Gladiator Slot – Free Demo
Provider:
Betsoft
A Hero Gladiator on the middle reel turns all three of its positions wild for one spin, and that is the whole of what Betsoft's 2013 arena gives away for free. Everything else sits behind a Door or a second-screen fight, and there are no free spins anywhere in the game.
Play Gladiator demo
A 2013 arena, ported forward
Testing this Betsoft slot, like a kid on Christmas I leapt straight into the gameplay, bypassing both the splash screen and info file, and moments later a Gladiator lands on the middle reel and turns the entire thing wild. The reel stays wild for that spin and nothing of it carries into the next one. A shiver races down the spine, and haven't I witnessed this before!? The few hundred or so brain cells remaining in my skull begin a frantic exchange of handshakes. Finally, the writing is on the wall. The supposedly "new" Betsoft slot I've been anticipating dates back to 14 February 2013. Seasoned players will indeed shortly become aware of the fact that Gladiator also exists as a mobile version, Gladiator ToGo. It has the identical layout and bonuses. But is it a straightforward port or not - let's discover.
Gladiator is a 5-reel, 3-row slot with 30 fixed pay lines. Now here comes the intriguing part: Betsoft's own figure places the RTP at 92.67%.
It's a Roman slot with the arena forming the background. An actual fight only appears in the second-screen round. There is also a foreboding sound loop to further underline the imperial setting.
Colosseum, Door, Princess
The Colosseum is the scatter and pays from anywhere on the reels. The Door is the symbol that triggers Click Me, and the Princess is the wild, with a 2x attached to her wins. One account has her petals turning the symbols beneath her wild; the other has her doubling any win she completes from the top row of reels 2, 3 and 4. Sources portray the mechanism differently, though, so it is unconfirmed. Alongside them stand the Hero Gladiator and the Villain Gladiator, the game's two feature symbols. Which of the two you side with matters only once Prepare for Battle is running.
The Hero on reel three
The game contains an on-reels bonus in the base game, and when a Hero Gladiator lands on the middle reel, that entire reel turns wild for the spin. It substitutes for everything except the Door and the Colosseum. So a wild reel 3 cannot complete a scatter win and cannot help assemble a Click Me trigger. You've witnessed this before, haven't you?
Click Me, and a fight with no free spins
The bonus features ladies and gentlemen - this is where the magic (hopefully) occurs, and to be permitted entry to Click Me one must land 3 Door symbols anywhere on the reels. The Doors count wherever they land, so no payline is involved in getting there. That opens a pick round: select doors for instant prizes until a door reveals "Collect."
It took me a few minutes before I recognised that there are no free spins here at all, and the second feature is Prepare for Battle, a second-screen fight. That leaves the base game and the two instant-prize rounds carrying the whole return. Choose a gladiator, then collect prizes as the fight plays out, for attacks landed and attacks blocked. Prizes land during the combat rather than in one lump at the end of it. No two fights pay alike.
The Minty Summary: Three hundred and twenty spins at 0.90 produced 80 paying spins and not one door, which leaves the wild reel as the only feature I can describe from having watched it work.
320 spins and no doors
I'm let down with the fact that over 320 spins at 0.90 neither Click Me nor Prepare for Battle emerged once, as much as I adore the on-reels wild. The longest run without a win was 11 spins, ending on spin 17. From the maddeningly lengthy time it can take to trigger a bonus, to the balance grinding from 1,000.00 down to 853.45, a session return of 49.1% with 80 paying spins out of 320. 45 of those 80 paid less than the 0.90 stake, and the low point of the session was 847.69. The best of them was the 27.00 on spin 121, when the middle-reel Gladiator turned the entire reel wild. Behind it came 15.30 on spin 246, 9.00 on spin 235 and 8.10 on spin 272.
For veterans like me it might not be a thrilling game due to the evident fact it's from 2013. The arena theme is covered here as well by Spartacus Gladiator of Rome from Light & Wonder and Game of Gladiators Uprising from Play'n GO. For the novices, on the other hand, it's a chance to get to explore one of Betsoft's better known slots.