especially for a high variance game. Highly volatile pokies are usually the perfect stomping ground for high rollers, but the max bet may be lacking here.

Nevertheless, the math model combines the variance level with an industry average 95.77% RTP, providing the opportunity to haul in rewards of up to 20,000x your stake. At the max wager, this could earn you more than a whopping AU$80,000 in cash.

Make sure you set your wager before spinning the reels to ensure that the stake meets your budget expectations. If you would like to set the game on Auto Play, you can activate this feature with ease. Here, you can set the machine to spin between 20 and 100 automated spins for you with a set wager in place. There are advanced settings available for more control over this function if you so choose.

Mobile Pokies Experience

NetEnt and Red Tiger Gaming have stepped into the future of online casino gaming. As such, their games are made compatible across all platforms, thanks to the wonder of HTML5 browser technology. The game can be played directly from the browser of your Android, Microsoft, or Apple device without the need for an additional app or download.

When it comes to the game controls, each button and setting is placed perfectly for thumb dexterity. Playing in landscape mode mimics the look of desktop play perfectly, maximising the display to accommodate for all the visual features. Turning the phone or tablet to portrait mode will simplify the visuals. Gonzo will disappear and the controls will be compressed together for one-handed play convenience.

The only real difference that was noticeable when playing this game on our desktop as opposed to our smartphone was the difference in the minimum bet stake. The desktop version is displayed as AU$0.10, whereas the minimum increment on mobile was AU$0.20.

 

 

Mobile Pokies Apps

There is a tremendous amount of competition amongst the leaders in the mobile device market when it comes to playing mobile casino games. Android, Microsoft, and iOS operating systems seem to cope just as well as each other in fulfilling this task.

Newer devices come with strong operating systems that easily manage the data loads from the content. In the past, special apps were needed to ‘dumb down’ the content for the smaller devices, but this is no longer needed. So, whether you have the latest Android phone or tablet, or prefer Apple products, or Microsoft software, you will be able to play Gonzo’s Quest Megaways™ without any issues.

Playing casino games from your mobile device is far more convenient than playing from desktop, as you have access to the games whenever you are connected to the internet. Playing on the go becomes a breeze.

Is Gonzo’s Quest Megaways™ for you?

The unified front of Red Tiger Gaming and NetEnt is proving to be a force to be reckoned with in the online casino market. This pokie is a true testament to that fact.

The game holds to the traditional Gonzo’s Quest experience, yet is an upgrade, thanks to the visual enhancements and additional bonus content. Of course, the Megaways addition is the clearest advancement to the mechanics and provides for a more exciting reel spin each time.

If you are a fan of feature-filled 3D Video pokies or you enjoyed the original Gonzo’s Quest game by NetEnt, then you will fall in love with this pokie.