We’ve seen similarly named games from Microgaming before, so it was easy to mistake Bust the Bank for a sequel to the Break da Bank Again series of games released by Microgaming in previous years. Not so fast, however – this is a completely different type of game altogether, with nothing to tie itself to those earlier smash hits. This is yet another of Microgaming’s 243-way type games though, so there is lots of familiar features included here. The RTP is set at 96.75%, which is fully reasonable, however the top win per spin of just 600x your stake is well below what players have come to expect from these types of releases.
A safe bonus feature brightens up the base game a little however, and another piggy bank bonus gives another chance at an extra win from your regular spin. Neither is particularly lucrative, however, and even the inclusion of a third random pay out feature featuring a pair of bank robbers is basically just the same thing presented in yet another different manner. At least there’s a free spin feature to look forward to, but once again don’t expect a monster win from it.
Give our free demo slot of Bust the Bank a try right here and see if it’s to your liking – I suspect it might be a little different to how you are expecting. As always the practice trial mode is available to access on desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.
In the real world, bank heists are some of the most memorable crimes – the audacity and skill required to pull off a successful bank robbery in the modern day is nothing short of incredible and has inspired a dozen or more hugely popular movies. You’d think that would present a wealth of opportunities for inspiration from the graphics artists over at Microgaming, but sadly they don’t seem to have grasped the concept in quite the same way as the people over in Hollywood have done. The cartoonish luck is reasonably modern and certainly doesn’t look bad – it’s just so generic that it feels like an instant cliché the minute you first glance at it. The sound is equally mediocre – but it’s all so average that it feels incredibly lazy – especially from this developer.
Thankfully, the scatters have a little value – it’s only a small thing, but with all the flaws pointed out so far, it only seems fair to point out the good things now too. Five scatters only pay 50x your stake, however, and it’s not like they occur any more often than they do in games such as Thunderstruck 2 where five scatters return 200x. The wild doesn’t double winning combinations in Bust the Bank video slot either, but on the whole the value of every symbol seems higher than average for a 243-ways video slot. Funny how things work out sometimes!
The minimum bet per spin is €0.30, just like pretty much every other Microgaming 243-way slot machine. There’s a dead giveaway as to the much lower variance of Bust the Bank, however, when it comes to the top end of the range; the maximum bet per spin is €300! This is a crazy number, even for a low-to-medium variance slot – remember when every slot game had a “Max Bet” button located right next to the spin button? This is one thing the UKGC got right when they started enforcing crazy rules onto every casino in Europe – a single accidental press on that “Max Bet” button could sometimes wipe out a player’s entire balance in one go, and worse still, casinos would regularly use it to disqualify players who had claimed a bonus as well.
base game & modifiers
There aren’t likely to be many 243-way slot machines which use anything BUT a 5x3 layout. This is because the 243 number results from the sum of 3x3x3x3x3 – every possible layout of consecutive symbols from left to right results in a win, provided you have the minimum number required for that symbol. Most of the time this will be three matching symbols, although occasionally there will be a payout for two. Bust the Bank has a payout for two of the lowest guard dog symbols, but it is so low at just 1/15th of your stake that it makes you wonder why it was even included at all.
safe feature
The headline quote on the paytable for this feature is that you can win up to six times from a single spin, but whether you win two, four, or six times because of the safe feature, it never seems to amount to much. If the safe lands on reels one or five, it will open and reveal a random prize. The paytable does not specify a maximum amount, but it seems to be limited to somewhere in the region of 50x your stake.
If the safe lands at the top of the reel, it will also duplicate itself onto the two positions below it. Land safes on reels one AND five simultaneously, and you can get a maximum of six pay outs. It could just be a quirk of my small amount of time experimenting with the game after not playing it since its release, but no matter how many safes I seemed to end up with, the win never seemed to get any higher.
This is to say, on one occasion I hit the maximum of six safes – yet only won 80x. I hit three on another occasion, and still only ended up with 60x. I hit one safe four different times and hit at least 30x on all of them. The result was that I found it hard to be excited about the safe bonus, no matter where it landed or how many I ended up with.
piggy bank feature
The piggy bank symbol appears only on reel three, and, similarly to the safe feature, awards a random win with an unspecified upper limit. Again, my experience suggests this feature can award no higher than around 100x your stake, but I haven’t done enough spins to really say for sure. The Piggy Bank didn’t occur very often, so my sample size makes it impossible to give a reliable estimation of its potential.
larry & bob feature
When two robbers run onto the screen, you hope that finally, you are about to win some serious loot… or at least I do. Perhaps that is a possibility – but I absolutely abhor this feature because it is one of those “trick” modifiers that can also award you nothing!
If you see the robbers appear, don’t get your hopes up until they start dropping coins your way – often, they will just run across the screen and laugh in your face as they keep their loot all to themselves. As the saying goes, there’s no honour amongst thieves!
bust the bank slot free spins feature
So, we have three almost identical “features” in the main game – what about the free spins feature mentioned in the introduction? Well, there are scatters on all five reels during the base game, and only three are needed to receive 8 free spins. Is THIS where the money is?...
Things start off looking great – stacked wilds cover reels one and five during free spins, meaning you only need to line up three matching symbols in the middle to win a minimum of nine five-of-a-kind pay outs for that particular symbol. Scatters still appear on reels two through four, but you only receive one extra free spin for each one that lands – even if you get all three at once. It would have been nice if hitting all three scatters added eight more free spins to the counter, but alas, this is not to be.
The games maximum win of 600x from a single spin isn’t easy to hit here by any means, but it is certainly much easier than the maximum payout of most other 243-way games. The way the reels are arranged, landing a wild on reels two, three and four during the free spins will almost always result in a huge win, as there are high paying symbols located close by both above and below.
Microgaming could have been a little more generous with the free spins here – why not ten, or even fifteen? I guess this is just the way the math worked out… but as it stands, its hard to get massively excited for this feature – just like everything else in Bust the Bank online slot.
bust the bank slot review final thoughts
It’s interesting to see Microgaming attempt a 243-way slot that ISN’T in the ultra-variance category. They didn’t go too far wrong here, but at the same time, it feels as if they remove that little bit too much of what made their previous attempts so successful and popular with players.
Still, my opinion of this game clearly isn’t shared by everyone – numerous clones of this game have been produced using the exact same math model and paytable. Maybe it’s an acquired taste? Whatever the answer may be, I can’t help but feel that Bust the Bank is lacking the magic that other Microgaming 243-way slots have locked up.