Invading Vegas

Invading Vegas: Slot Overview

Brace for some Orson Welles kind of action players, the aliens are here, and they're taking on Sin City in an online slot from developer Play'n GO titled Invading Vegas. Why are aliens targeting Vegas, you might be asking? It's a good question, and aside from the obvious gambling links which work well in a slot, it's not super clear. If extra-terrestrials touched down in Las Vegas, of all the places on earth, would they be impressed by humankind's ingenuity and business nous or repelled? For a look at what their reaction might be, let's take a trip through Invading Vegas to look for clues.

Play'n GO has turned up the B-movie setting for Invading Vegas, which brought to mind the 1996 movie Mars Attacks. In this Tim Burton film, the big-brain aliens seem to be benevolent at first before turning their lasers on earth and zapping stuff. A classic, humorous take on alien invasion. Would we fight back with our feeble weapons or accept the takeover by a more advanced civilization and bend the knee? So many questions. Back to Invading Vegas, where The Strip's taken a bit of damage already, but the vibe is a fun one, the characters are over the top, and the soundtrack is spot on, teeing up the scene for a spot of B-movie-esque entertainment.

Invading Vegas allows players a fair amount of scope to attack the game. Via the UI, players can pick coin numbers, coin values, and also whether they would like from 1 to 20 of the paylines active or not. The result of this fiddling around means bets as low as 1 p/c or as high as $/€100 per spin are possible. Medium volatile, Invading Vegas is playable on any device, and hosting the action is a 5-reel, 3-row grid with up to 20 winning lines.

Nine regular pay symbols appear on Invading Vegas' reels. The lower value four are casino chips with card suits imprinted on them, while the high pays are five suspicious-looking characters – including Elvis. They are suspicious because their big toothy grins feel a little too forced. Are they body-snatched aliens, or are they just really happy to see us? The character on the wild symbol is definitely not human. Wilds can land on all reels, either replacing any pay symbol or creating wins of their own, worth the same as the highest-value pay symbol.

Invading Vegas: Slot Features

Opening up Invading Vegas' arsenal of extras reveals such features as Lock on Re-spins, walking wilds, and free spins.

Lock on Re-spin

When the first and second reels display matching stacked symbols, and no win is achieved, a respin is awarded on the third reel. Eligible symbols on the first two reels include regular pays or wilds. This feature cannot be retriggered.

Walking Wild

Stacked wild symbols can land on the third reel after a re-spin is triggered. If this happens, the wild symbols become a walking wild stack which moves one position to the right for re-spins until reaching the fifth reel. An additional re-spin takes place on all other reels when the walking wild stops on the final reel. Scatters cannot land while a walking wild is active.

Free Spins

When 3 or more scatters are in view, free spins are triggered. During free spins, walking wilds move to the left instead of the right until they reach the first reel. Moreover, higher-paying symbols are stacked more frequently on the first two reels.

Invading Vegas: Slot Verdict

For a species to traverse the universe, they'd have to be pretty technologically on the ball. In so saying, Invading Vegas wasn't nearly as advanced. It does look neat, possessing a happy-go-lucky Vegas under-fire feel about it, and when the game first hit the screen, it generated plenty of interest to see how it would follow through. The game's filled with humorously good artwork, animations, and a fitting soundtrack, but after inspecting the paytable and when the reels started spinning, enthusiasm did take something of a hit.

Perhaps the problem isn't with the features themselves, but that they seemed less interesting than the scenery. Play'n GO's designers have gone to town with the alien invasion concept, letting their imaginations run wild to create an exciting game world for players to lose themselves in, in a similar way to previous Play'n GO slots like Canine Carnage or Fortune Rewind. By comparison, while there's nothing hugely negative about respins or walking wilds, the features did feel a little underdone. Perhaps something more special, a bit more theme integrated, would have helped negate this impression. Winning potential might be a sore spot for some, too. For example, when betting at a full 100 coins per spin, the 100,000 coins max win equates to a not-so-interstellar multiplier of 1,000x. Although, playing around with the coins and coin values may improve the bet multiplier to a more satisfying level.

The lasting impression of Invading Vegas was of a slot which leans as heavily, if not more so, on its set and setting as on its gameplay to produce the chuckles. But that's cool. To Play'n GO's credit, they have created an excellent space for willing participants to inhabit for a bit as they try their luck. The novelty may drop away, yet there's entertainment value here for players who can appreciate Invading Vegas' alien invasion shtick.