Cash Express

Cash Express: Slot Overview

If we said here's a Western-themed slot featuring a streak respin bonus round held on the side of an old locomotive, it wouldn't be a surprise if Relax Gaming's smash hits Money Train or Money Train 2 sprang to mind. However, Cash Express is no Money Train, though the names are comically similar. Instead, it's Stakelogic's turn to take players out West in a gunslinger filled slot, built around a scatter collection system that unlocks special Enhancer symbols which get put to use during its hold & win Cash Bonus feature.

Rumbling into town like the slot it seems to be trying to emulate is a train holding the game's 5x3, 25-payline reel-set. You can't see a lot around the edges, but a wooden built, dusty road frontier town can be made out during cutscenes. There's not much more to add except it's all pretty standard stuff for the genre; guys and gals wielding pistols, a few badges, little to really distinguish Cash Express from a host of other games.

Playable on any device, Cash Express also comes with Stakelogic's ubiquitous Super Stake feature. Regular bets range from 25 p/c to $/€12.50 per spin, or when Super Stake is active, 35 p/c to $/€17.50. Switching Super Stake on increases the chance of triggering the bonus game. Any way you choose to gamble; the standard RTP appears to remain the same at 95.7%, while volatility comes in at a medium-high level.

The eight standard pay symbols fire off a win when at least three of them land left to right on adjacent reels from the left-hand side of the panel. Half of them are J-A card ranks worth 2x the bet for five of a kind, while the other half are four gun-toting characters worth 8-20 times your stake for a line of five. Wild sheriff badges land on any reel to substitute all symbols except train symbols and possess the same value as the highest paying premium.

Cash Express: Slot Features

Cash Express is a mix of collecting train symbols to unlock Enhancers, which can be used during the Cash Bonus feature once triggered or bought.

Cash Bonus Feature

Land 6 or more train symbols in the base game to win the Cash Bonus feature and 3 respins. Here, train symbols either contain no value, or they contain multiplier values. When symbols land, they fall to the lowest possible position, whilst also resetting the number of spins back to 3. Now, filling the bottom row with 5 symbols awards any respective multipliers and removes them from the grid. The remaining symbols drop to the lowest space on their reels; then, the remaining spins are set to 3. When spins run out, the total collected multiplier is applied to the stake and awarded.

Cash Bonus Enhancers

When train symbols land in the base game, they count as one step of progress to unlock Bonus Enhancers. You can track progress on the meters above the reels, which is saved at each stake level if you decide to change your bet. Unlocked Enhancers are held until the Cash Bonus feature triggers where they are used. When returning to the base game after free spins, the collection system resets. Each Enhancer brings its own effect to the bonus round:

• 1st Enhancer – reveals a multiplier value of x2 to x30.
• 2nd Enhancer – reveals a multiplier value of x2 to x50 and adds it to all others on the grid.
• 3rd Enhancer – reveals a multiplier value of x2 to x50 and adds an extra row to the grid.
• 4th Enhancer – reveals a multiplier value of x2 to x100 and collects all other multiplier values in view.

Buy Bonus

Where possible, players may have the option of buying the bonus round rather than go through the collection/triggering process. The cost is 140x the bet and unlocks random Enhancers to go with the free spins.

Gamble

After any win, players can gamble the prize amount. Picking the correct colour or suit of a downturned card leads to doubling or quadrupling your winnings. However, guessing wrong means you lose the whole amount.

Cash Express: Slot Verdict

A bit of an odd game this one. It's like the more Stakelogic tried not to be Money Train, the closer Cash Express got. The gameplay is quite different, though, so we can't accuse Cash Express of being an outright copycat. Nor can we accuse Cash Express of being a particularly great game either. The features were rather awkward at times, detracting from the game's enjoyment, and the innovations proved to be as much of a reason not to pick Cash Express as to give it a crack.

The bonus game is unusual, mainly because you have to collect symbols along the bottom row before you can accrue their multipliers. Not sure if the method will catch on over the more orthodox way of having sticky money symbols, though. A strange emotion was generated the first time the bonus round ended and there were several money symbols left on the grid, uncounted because they didn't fulfil the bottom row rule. Blue valueless train symbols often got in the way, taking up space. Others piled up on reels and didn't get used because they failed to make it to the bottom row. Cash Express was okay at times, mostly though, it felt bitsy and unwieldy.

Another possible issue is the collection system. Occasionally, bonus rounds trigger before you've had the chance to unlock even one Enhancer, meaning you have to start collecting again from scratch once it's over. To bypass this, it might be tempting to just buy the feature but it's quite pricey, seeing as the Money Train bonuses can be bought for 80-100x where you don’t get all the dead train symbols or non-bottom row wastage.

Cash Express is a strange duality of original elements and imitation. One part tries hard to be different, while the other clings to a wildly successful bandwagon with questionable results. Good on Stakelogic for trying something new, but Cash Express comes across a tad messy and is outclassed by more exciting hold & win styled games. There's no need to repeat names; there's a clear favourite in the category Cash Express is competing in.