Spinal Tap Slot Review
Spinal Tap Slot is a slot from Blueprint gaming that is based on a fictitious British heavy metal band. A film called Spinal Tap (1984) was created which was a mockumentary about people’s attitudes towards heavy metal bands at the time.
Spinal Tap Slot Features
The basics of Spinal Tap are very similar to every 243 ways slot of a 5 reels game. It has a very familiar feel to all Blueprints slots with a random feature. However, this is the first time that you can purchase this feature (called VIP mode) for 50x your bet value.
The buying of bonuses has become very popular and Blueprint have decided to introduce this for the first time.
The random feature can give 4 possible features with a number of events being between 2 to 11. A wheel in the shape of record player decides what the combination will be. You also have one respin chance for possibility of a better hit.
The 4 features on this wheel are:
- Heavy Duty Wilds – a number of wild reels are added, and the reels will be expanded from 5 to 7 to create 2187 ways. The wild reels can land on a reel already done to increase the multiplier on that reel each time it lands.
- Extra Bonus symbols – a number of extra bonus symbols are added to each reel and increasing the chance of landing a bonus.
- Wild Sparks – a number of wilds are added randomly across 7 reels (2187 ways).
- Rock n’Roll – A 3 symbol win will land on reels 1-2-3, 7 reels (2187 ways). Then you will get a number of respins to lock extra symbols on each spin. At the end the win will count.
During any spin, 3 bonus symbols or more can land to activate the bonus mode. Each extra bonus symbol above the 3 will remove the lowest feature from the picking event.
The Bonus picking event will present you with 20 records to pick from, once you complete the symbols for a given feature it will give you a choice of gambling to the next one. If you lose the gamble it will award a mystery prize and will exit the bonus round.
The features are (from worst to best) are:
- Double Platinum – A wheel which can give chances to upgrade to higher features or just cash.
- Don’t Fret it Bonus – Picking bonus to choose boxes for cash prizes.
- Record Deal Bonus – Is a Deal or no Deal style game with records instead of boxes. You can eliminate prizes or feature to get a deal or keep going to collect the box you chose at the start.
- Stairway to Hell Free Spins – Reels can expand randomly from 5 to 7 (2187 ways), during 11 free spins a spectral wild can multiply any win up to 11x. Also, an Amplifier symbol on selected symbols can give you one extra spin.
- Encore Free Spins – During the first 10 spins of the 11 it will collect each wild that lands. On the 11th spin the reels will expand to 7 (2187 ways) and will put each collected wild on the reels in random positions.
- Stonehenge Free Spins – The reels are expanded to 7 (2187 ways), with a Stonehenge shape on the reels. During the 11 spins every wild that lands in a box of this Stonehenge shape will lock for the spins. If Stonehenge symbol is filled with locked wilds it will reset the free spins to 11.
- World Tour – Move along a trail by spinning a wheel (numbered 1-6) and collect multipliers as you go. Your aim to is complete each stage (Europe, America, Japan) to get to the final Big Money Bonus. If you land on the cross on the wheel or from a picking event your bonus is ended, and you multiply your bet with the multiplier collected. If you end up at the Big Money, you choose a band member which will multiply the total win by a random multiplier of 2x to 11x.
What to look for
There is two ways to play this game – to play normally and trigger bonuses whenever or to spend 50x your bet to get the random feature.
The potential of the random feature can vary a LOT. This means you can easily get nothing or hit a big win. Therefore, we would say you have been warned that your balance could end up at 0 very quickly.
Let’s look more at the normal mode potential of this game. The random feature has such a wide range of potential, all 4 options can all pay big in the right setups which is an impressive balance. The number you get also does not mean you can guarantee anything big either which makes it very interesting.
However, if you can get 11 bonus symbols added it normally means you will get a bonus symbol on each reel and automatically get the World Tour. Its very rare to get a feature with so many options which can give potential on everything.
Again, the main bonus feature has potential at many levels, but as with all Blueprints the higher up the feature the better it normally is. Overall, I would say this holds true, but the Encore Free Spins is generally better than Stonehenge.
The top 3 features (Encore, Stonehenge and World Tour) have all great potential but with those comes the possibility of getting really bad bonuses.
Its very rare to find a game that is this well designed for potential whilst keep you interested. So, this will appeal to a lot of people maybe even the Blueprint haters.
Watch one of our big win videos on Spinal Tap below!
Final Thoughts
The first time Blueprint has given a buy bonus feature, however it’s a bit sneaky they have put a respin option in when it clearly says in the information not to take the first offer. We have seen several people taking the first offer afraid that they are gambling something good.
The graphics and sound are excellent from Blueprint as always and the design is very familiar to those people who have played Blueprint slots before. There has been a lot of copies of other games coming from Blueprint recently, so this is a refreshing change as it shows some very clever design and thought.
We would tell people not to buy bonuses as the base game is good enough and, in most cases, may give more return (which is strange that the RTP is better on buying).
We think this will be a Blueprint that will last for a long time as it has so much variety and content that it doesn’t become boring quickly. Although there is not much difference in pays on the base game, it can soon become volatile with all the options. This will make it enjoyable for both casual and serious players.
