Heist Guys

Heist Guys: Slot Overview

Money, we pretty much all need it to get by, and while some are happy trading their time with an employer to earn it, others would rather just grab a bag of loot and be done. Three outcasts who fall into the latter category are the Heist Guys, who star in a slot of the same name from the creative minds at ELK Studios. It might not seem like it at first, but this cluster pays slot offers a unique bonus round embedded deep in the stick-up theme that is capable of stirring up all manner of emotions, from the good, the bad, to the oh-so-frustrating.

For the base game, Heist Guys inhabits a blue-lit Los Angeles-type world of skyscrapers and palm trees before completely changing when the bonus round is active to a video game-esque map screen where the three Heist Guys attempt to knock over a building full of guards, loot, and so forth. While the base game is pretty regular, relatively speaking, though complemented by an energetic hip-hop soundtrack, Heist Guys' bonus round echoes some of ELK Studios' more experimental work, the titles of which are name-dropped in the verdict.

Heist Guys is played on a 6x6 area, creating winning combinations when clusters of 5 or more matching symbols are connected horizontally or vertically. Winning symbols are removed, except for super wilds, which move to a new position, and a symbol drop occurs to replace them. An avalanche sequence ends when no new win is created after a drop. With an RTP of 94% in all modes, players can stake 20 c to $/€100 in what is a medium volatile slot.

The pay symbols are zapper, gadget, and dynamite low pays, three Heist Guy higher pays, and the gold bar kicker symbol as the most valuable. Rewards vary from 0.1x to 1x for 5 OAK, 2.5x-5x for 12+ low pays or Heist Guys, rising up to 250x for landing 25+ kickers. All pay symbols may hit in 1x1, super 2x2, or mega 3x3 size. Big symbols count as the number of 1x1 that make them up, and empty spaces below big symbols fill with symbols of the same type.

Heist Guys: Slot Features

Heist Guys have two very different modes - a base game where big symbols and super wilds may land, and a sit back and watch while the guys attempt a heist bonus round.

Super Wild

The super wild substitutes for anything but scatters. It starts with an x1 multiplier and moves to a new random position before a symbol refill. Its multiplier increases by +1 for each winning cluster it is part of after the win. Also, after the win, when a super wild is part of a low-pay winning combination, all non-winning instances of the matching low-pay symbol are removed from view. After a win with a Heist Guy symbol, the Heist Guy symbol type is upgraded to the most valuable kicker symbol for the rest of the game round. The upgrade of the third Heist Guy symbol triggers a super drop where all non-winning symbols except wilds, scatters or kicker symbols are removed.

Bonus Game

Hitting 3 scatters in the base awards the bonus round. The bonus is played on a map with paths, guards, rooms, and a vault. All Heist Guys start at the bottom and move as a group towards the vault. Heist Guys take turns moving the group a random number of steps per game round. They follow arrows that match their colour or are white. If there is no arrow, they move upward where possible. Guards move along certain paths and capture Heist Guys when they are a certain distance away in front of them. However, Heist Guys can be freed if another Heist Guy passes the room they are imprisoned in.

Rooms contain safes which are opened when a Heist Guy moves past them. Open safes award coins, keycards, dynamites, zappers, or even the Max Win. A zapper is used to defeat a guard once, thereby avoiding imprisonment, while the keycard opens the vault. If Heist Guys do not have a keycard, they can attempt to hack the vault instead. Successful hacks open the vault, but an unsuccessful hack ends the feature. The dynamite is used to open the super secure safe in the vault. Otherwise, the three coloured safes in the vault may only be opened by a Heist Guy of the same colour. The feature ends when all Heist Guys are imprisoned when Heist Guys cannot progress any further, or the win cap has been achieved.

X-iter

At the X-iter, players can activate the Bonus Hunt at 3x the bet, which provides 4 times the chance to trigger the bonus. Bangin costs 10x and guarantees two big symbols and a super wild with a multiplier of x5, while Ridin, at 25x, buys a drop with all Heist Guys upgraded to the kicker symbols and a super wild with a multiplier of x10. The bonus round can be bought for 100x, or the super bonus, where the zapper, keycard, and dynamite are already collected, costs 500x.

Heist Guys: Slot Verdict

While following in the footsteps of the likes of Pirots and Dam Beavers, Heist Guys certainly has its own personality and distinct way of doing things. Its true personality doesn't get a chance to really shine until the bonus round has been triggered, though. Till then, Heist Guys is a pretty regular cluster pays slot, albeit one with a wild symbol that does more than most, hence the word 'super' added to its name, and being able to roam after a win as well as increase its multiplier in the process is pretty super. Big symbols are handy to have in view as well, but as stated, Heist Guys doesn't get a chance to really express itself till the bonus round is active, whether bought or organically triggered.

The bonus round, well, it could be excruciating. When the bonus is not flowing your way, the Heist Guys characters can seem ludicrously stupid, never walking backwards (they are not able to), sticking to their path like mindless automatons even though it's beyond obvious they're going to bump into a guard and be imprisoned. The need for certain items to either shoot guards, open the vault, or crack the super secure safe adds to the challenge. Several parts have to fit together in an extraordinarily precise way, which, more often than not, ended up being more frustrating than fun. Any slot may turn out like that, of course, but the way you can see how events are going to unfold before they happen in Heist Guy's bonus round makes it even more so.

The opposite is technically true as well. If all the pieces of the puzzle fall together just so, then you can see how Heist Guys' bonus round could be extraordinarily satisfying as well. Like bashing your head against a wall trying to solve a fiendish puzzle before finally, finally, figuring it out. And it is possible to win up to a 10,000x cap, so on paper, at least, Heist Guys is able to do some decent heisting. A clever game, to be sure, unique, but it was a harder game to fall for compared to other semi-related slots such as Pirots, Dam Beavers, or Rogue Rats of Nitropolis.