Good Old 7’s

Good Old 7's: Slot Overview

If a 'thrilling fusion of nostalgic charm with modern excitement' sounds pretty darn nifty, feel free to pull up a chair and get a look at Good Old 7's from software provider NetEnt. A caveat: these words are taken from the game sheet, and these documents do like to hype a slot up. In practice, Good Old 7's is indeed a retro-looking slot, but how modern the excitement might be is up for debate since a good chunk of the features, not to mention the styling, has been seen before on more than one occasion.

As for the styling, Good Old 7's has a nostalgic vibe, but it also looks like something its partner Red Tiger might have made, coming across as a Frankenstein-ian mix of 777 Super Strike, Mystery Reels Deluxe, and Viral Spiral with hints of Cotton Gang Affair or Great Gold peeking in at the edges. In other words, Good Old 7's is a shiny metallic slot dunked in classic slot icons with an Art Deco glaze on top. NetEnt might have incorporated some of Red Tiger's talent for a collaboration in the creation of Good Old 7's. Regardless, it would have likely been more prudent to market this slot under the Red Tiger brand, as it bears their hallmark. The blurring of lines between the two studios inevitably leads to questions about the remaining essence of NetEnt's identity, particularly considering that most team members were dismissed following the acquisition.

Part of the 'modern' bargain is a 243 ways to win pay system, operating inside a 5-reel, 3-row gaming grid. The volatility has been rated a high 5 out of 5, meaning Good Old 7's might not be the best match for casual classic slot pundits, though a default 96% RTP is a comfortably average figure. Good Old 7's takes bets of 10 c to $/€150 and does not come with ante bets or feature buys or anything like that. Not too many other features are available either while we're at it.

On the lower half of the paytable sits cherries, plums, lemons, oranges, and watermelons before shifting to Bars, double Bars, triple Bars, bells, and diamonds. Hitting 5 matching low pays shells out 0.4 to 1.2 times the bet, whereas landing 5 matching highs gets you 2 to 10 times the bet. Wilds substitute for all paying symbols and land only on the middle three reels.

Good Old 7's: Slot Features

Retro simplicity is the way it is around here, where the features are the Twin Reel, a Bonus Wheel, and a Gamble Prize.

Twin Reel

Landing 1 or more wild stacked reels activates the Twin Reel feature, which clones one reel without wild symbols onto another reel with no wild symbols. If there are multiple reels full of wild symbols, this feature does not trigger multiple times.

Bonus Wheel

Landing the bonus symbol on the rightmost reel triggers the Bonus Wheel. The Bonus Wheel is divided into segments bearing prizes of 2x to 100x the bet. When the Wheel stops spinning, the pointer indicates the value your bet will be multiplied by. If you're happy with the result, clicking 'Collect' ends the feature and pays out the prize.

Gamble Prize

However, if you don't like the result from the Bonus Wheel, you can click 'Gamble' to spin the Wheel again in hopes of getting a better prize. Players can gamble on the first and second spin only. If the Wheel stops on 100x at any point, players instantly collect the prize as it is the highest one possible. According to the game rules, the best strategy is to always gamble unless 50x has been won, and the best gamble strategy is highlighted in green during the feature.

Good Old 7's: Slot Verdict

Anyone remember the exciting anticipation that used to accompany a new NetEnt release? Those days feel well and truly gone. Recently, it's been more a case of how much is this going to suck instead of looking forward to receiving a wild new way of winning or losing some dough. Good Old 7's may struggle to shift these negative perceptions, too. Let's not throw shade on Good Old 7's as if it's a horrendous game that should be condemned to the scrap heap. It's not. But it also doesn't seem to plug any major (or minor) gaps in the market. Okay, classic retro fruit slots refuse to lie down and die, not saying they should, some people presumably love them after all. But Good Old 7's felt like NetEnt was lazily reaching way down into its bag of tricks to come up with something. Maybe the studio's 10x developers have jumped ship, or they just don't feel the need to prove themselves as much as they did in the past, pre-Evolution buyout when they were a greater force to be reckoned with?

Anyway, enough speculating because NetEnt clearly knows the gambling business, and they no doubt mentally visualised potential punters for Good Old 7's. Probably not players who like the latest cutting-edge gaming, though, nor those who consider a 3,348x the bet max win a rinky-dink figure. It is an unusual figure because there is no free spins round, the Bonus Wheel maxes out at 100x, and 243 ways to win with the highest paying symbol completely stacked on the reels would be worth 2,430x. That would be a pulse-raising result, to be sure, but it's hard to see how it's possible to win more from Good Old 7's.

This all leads into arguably the largest sticking point, which is that NetEnt already has games like Twin Spin, Twin Spin Deluxe, Twin Spin Megaways, and Twin Spin XXXtreme under its belt, making Good Old 7's feel like a so-so wannabe from another studio in possession of far less experience than NetEnt has built up over the years. What Good Old 7's does is okay, kinda, sorta, in its way, but since it ended up being a less exciting version of games which came before the reaction was closer to Meh Old 7's than Good Old 7's.