Game in Action
Screenshot of the Jungle Jim Eldorado Slot
It seems Microgaming only shows us what they’re capable of when they hype a slot up long in advance. Jungle Jim Eldorado has been their most anticipated slot in a while and it shows. Releases like Reel Spinner utterly pale in comparison. Gameplay aside, Jungle Jim Eldorado looks beautiful. With 3D graphics that remind us of some of Betsoft’s great slots, the scene is set somewhere in the jungle, where our titular hero is looking for the fabled city of gold El Dorado.
The reels are essentially transparent, which means the symbols seem to float in the air. The symbols fall away whenever there’s no winning combination, but explode when the Rolling Reels feature comes into play after a winning combination. What’s nice is the fact that there are gems and other ancient symbols on the reels and no card symbols at all.
Jim himself stands to the left, watching the events on the reels unfold. Every once in a while he’ll appear a little distracted, scratching his leg or doing something else totally unrelated to what’s happening. He’s not quite as engaging as Gonzo, mind you.
Bonuses
The main feature in base game and free spins are the rolling reels or avalanche feature and the multiplier that get added onto every successful consecutive spin. Whenever you have a winning combination, all symbols part of such a combination will explode and make way for more symbols falling in from above. That will hopefully create more winning combinations in turn.
In the base game the multipliers start at 1x and climb up to 5x. Every winning spin is followed by a free re-spin when those new symbols fall down the reels and the multiplier climbs. Once you don’t get any new wins, the normal paying spins resume and the multiplier is reset to its lowest value.
The free spins are triggered when you get three special circular symbols anywhere on the reels. You get started on 10 free spins and the multipliers here are tripled, meaning you go from 3x to 6x, 9x, 12x and finally 15x. We had the feeling that wilds and winning combinations are somewhat more frequent here than in the base game, too.
It’s possible to re-trigger the free spins by getting an additional three scatters onto the reels, but 20 spins is all you can get.
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Summary
So, yes, Jungle Jim Eldorado plays out very much like Gonzo’s Quest. It still looks gorgeous and we have no real complaints about this slot. Free spins didn’t seem too hard to come by either, even though the slot is not particularly fast-paced.
Microgaming has certainly brought us a winner here. The free spins brought us some big wins indeed and if you play this game in freeplay mode and find yourself winning as well, you’ll be wishing you had instead invested a few bucks and played for real.
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