300 Shields is vaguely themed around the movie 300 about Spartan soldiers, and you’ll have your chance to fight for Sparta in this slot game, and your prize if successful will be a x300 win multiplier for any win involving a Wild! I’ve found this game to be very exciting to play and I have played the free spins game numerous times in an attempt to reach that win multiplier, and finally I did, and won a decent amount. Let me give you an honest review of this Nextgen Gaming slot game.
The original 300 Shields was an iconic release for slot players who like super high variance machines with the chance of winning well in excess of 1000x stake, similar to releases such as Dead or Alive II, with the main difference being the potential insane 300x Multipliers that can be applied to any wins in the bonus round that features a wild symbol on a payline!
The paytable is heavily leaning towards five-of-a-kind wins, as the four- and three-of-a-kind prizes are always much smaller, to the point of being worthless. For example, a Queen card symbol will pay 12 coins for four-of-a-kind and 125 coins for five-of-a-kind, which is more than a ten-fold increase. All symbols are like that except for the two best ones, Viking and Galley, as they both pay 250 coins for five- and 100 coins for four-of-a-kind. The game doesn’t pay often, so be advised that the variance is high and you need a lot of spins to get the best out of this game.
In the free spins bonus feature, your job is to collect Scatters. Your game will begin with 5 free spins and a x2 win multiplier for Wild wins, and if you collect two Scatters you’ll advance to the next level which will have a x5 win multiplier, and will grant you 5 new free spins. Then you’ll need four more Scatters to reach the x25 level, and then six more to reach the level with a whopping x300 win multiplier for Wild wins. In total, you’ll have to collect 12 Scatters to reach the final level, and you can strengthen your case by re-triggering the free spins by landing at least three Scatters on the same spin.
You can wait for the game to get triggered when you land three or more Scatters on the same spin in the base game, or you can purchase the feature for 60x your total bet. This is a high variance nerve-wracking game, especially if you bought it, but if you reach the final level and are then lucky to get any kind of Wild win, you’ll make money. You can win up to 17,773x your bet on a single spin if you reach the final level.
Theoretical return to player (RTP) of this slot game is 95.299% if you play it without purchasing free spins, or 95.658% if you’d only purchase the free spins and never play the base game. It’s up to each player to decide what’s the better choice, but be warned you’ll need a really large bankroll if you want to keep purchasing the free spins game as the variance is high.
While the theoretical return to player isn’t high – you might call it Spartan – the game is exciting and potentially very rewarding, too. To win in this game you simply must reach that x300 win multiplier, and if you do that early then you can walk away with a nice win. It’s a good action-packed slot game many players will enjoy, as you will feel as if you are indeed fighting.