Wild West Gold Slot Review

It may seem like we all too frequently review Pragmatic Play slots, but please note that they have some 270 reel-spinners in their arsenal and are releasing titles with an ever-growing degree of regularity. Thus, this is unavoidable. One of their most successful 2020 products was Wild West Gold, which hit digital casino catalogs in March of that year. It became an instant smash entering the top 15 rankings one week after its release. However, what was even more impressive is that it managed to maintain in the top 100 for more or less the whole year. Pragmatic tried to use this success by producing a similar title called Cowboys Gold, which we also reviewed. Though that too was a moderate hit, it did not achieve the popularity of Wild West Gold. So, let us dive deep and see if promotional deals or quality are the culprits for this game’s high ranking.

Theme & Design

The theme here is clear, and this game does not do anything novel with it. Instead, Pragmatic has opted to incorporate cliché characters and imagery, the kind you have already seen in other western-themed romps. If you have played Tombstone or Dead or Alive 2, then you have an idea of what to expect in Wild West Gold. As with all of Pragmatic’s releases, this one also features their standard vibrant painterly 2D graphics. We have to say, whoever is in charge of their design team understands how to use color. The backdrop of the game is a deserted town street in mid-day, with the sun setting as soon as you enter the Free Spins Bonus Round. The reels spin inside a wooden arch-like construction with classic cow skulls nailed in both top corners.

The soundtrack consists of piano music, the kind that you would hear played in a western saloon. It is reactive to your gameplay and also incorporates crowd chatter and the odd gunshot. The animations here are pretty basic, and, truthfully, there is not a lot to talk about design-wise. Wild West Gold looks decent, and visually it is an average game, in line with most titles from this provider. It also utilizes the same-ole Pragmatic button configuration. Means, the spin, auto-spin, and bet-adjuster are on your right side, and the mute, settings, and info ones are on your left.

Specs & Gameplay

Wild West Gold is a five-reel, three-row slot that features forty paylines. Its RTP is 96.51%, which is slightly above the industry average, and like most Pragmatic Play games, this too is a high variance title. The max exposure here is x10,000 your bet, and the bet sizes range from $0.2 to $100. You form winning combos by landing three to five identical symbols on adjacent reels, left to right.

There are ten regular pay symbols in Wild West Gold. These divide into two groups of five. The low-paying symbols are your typical A-10 royals, and for five-of-a-kind, they pay a prize that ranges from x1 to x1.5. The high-paying symbols in this game are a gun and holster, a sack of gold, a girl with a stiletto blade, a female outlaw, a male outlaw, and what appears to be the town’s sheriff. If you hit five identical symbols for this group on the reel grid, you will receive a payout between x2.5 to x20 of your stake. Of course, the sheriff is the most valuable symbol from this batch.

The Wild is a sheriff’s badge with the word wild over it, and it substitutes all other symbols except the Scatter (the desert landscape symbol). The Wild only appears on reels two, three, and four, and when it lands, it carries with it an x2, x3, or x5 multiplier. The Scatter only shows up on reels one, three, and five.

Bonus Features

Wild West Gold only has one bonus feature, which is the Free Spins Round. If you land three Scatters in the base game, you enter this round and kick things off with eight complimentary reel rotations. The cool thing here is that when you hit a Wild, it sticks around for the remainder of the round. The default Scatter is not active in this round, but there is a Scatter overlay (a golden badge) that can appear at random on top of any other symbol, including your sticky Wilds. If two overlay symbols appear on a spin, you will get four more additional free spins. Three get you eight extra spins, four twelve, and five twenty. Know that if your total win when this mode ends is below x10 your bet, you will get a prize that is x10 your wager. It is a fail-safe so that you do not walk away from this round disappointed and feeling cheated.

GOSU Verdict

What to say about Wild West Gold? While most will claim that it reminds them of Dead or Alive 2, we will state that theme aside, this game to us was far too similar to other Pragmatic slots such as Wolf and Mustang Gold. There is no originality here, and there is only one bonus feature. We found the saloon music annoying, and the visuals had a by-the-numbers feel. The max win of x10,000 is decent, but the base game is boring, and the variance is high. It is an average game worth testing, but one that will not become anyone’s favorite.

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