USA Flip

USA Flip: Slot Overview

According to stuntman Lance Murdoch on the Simpsons, 'Bones heal, chicks dig scars, and the United States of America has the best doctor-to-daredevil ratio in the world.' It's probably not the best 'advice' to give a kid thinking about jumping over Springfield Gorge on his skateboard, but it's this dicing-with-danger mentality that leads us into USA Flip, an online slot from Swedish developer Play'n GO. USA Flip is a celebration of doing stunts on bikes in full view of thousands of spectators – muck it up, and there are plenty of witnesses with mobile phones filming the booboo. Get it right, and arena glory is there for the taking. Which side of the divide will USA Flip the slot fall on?

To push the US of A theme a little further, it's not some young whippersnapper on a bike looking for glory. No, riding the dirt bike around this track is a sunglassed eagle with arms, legs, and a cape, dolled up in red, white, and blue. His domain is the arena, filled with more red, white, and blue, plus the aforementioned spectators. Sitting at the centre of the stadium sits a partly see-through game grid, in what is thematically at least, a loud, bold, brash looking game.

Statistically speaking, USA Flip isn't exactly the loudest, boldest, brashest game on the market, however. In fact, it is one of the least volatile games to come our way from Play'n GO in a while. The math model is rated 4 out of 10, or medium, for volatility which may or may not be your exact cup of chai mocha latte. The RTP, meanwhile, comes in a variety of configurations, depending on the market, topping out at 96.2%, plus a number of lower settings besides so it pays to check. Stakes vary from a budget-stretching 1 p/c per spin up to $/€100 at the most, all available on any device.

The reason players can penny bet on this thing is because paylines are adjustable, from 1 up to 20 at the most. The game utilises a 5-reel, 3-row game grid, which triggers payouts when matching symbols land across them on adjacent reels, starting from the leftmost side. Appearing on the panel are J-A card ranks, then gloves, fireworks, helmets, wheels, and bike pay symbols. Five-of-a-kind wins are worth 20 coins for the card royals or 40 to 250 coins for the premiums. High-paying symbols can land stacked on the last two reels in the base game or the first two reels in free spins. Lastly, wilds have the same value as the top-paying motorbike tile and can also substitute for any normal pay symbol.

USA Flip: Slot Features

Here's where the flip part of USA Flip comes into play, and the game's features include free spins, near-win Re-spins, and walking wilds.

Free Spins

The free spins round is awarded when 3 or more Star Bonus Scatter symbols land anywhere on the grid. Once triggered, 12 free spins are awarded with the reels flipped, reversing the order. Landing 3 or more scatters during the feature awards an additional +12 free spins, up to a maximum of 120.

Re-Spin

A near-win Re-spin is triggered on a losing spin when a full stack of the same symbol lands on the first and second reels. This includes wild symbols. Then, the middle reel re-spins with all other reels locked in place. Free spins can be triggered by a re-spin.

Walking Wild

After a re-spin is triggered, stacked wild symbols can land on the middle reel. This stack of wilds becomes a walking wild symbol which moves one position to the right for each re-spin until it lands on the last reel. One more re-spin occurs on all reels when the walking wild stops on the final reel. During free spins, the walking wild moves to the left by 1 position on each respin instead of to the right. When the walking wild is active, scatter symbols cannot land.

USA Flip: Slot Verdict

Whatever else it might or might not do, USA Flip is a game that lives up to its name. For one, there are loads of US of A references, flags, eagles and so on, to go along with the flipping function. Not to sound negative, but the flipping thing wasn't super ingenuitive. It basically means high-pay stacks can land on the opposite side of the board in free spins compared to the base game, and the walking stack walks in the other direction, too. Not exactly monstrously complex, but it does add an element of flip, making it theoretically more likely to link wins with stacked high pays when they're on the left than when they're on the right. You'd also tend to expect there to be more action from a walking wild stack if it's heading towards the first reel than the last one.

When it comes to payouts, though, the action is fairly limited. At max bet, with all lines active, the most USA Flip can coax up is unusually trivial for Play'n GO at 1,000x the stake. When playing around with paylines and bet sizes, a higher bet multiplier might be coaxed out, perhaps? However, in a game revolving around stacked symbols and stacked wilds, lessening the lines is going to stunt the feature's effectiveness. Still, penny slots aren't super common, though Play'n GO has added to the list in the past, Pimped being one that instantly sprang to mind as a higher potential alternative.

So, a raucously themed slot has been paired with a less-than-raucous math model and relatively modest winning possibilities, but there are good times to be found here by the right player. If bike games like Dead Rider's Trail were a tad too rough going, a tad too finicky, then USA Flip's simpler root beer and hot dog at a stadium vibe might be a better fit. The opposite is true, though, where games like Dead Rider's Trail leave the likes of USA Flip chewing dust in terms of innovation, depth, winning possibilities and potential thrills and spills.