Renegades

Hot women, gemstones of all shapes and sizes and a thrilling promise of a jackpot with your name written on it. Renegades ticks all these boxes, as it tosses you into a slot which does away with silly things like paylines or consistent symbol size in favour of mixing things up to be interesting. This NextGen release plays on a 5×3 reel set and so all icons can appear in any form – 1×1, 2×2, 1×2, 2×1, 3×1 – you think it, it can happen. And when symbols size up to a big 3×3, they become mega icons, at which point they award more cash when part of a winning combination. Add to that a free spins special feature that can be retriggered, and which outright removes symbols from the reel to increase your odds of victory, and you have a solid foundation for a fun and profitable time. But with perhaps an overuse of ‘heart stop’ moments and a bit of a questionable value for money, this NextGen release is not all sunshine and rainbows.

There isn’t a lot to talk about when it comes to the graphics in this game. They’re certainly good looking, but most of the effort has gone into the portraits of the five different women which are part of this renegade squad. Wilds, Bonuses and other icons really lack much imagination behind them, and are little more than solid ice chunks, amusing as it is to have a fiery ice chunk in the Wild. There’s some annoyance to be found in a lack of a Quick Spin option, as well as the desktop UI looking like a lazy copy of the mobile one, but neither are annoying enough to detract major points. Overall, the slot gives you smooth animations and pretty visuals, but they don’t steer from the market average.

Gameplay, on the other hand, has much more of a chance to be interesting. While the 243 payline setup isn’t that uncommon nowadays, the various sizes and shapes the blocks can take really do a good job at making it seem alien the first time you start it up. Once you’re used to it, the charm is admittedly gone, but it was interesting for the first a hundred or so spins, and Renegades milks it for all it’s worth, with frequent heart stoppers thanks to Mega symbols and lacking just one more Scatter to complete those free spins. In fact, we’d generally say that these heart stoppers happen a bit too often to be believable. Either shell out the features and wins more frequently, or stop teasing as much, NextGen!

In terms of value, it can often feel like it can be a slow build up for a prize that’s not that worth it in the end. We recall a session of 150 spins to finally trigger free spins that didn’t even break 20x stake, which was hardly worth it. At the same time, on another occasion, we broke way past that for much less time and money spent, showing that there is potential to be found in Renegades, but that potential takes a long time to manifest itself, and by the time it does, it can feel like you’ve spent an hour or two banging your head against the wall for nothing. As such, unless you’re super lucky, you either want to commit for the long haul, or just don’t start at all – leaving in the middle does no one any favours. Except for the casino, we suppose.

The icons don’t feel particularly inspired, even if the shapes in which they appear are interesting for a gameplay design. We can’t really fault them for going with crystals stuck in ice blocks and portraits of five gorgeous women. The portraits expand to show more of the picture, and the ice blocks just become bigger when they take up more space than needed. Mega Symbols are living proof of this, as they can take up a 3×3 spot and all spin together.

There’s only one special feature, and that is the free spins bonus, triggered by getting three or more Scatters, which awards 8 extra turns. While more Scatters doesn’t mean you get any more spins, it does give a good cash prize, and you can reactivate the bonus, which will add another 8 turns to the existing tally. The big twist here is that it randomly picks one of the Renegades, and removes all the rest from even appearing. As they don’t all reward the same amount of money, luck is obviously going to be a factor here. Since five of a kind wins are common during free spins, getting the Thor blonde or the Pilot is going to pay off a lot more than the Gunslinger or the Huntress.