Beach Invaders

Beach Invaders: Slot Overview

You've likely heard of Space Invaders (there is an online slot as well), a video game first released back in 1978 where players shoot rows of space invaders as they move ever closer towards the bottom of the screen, to Earth presumably. But have you heard of aliens invading the seaside? Well, you have now, thanks to veteran provider NetEnt and its online slot Beach Invaders. Beach Invaders is an upbeat game where instead of blasting alien spacecraft as they seek to invade the planet, the call to action around here is 'Let's party, earthling.'

The aliens haven't picked a bad spot to do a bit of partying in either. They've set up at a thatch-roofed bar by a lovely turquoise sea, all golden sands, and warm blue skies. On the home screen, a seagull holds what looks to be a three-cupped bikini in its beak, could be wrong, bringing back memories of one of the 'mutant' scenes in the Arnie film Total Recall, 'Baby, you make me wish I had three hands.' Hey, we didn't say, though we will say the aliens have picked a nice beach to invade, and if they're keen on sharing the spot, we're all for it at this stage. A chilling by a pool sipping Singapore Slings Dick Dale-esque tune helps set the scene, too.

Pick a bet time, and in Beach Invaders, the options vary from 10 p/c up to $/€10 per spin. Not a huge range for a NetEnt slot, but a sizable max win is apparently one of the positive results of the constrained upper betting limit. Choose wisely, too, because Beach Invaders has a Progress bar which is locked at each bet. Noted as highly volatile, despite not feeling particularly so on an anecdotal level, players can expect a theoretical return of 96.17%, though no feature buys or ante bets this time around.

Green alien-ish 10 to A card ranks makeup Beach Invaders' low pay symbols, while its high pays are 4 alien-ish looking cocktails of varying degrees of humorous grossness. Along Beach Invaders' 5x4 gaming grid, run 30 paylines, awarding wins when landing matching symbols left to right from the leftmost side. Hit a complete 5-of-a-kind winning line, and you'll collect 1.5 to 10 times the bet for the low pays or 20 to 50 times the bet for the highs. Since wilds land on all reels, they can create wins of themselves worth up to 100x the bet for 5 OAK, or wilds may be used to replace any regular pay symbol.

Beach Invaders: Slot Features

Wild symbols are actually one of Beach Invaders' main events, and there are a couple of handy things they can do in the base game and in free spins, such as expand, shift, and multiply.

Expanding Wild

Whenever a wild symbol lands on the reels, it expands to cover all positions on its reel. As mentioned, wilds may hit on any of the five reels.

Locked Wild Progress Bar

A progress bar sits next to the reels with 4 milestones on it. Each milestone represents the number of spins wilds will lock on to the reels for when they land and expand. When ice cube patches appear on regular pay symbols, the ice cubes are collected to help fill the progress bar. Fill the whole bar, and on the next spin, at least 1 expanded wild is guaranteed to land and will be locked for 4 spins. The progress bar resets after this happens.

Free Spins

Landing 3 scatter symbols in view triggers 10 free spins where Shifting Wilds with Increasing Multipliers are a possibility. In free spins, Expanded Wilds shift to the reel on the left and one position up or down at random on each next spin, scaling down its height by one position size. When a wild reaches 1x1, it disappears on the next spin. After the first shift, an Increasing Multiplier is activated, which grows by +1 on each next shift. If a new wild lands on top of a shifting wild, it inherits the multiplier when it expands. When more than one multiplier is included in a win, the highest value will be applied.

Beach Invaders: Slot Verdict

With the intense heat wave incinerating parts of Europe at the time of writing, it's no major surprise to see even aliens have headed to the beach to cool off. They seem like a pretty chill group to hang out with, too, giving Beach Invaders a charming, come kick your shoes off and dip your toes in the sand vibe. Extraterrestrials are a topic fairly dear to NetEnt's heart, too, if you recall games like Space Wars and the more experimental feature-rich slot Space Wars 2 Powerpoints (no, not Microsoft PowerPoint), though the off-world life forms this time seem more benevolent. There's no talk of war, at least.

Beach Invaders might not be as overflowing with features as Space Wars 2, but there are positive things here to consider. Expanding Wilds are generally a good thing, despite the way they seemed to favour the right side of the gaming grid at times. What's handy is the progress bar does not reset until it has been filled, meaning you can land a number of Expanding Wilds while the bar is on 2 or 3, get that number of spins with sticky Expanded Wilds, and the bar will still not reset. This helps keep the base game ticking over, upping the engagement levels and all if/when free spins finally roll around. So, you've got an Expanded Wild shifting about the please; the next best thing is to whack a rising multiplier on there, which is what Beach Invaders has done. It might be a shame that wilds eventually shrink out of existence, and it's a bit hard to imagine this slot having higher potential than 500x at times, even though it boasts potential as high as 10,500 times the bet.

Imagine lying down at the pool at a resort. One of the staff members comes over to ask what sort of drink you'd like, and after perusing the menu realise your favourite mocktail isn't there, so you have to settle for something good, but not the one you really really wanted. Beach Invaders is a bit like that. The game didn't feel destined to become a NetEnt classic, yet it's not bad, and after all the remakes and whatnot the studio's been up to of late, it was kinda fresh.