Most Wanted

Most Wanted: Slot Overview

Make it onto an actual most wanted list, and it's probably high time to start reflecting on some of them thar life choices. On the other hand, hitting a fictional most wanted list means revelling in the ultimate badass status. It's this latter make-believe kind that is the subject of casino game designer TrueLab's online slot, the appropriately named Most Wanted. For this game, players enter a Wild West world populated by scatter-paying wins and multiplier symbols which bear more than a passing resemblance to Pragmatic Play's slot Gate of Olympus 1000, aka Starlight Princess 1000. Okay, Most Wanted is almost exactly the same.

Not graphically, though, since players are transported to the Wild West for Most Wanted rather than Ancient Greece or an anime wonderland. The visuals aren't exactly fresh, despite being competently drawn, and depict a take-no-junk dude standing next to a gaming grid in a dusty frontier town. The sort of place that has graced countless movies, books, and, of course, online slots. Nothing wrong with the view by any means, but nothing creatively striking either.

The same goes for Most Wanted's gameplay, which has been ripped right from Pragmatic Play and stuffed into this highly volatile slot, with its 96.06% RTP. The gaming grid utilises 6-columns, holding 5 rows each, and whenever 8 or more matching symbols hit in any position, a win is created. The bet range is 20 c to $/€200 per spin, and there is a bonus bet as well as a bonus buy available to potentially shorten the sprint to the free spins round.

The cascade mechanic takes winning symbols off the grid when they create a win and replaces them by dropping symbols downwards from above. After a symbol cascade, if a new win is formed, the cascade feature triggers again, ending when no new win appears. As for the paytable, Most wanted has 3 lows, 3 mids, and 3 high-paying symbols. The lows are coins with dollar signs on them, the mids are a knife, a bottle, and dynamite, while the highs are a pistol, a shotgun, and a male character. Hitting 8 matching symbols anywhere pays 0.25 to 10 times the bet, whereas a 12+ combo is worth 2 to 50 times the bet. Like the slot it's imitating, Most Wanted doesn't have wild symbols.

Most Wanted: Slot Features

A proven and already well-established set of features make their way into Most Wanted. They include cascades, multiplier symbols, free spins with a total multiplier, a bonus bet, and a buy bonus.

Bounty Multipliers

One any spin Bounty Multipliers with values of x2 to x1,000 may land. In the base game, when winning cascades end, any Bounty Multipliers in view add their values together and applies the result to the total win amount.

Manhunt Bonus

Landing 4, 5, or 6 scatters in the base game awards 15 free spins on top of a payout of 3x, 5x, or 100x the bet, respectively. While the round is active, landing 3 or more scatters awards an additional +5 free spins. During the bonus, when a Bounty Multiplier symbol hits and the spin produces a win, the multiplier value is added to a total multiplier. For the full duration of the Manhunt Bonus, when a new multiplier symbol hits and results in a win, the total multiplier is also used to multiply the win. If there was more than one multiplier symbol, then all values are summed up with the total multiplier and then applied to the win. The total multiplier applies only if another multiplier drops on the grid and there was a hit. The total multiplier is saved between spins.

Bonus Bet & Bonus Buy

By activating the bonus bet, the stake increases by 25%, giving double the chance of triggering free spins. There was no mention of whether using the bonus bet changed the RTP. Pressing the Buy Bonus button is how players can buy their way to the Manhunt Bonus. The cost for this is 100x the bet. When buying the bonus, 96.18% is the RTP.

Most Wanted: Slot Verdict

You know a studio has struck it good when it seems like every other second designer and their dog are copying its work, clutching onto coattails in the hopes that some of the success rubs off on them. Some of the magic has rubbed off on Most Wanted since it was a satisfying ol' West version of Gates of Olympus 1000. You know, whatever the ethical or moral question marks, TrueLab could be onto something here. Given the mega popularity of the Western theme, not to mention the massively popular scatter-paying win mechanic, which continues its up-and-up trajectory, Most Wanted may find an appreciable audience.

But still, did the imitation have to be so completely total? Couldn't TrueLab have created something new or made a tiny alteration to provide even an iota of creativity or originality? Guess not. Whether that's because the team didn't think it was worth reinventing the wheel, or it wanted to stick close to Gates for the cool-by-association factor, or it just wasn't in the mood for doing something which broke with tradition, who can say? When putting that vent to the side, Most Wanted is a scatter-paying slot with a chunk of entertainment value. Winning potential is capped at 15,000x the bet, and according to the game info, this amount was achieved 345 times during 10 billion rounds, which actually isn't a bad stat relatively speaking, and the Western subject matter slips over the 'borrowed' inner workings as well as any other.

To be frank, what TrueLab has done is a little bit naughty, isn't it? Regurgitating someone else's game so closely (not counting the surface). It's not the only studio to do so, but the team ends up scoring about 0 on the creativity meter. Even the theme is of the commonplace variety. And yet, when putting the negatives to the side for a moment or squinting to try to pretend they aren't there, Most Wanted is a playable scatter-paying slot with enticing stats.