Age of the Gods Medusa and Monsters

Ah, Playtech. Just when we think we’re finally done with your titles, you find a way to draw us back in. This time around, we’ve been quite literally rooted in place, as we’ve met the gaze of their latest release – another entry in the ever popular Age of the Gods series. This one, as you might have gathered from the title, centres around Medusa and several other creatures from Greek mythology – the lamia, the Minotaur and Cerberus, the three-headed dog, all make an appearance.

So if you dare, strap on your golden helmet, prepare your sharp blade and set sail towards the lair of the serpentine monster. Perhaps you’ll be among the few to brave its challenges and return home that much wealthier. Or, you’ll join her ever-expanding collection of human stone statues. If that’s the case, we can only hope Perseus makes an appearance to behead the woman once more. Then again, we probably aren’t too keen on seeing him use her head as a weapon to turn his foes into stone either!

We were a bit conflicted how to approach the visuals here. We quite like the whole thing – just playing the reels, you can tell you’re at the coastline someplace and the falling sun turns the sky orange, while water comes forward and recedes back into the sea, which is obscured from your view. It looks cool, but when you go into the info, the magic is very obviously diminished – the reels are no longer in place and you can very clearly see where the static backdrop image ends, and where Playtech set down the animation which loops, not looking nearly as well without the reels in place to mask the animation.

We like the general idea the developers tried here, but if you’re going to leave the animation in place, make sure it looks good without the reels in place, too! The game is played on a 6-7-6-7-6-7 playing field, with the second, fourth and sixth reels being slightly taller than their counterparts. You always have a 164 active ever-expanding, with no ways to turn them on or off. Players are helped out with expanding Wild as well as stacked Scatters that make it somewhat easier to trigger free spins. That said, this is a medium to high variance game, so the features aren’t so easy to hit, and you can go for a while without seeing a solid win – though it’s all made worth it in the end when you do hit that jackpot and bring home the bacon.

You can bet from $0.50 up to $100 per spin, which provides a sizeable betting range, something that will please both casual players and high rollers alike. That said, a minimum of $0.50 may be too high of an entry price for gamblers who don’t have as much cash to spend on their hobby, but given the volatility of this title, it likely wasn’t going to be a good fit for them in the first place. The Playtech release has an RTP of 96.09%, which is above average for video slots. Players also have access to four progressive jackpots.

Symbols include different colours and shapes of gemstones, which effectively serve as filler, as well as a golden helmet, a sharp sword, a ship, a three-headed Cerberus dog, a fierce minotaur, a seductive lamia, and, of course, the feared, powerful Medusa, which serves as the title’s Wild. Collecting three Scatters on the second, fourth and sixth reel at the same time rewards players with free spins. Gamblers choose to turn one of the three higher paying icons into stone, meaning when they appear on the reels, they will lock in place. Petrified symbols only unlock when Medusa touches them. Meanwhile, you gain access to a permanently expanded Medusa Wild that moves from reel 6 to reel 1, one reel on each spin. When she lands on the first reel, the free spins are over.