Basketball Star slot: A slam dunk success?

Microgaming have used basketball as the basis for one of their sporting star series of slots alongside other sports such as Ice Hockey, Cricket, Rugby and Football.

Basketball Star is the title in question and to all intents and purposes, it is simply a reworking of the same game engine from all the Star series games, just with Basketball as its central focus.

That's not a bad thing - these games are very playable, so does the Basketball variant of the series offer as much fun as the other games such as Cricket Star or Rugby Star? We decided to take a look to see.

Overview

• Game: Basketball Star
• Developer: Microgaming
• Reels: 5x3
• Pay Lines: 243 Ways to Win
• Minimum Bet: 0.50
• Maximum Bet: 50.00
• Jackpot: 120,000 coins
• Free Spins Bonus: Yes
• Other Bonuses: Yes
• Progressive: No
• Volatility: Medium

Presentation

Set against the backdrop of a basketball court, the Basketball Star slot has some nice touches including realistic crowd and game sounds accompanying you as you play. The reels are super-imposed over the backdrop and this is a 243 Ways to Win slot, which also has cascading reels in operation, meaning you can land multiple wins from a single spin.

The main controls of the game are located at the foot of the screen and they are very simple to follow. The animations on the reels are pretty standard, but when you do hit some of the main bonus features of the slot then things do tend to pick up a bit and some of the polish of the game then becomes more visible. As the slots in this sporting series go, Basketball Star is one of the nicer looking of these games.

What is on the reels?

There are a total of nine different standard symbols on the reel and these offer wins ranging from just 4% of your total bet, up to a maximum standard line win of 12x your total bet. Those numbers seem small but one thing to remember is that you can win across multiple lines and with the Cascading Reels in play, one win can trigger another which can lead to a higher value return on a spin.

The lower value symbols include the drinks holder, basketball shoes and a medal and these offer slightly lower value wins that the five higher value symbols which are the different shots of basketball players in action.

Alongside these symbols on the reels, there are a number of other symbols that are linked to the main bonuses in the game as we will explore below.

Wild features

The Basketball Star logo is the Wild symbol in the game and there are a total of 40 Wilds on the reels, with stacks of the Wild symbols being present on the third, fourth and fifth reels. This does help land you some better value wins, especially when you can land a stack of Wilds, or better still, two or three stacks. The Wilds substitute for all symbols apart from the Scatter.

The other Wild feature in the game is slightly different and it is triggered entirely at random. This is the Wild Shot feature and this will turn up to two reels entirely Wild for that spin and it will also guarantee you a win when the feature triggers.

Free Spins features

The Basketball is the in game Scatter symbol and you need to land three or more of these symbols anywhere across the reels in order to give you a shot at the Free Spins bonus. In addition, you will win a cash prize of 5x, 50x or 250x your total stake depending on how many Scatters you land on the reels on that spin.

Furthermore, the number of Scatters landed also determines the number of Free Spins, with 15, 20 or 25 Free Spins awarded accordingly. The Rolling Reels bonus is available during Free Spins too but in this part of the game, if you can land consecutive Rolling Reels wins then you will trigger a multiplier which will award you up to 10x the standard win for the line.

It is generally through the Free Spins bonus round, the Stacked Wilds and the Multipliers available in the Cascading Reels bonus wins that you will find you have a better chance of landing some of the bigger value wins in the slot.

Best feature of the Basketball Star slot

There are a lot of nice features in the Basketball Star slot and while there is no doubt that the Free Spins part of the game is potentially the most lucrative and is also hugely enjoyable, especially with those Cascading Reels multipliers in play when you can land them and those super stacked Wild symbols, I feel that it is the base game that serves up a treat for Basketball Star. Cascading Reels can play a good role in landing some much needed booster wins in this section and that randomly triggered Wild Shot feature also keeps things very interesting.

Conclusion

There are a number of titles in the Sports Star series from Microgaming and although Basketball isn't as popular in the UK as perhaps some of the other sports in the series, this is still a very enjoyable slot. It is not radically different to any of the other games in the series, and it is pretty much a case of if you have played any of the other Sporting Star series slots, then you will know exactly what you are going to get from this game. That said, the themed bonus game works well and Microgaming know that this is a tried and trusted formula that definitely seems to appeal to their player base.

You can play the Basketball Star slot at any of the Mega Moolah casinos.