Pyramids of Giza

Pyramids of Giza: Overview

Picture yourself coming home after a long day at work, kicking off your boots, pouring up a glass of beer and getting ready to indulge in some classic Book of Ra. Then imagine the following Kafkaesque scenario - to your great amazement, the bonus is triggered, but instead of being awarded the usual special expanding symbol, what you get is...nothing. In broad strokes, this sums up the Pyramids of Giza experience. Now, describing Barcrest as a provider with its salad days in the past would be something of an understatement. Regardless, one would hope that the company's approval process would catch rubbish like this before it makes it out onto the digital shelves.

Just by looking at Pyramid of Giza, you know it's going to be some sort of Novomatic inspired offering, which is made apparent by the ancient Egyptian theme and retro visuals as well as the typical 5-reel, 3-row and 10-payline setup.

Barcrest doesn't exactly have a reputation of being generous with the RTP either, but in this game, it gets even more ridiculous. Betting less than 2€ per spin, you will be stuck with a theoretical return to player of no more than 94%. In order to bring it up to the more acceptable 96% RTP, you will be required to bet 2€ or more. In any case, players can choose to play Pyramid of Giza from 10 cents up to a staggering 500€ per spin across all devices, including mobile devices and tablets.

Visually, there's no question that Barcrest is trying to ride on the back of Book of Ra's success. With a view of the river Nile and a blood red sunset in the backdrop, symbols on the reels include A to 10 playing cards, lotus flowers, scarab beetles, and the eye of horus. The most rewarding is the sphinx symbol which gives you 250 times your stake for 5 on a payline. Oddly enough, no wild symbol available in the main game.

Pyramids of Giza: Features

Pyramids of Giza is extremely basic and offers no base game features whatsoever. To activate the only feature the game has to offer, you need to land 3 pyramid bonus scatter symbols on reels 1, 3 and 5 respectively.

This is where confusion sets in. Unless you've read this review or the game rules, you'll be asking yourself what it is you're supposed to be looking for in the bonus. At least that was the case when we first got our hands on the game. When the penny finally dropped, we were quite shocked to learn that the only enhancement there is to benefit from, is that the scatter now doubles as a wild. Amazeballs. Not that it made us feel much better, as all we wished for was for the painfully boring bonus to be over, but you can also retrigger the feature to give you 10 extra free spins every time you land another 3 bonus scatter symbols on reels 1, 3 and 5.

Pyramids of Giza: Final Verdict

There are no redeeming qualities in Pyramids of Giza. In fact, it's hard to come up with one single good reason to spend your money on this game, in particular if you're a low-roller given the fact that you're being punished with a massive dip in the RTP for gambling responsibly. The game is so unambitious, bland and flat our boring that even Microgaming would think twice about letting it pass quality control, which says a lot.

Playing Pyramids of Giza is like playing a Chinese counterfeit version of Book of Ra, only the counterfeiters have never actually played the original. What's truly offensive is that the designers seem to think there is an army of idiots out there, all more than willing to fork over their hard-earned cash just to see something that reminds them of a Novomatic slot. But if this bloodcurdling audience does exist, and if there are actually people out there salivating at Pyramids of Giza's premise, they should heed this advice: just stick to Book of Ra and never even look at this game. You'll thank us, and we'll sleep easier knowing there will never be a Pyramids of Giza 2.