Multimedia Games
Multimedia Games is launching a great batch of entertaining new video slots. Comedy is a common thread in these games.
As with Yardbirds, a nine-reel (each reel spot is actually a complete reel with all outcomes available), 50-line video slot. The main feature is the “Chicken & Egg Bonus,” in which the player picks eggs from a field to try to hatch chickens for credit awards. Every time a chicken isn’t found, a fox appears and steals one of the eggs, but when a chicken is revealed, the hen lays nine more eggs to continue the bonus.
This alone is entertaining, but what really makes it work is the cartoon animation and goofy music reminiscent of “Turkey in the Straw”—you may be looking for credit awards, but you’re laughing while you do it.
There is much more humor in the Multimedia video lineup. There’s the 50-line Wild 80s, with its Valley Girl voice hosting the “Boom Box Bonus” picking game and cards flipping across the screen to turn symbols wild. There’s Arriba, with the flying Mexican wrestler character “Beto,” a frog mariachi band, and the irresistible “Jumping Bean Bonus” picking event.
But the one video slot with arguably the best entertainment-style bonus of the bunch is Zombie Outbreak, with a “first-person shooter”-style bonus event that stands up to any home video game out there.
The main feature is “Zombie Escape Bonus.” The idea here is that waves of zombies are advancing toward you, the player, and you have to kill them before they overtake you and eat you—ending the bonus. There is a field of hidden weapons from which to choose as the zombies advance, and credits are awarded for each zombie killed.
But there are a lot of them, so picking the right weapon is essential: There is a pistol, which will take out one of them. The shotgun will take out two or three; the machine gun will take out a bunch of them; and the ultimate, the flamethrower, will wipe them all out. Then they’re replaced by a new wave of zombies—11 waves in all, so odds are you’re going to get eaten, unless you’re lucky enough to pick the flamethrower every time.
