Big Bass Halloween 3

Big Bass Halloween 3: Slot Overview

Editor's note: This review is based on an early access version of the game. We may update the review after the full release if necessary.

Broadly speaking, there can't be much, if anything, in the physical realm that is truly unstoppable, due to certain limits and impermanence. Empires fall, stars die, and even ideas eventually dissolve into the ether. However, software providers Pragmatic Play and partner, Reel Kingdom, are doing their darndest to challenge this way of thinking. They've done so through their Big Bass Bonanza slot range, which the duo consistently add to, and have done so again with another festively focused release. This one is Big Bass Halloween 3, and it sees the inner mechanical workings of Big Bass Vegas Double Down Deluxe dropped into a zombie, horror-style theme.

Big Bass Halloween 3 is a far less pleasant spot to cast off than your typical fishing slot. Well, this isn't a traditional fishing slot at all, really, but rather a game held on dry land with an emphasis on horror. To express the change of theme, one of the wild fisherman characters looks like a zombie, and there are things like bloody handprints all over the glass in the background, as well as more blood spattering during win count-ups. It does make a change of scene for the series, but beneath the skin, Big Bass Halloween 3 operates a set of features that have been seen before, more than once.

Big Bass Halloween 3 uses a standard BBB gaming set-up, consisting of a 5x3 action area with 10 paylines evaluating winning combinations from the leftmost reel onwards. Two feature buys are here, for players to skip the fairly dull base game, while the stake range runs from $/€0.10 to $/€250 per spin. Big Bass Halloween 3 is a high volatility slot, where the maximum 96.5% RTP applies no matter how the game is played. When activating the ante bet, the stake goes up by 50% to increase the chance of triggering free spins.

The hierarchy of pay symbols lists 10-A card ranks, fish, backpacks, axes, lures, and Combi vans of all things. Five-of-a-kind winning combinations pay 5x to 10x the bet when made up of royals, or 20x to 200x when made of premium symbols. There are two wild symbols that substitute any regular paying symbol, but they only appear during the free spins bonus round.

Big Bass Halloween 3: Slot Features

Nothing new to see here, folks, as Big Bass Halloween 3 operates money symbols, free spins where money symbols may be collected and multiplied, as well as a couple of feature buys.

Money Symbol

The fish symbols are also money symbols, landing with possible values of 2x to 5,000x the bet, which can be won during the free spins feature.

Free Spins

Hitting 3, 4, or 5 scatters triggers 15, 20, or 25 free spins, respectively. In the base game, when 2 scatters hit without a third, there is a chance another one appears on the screen by a random respins or hook feature.

Blue and red wild fisherman symbols appear on the reels during free spins. They collect the values from money symbols that land on the screen. The fisherman symbols are also collected by a respective blue and red meter. Every fourth fisherman symbol collected by its respective meter triggers +10 free spins and a money symbol collection multiplier for that fisherman. The multiplier is x2 for the second level, x3 for the third level, and x10 for the fourth level. After the fourth level, the feature cannot be retriggered any more.

Randomly, when there are fisherman symbols in view but no fish, fish symbols may appear from a random dynamite feature. When fish symbols are present but no fisherman, a hook may appear to pull fisherman symbols into view. Lastly, when there are fisherman symbols but no fish, a shark animation may occur to change all symbols in view except fisherman symbols into something else.

Feature Buy

From the feature buy section, players may buy free spins triggered by 3 or more scatters for 100x the bet, or super free spins triggered by 3+ scatters for 300x the bet, where only 3 wild fisherman of any colour collected in a meter are needed to retrigger the feature.

Big Bass Halloween 3: Slot Verdict

Putting fish aside for a moment, let's ponder the paperclip maximiser, a philosophical thought experiment put forward by Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom to present the possible risks of runaway artificial intelligence. In it, a powerful AI is given a simple goal - to maximise the number of paperclips, and it ends up converting everything in the universe, including the Earth, humans, and other planets, into paperclips or machines to make paperclips. Maybe, suspend disbelief for a moment, maybe Prag and pals Reel Kingdom developed a powerful AI as a fun side project between making casino games and gave it the command, 'maximise the number Big Bass Slots'. It would help explain why there are so many of them. Though, like the paperclip story, maybe one day every atom in the universe is going to be converted into a Big Bass slot composed of wildly different themes.

Another thing to explain the large, some might say excessive number, of Big Bass slots is the willingness of the studio to reproduce ideas, concepts, and whole sets of features. Big Bass Halloween 3, for example, is not only a reskin of Big Bass Vegas Double Down Deluxe; we already had one of those in the form of Big Bass Boxing Bonus Round. Did we need another one? Probably not, yet, here we are, collecting not just one but two fisherman symbols during the bonus round to trigger extra free spins and progress collection multipliers. Other than the doubling of the fisherman effect, Big Bass Halloween 3 delivers the same sort of action that was available in Big Bass Bonanza, released all those years ago, in 2020, before the Big Bass freight train jumped the tracks and has careened, unstoppably, through the gambling industry ever since.

Like its boxing and Vegas siblings, Big Bass Halloween 3 is good for hauling in wins up to a 5,000x the bet win cap, a middling to decent figure for the series. And that about sums it up. The most shockingly scary thing about Big Bass Halloween 3 wasn't the zombies, or the bloody handprints, but rather the sheer relentlessness of the series, and the thought that these guys aren't done, are they? That one day we could be looking at the first slot range to hit triple digits, maybe even Big Bass Halloween 3… hundred in some far distant future.