Wild Turkey Megaways: Slot Overview
Do you think many people reach a certain age and get the feeling (true or false) that the best days are behind them, and it's all downhill from there? As if future accomplishments, deeds, or actions won't be able to measure up to those in the past? The good news is we never know what's just around the corner. Maybe the best days are still to come. Anyway, it can sometimes feel like software developer NetEnt is stuck in a sort of nostalgic rut due to the number of the studio's older, classic slots being made over. Here's another one for players keen on reviving the past: Wild Turkey Megaways, which is a Megaways revamp of the classic avian-themed slot Wild Turkey released back in 2013.
An interesting thing about some of these slot remakes is how they highlight the quality of the original game. Looking back, Wild Turkey is actually a rather handsome game, and while there have been optical adjustments for the Megaways version, the two slots are quite comparable graphically. Wild Turkey Megaways is arguably better in the artwork department, but not by a giant margin, and presents the same charming scene as before. That is, a village out in the boonies somewhere populated entirely by turkeys. Makes you wonder what they eat for Christmas dinner. Trigger free spins, and we get to see the turkeys having a little sit down by a campfire as night settles in for the bonus round. All heart-warmingly familiar.
The same goes for Wild Turkey Megaways' stats which are different, though not majorly so. With a highly volatile math model, Wild Turkey Megaways produces an RTP of 96.0%. Betting options range from 10 p/c to $/€10, and the gaming takes place on a 6-reel grid, each reel landing anywhere from 2 to 7 symbols. Ways to win vary as a result of the random symbol numbers landing, reaching a peak at 117,649.
Symbols in winning combinations disappear from the board, allowing other symbols to drop down from above into the empty spaces. If a new win appears after the drop, another Avalanche action will trigger. As for symbols, turkeys and royals dominate the paytable, and there is no second guessing which are the high and low pays. Yep, card royals 10 to A makeup Wild Turkey Megaways' low-win symbols, awarding 0.4 to 0.5 times the bet for a 6-of-a-kind winning way. Then we've got 5 turkey characters as the high-win symbols, worth 0.8 to 3 times the bet for a 6-symbol hit.
Wild Turkey Megaways: Slot Features
At its heart Wild Turkey Megaways has gameplay that's very close to the original, but there's been an overall shakeup to make it feel moderately new-ish. Features include two types of wild symbols, a Wild Turkey feature, and free spins.
Wild Symbols
The 2 types of wild symbols are the Scatter Wild and the Wild Turkey. The Wild Turkey only appears when the Wild Turkey feature activates. Wilds can only ever appear on reels 2, 3, 4, or 5. The Scatter Wild substitutes for all symbols, and landing 3 of them on reels 2, 3, 4, or 5 activates free spins.
Wild Turkey Feature
During the base game and free spins, the Wild Turkey feature can randomly occur on reels 2, 3, 4, and 5. When activated, it transforms all high win symbols on the activated reels into Wild Turkeys. The Wild Turkey substitutes for everything except the Scatter Wild.
Free Spins
Hitting 3 Scatter Wilds on reels 2, 3, 4, or 5 awards 10 free spins. In free spins, landing a stack of Scatter Wilds covering a whole reel awards +2 free spins. When more than 1 stack of Scatter Wilds is in view, additional free spins are summed. During free spins, the Wild Turkey feature activates randomly, appearing to do so more frequently. Wild Turkeys do not contribute to extra free spins.
Wild Turkey Megaways: Slot Verdict
Fans of NetEnt's older slots, or old-school slots in general, must be pretty thrilled with what the studio has been up to recently. Games like Knight Rider or Funk Master, as well as remakes like The Wish Master Megaways and now Wild Turkey Megaways, might suggest the studio is looking back, pining for the good old days, not as concerned with thrilling the pants off players of tomorrow with wild new ideas. Well, that's a cynical way of looking at it. Perhaps a nicer way would be to just join NetEnt's celebration of the past, appreciate what came before, and use it to springboard into the future. We might be overthinking the situation, but such things can happen when reviewing a game like Wild Turkey Megaways, which popped out of the blue about a decade after the original.
Why now? Who outside NetEnt and its associates knows, yet for whatever reason, players get a second helping of turkey, and it's not bad at all. Likely, players who enjoyed seeing the birds perform back when the original dropped will be able to appreciate it more than others for whom the words 'Wild Turkey' don't mean anything. It's a simple game, smartly executed, oozing just as much, if not more, of the odd yet easily likeable turkey village charm as before. For those who prefer major innovation, Wild Turkey might not fit the bill, though, as it relies almost exclusively on high-win to wild transformations and wilds in general as its main features. Avalanches are a positive inclusion, yet NetEnt has largely left the gameplay alone while tinkering around the edges to modernise the experience.
Cap if all with a max win figure of 10,500.3x the bet, and you've got a pleasant rerun of Wild Turkey on your hands. Wild Turkey Megaways is a game unlikely to garner major acclaim, but it's as wackily fun as ever and should give certain players a thrilling trip back down memory lane.
Wild Turkey Megaways is more of an enjoyably warm trip down memory lane than a major paradigm shift.
