Razor Shark (Push Gaming) Slot Demo & Review

The oceans have been a popular choice of backdrop for online slots for more than a decade now. Games such as Shifting Seas and Captain Venture Treasure of the Seas have proved extremely popular with players, not to mention the endless stream of fishing-based games such as the Big Bass Bonanza machines from Pragmatic Play. What is, perhaps, a little more surprising is the number of specifically shark-focused online slots! Have you tried 6 Wild Sharks? Or how about 4 Fantastic Fish? Sometimes I wonder what it is about this theme which attracts so many players, but having looked at all these machines in-depth, I eventually concluded that it’s actually more of a coincidence than anything else – slots are popular because of their features and the winnings that they can pay out. It just so happens that this particular genre is blessed with dozens of high-quality games. At least, I think that’s what is going on here!

I can see that we’re going to have fun with this paytable, as all of the high-paying symbols are pictures of sharks! The highest-paying symbol is the Wild, and you can tell this one apart from the rest as he is facing directly at you and looks like he is bursting out of the screen slightly. He’ll also pay you 50x the current bet for a full payline of five-of-a-kind, which is double the return of the highest-paying regular symbol. The four high-paying symbols each have a different coloured border; the Orange Shark pays 25x the bet for all five symbols, followed by the Purple Shark at 20x, the Green Shark at 7.5x, and finally, the Blue Shark at 5x your bet for a complete payline. The four lower-paying symbols are all represented by various pieces of diving gear – an Underwater Camera, Goggles, Flippers, and an Air Cylinder, all of which share the same return of 2.5x the bet for five-of-a-kind.

Betting options range from €0.10 up to a maximum of €100.00 per spin, but like so many other recent releases, there is only a limited number of options in between these two limits, so I can only hope that you will be able to find a wager which suits your style of play.

The most common reel set used in video slots consists of five reels of three rows each, but Razor Shark has extended this playfield with two additional rows to create a 5×5 reel set instead. We’ve seen playfields of this size many times before, but very rarely will they use standard paylines, as is the case here.

With just 20 fixed paylines to score wins on, you will inevitably hit many combinations with three or more matching symbols that do not result in a win. This can be a little frustrating at first, but it shouldn’t bother you too much once you have familiarised yourself with the layout of the paylines.

Mystery Stacks & Nudge Reveal

Mystery stacks are four-high sets of symbols which can appear anywhere on the reel set. Whenever one or more mystery stacks land in view, the Nudge & Reveal feature will be triggered.

This will cause the mystery stacks to open up, revealing a new symbol underneath. This symbol could be a random one chosen from the paytable or the special golden shark that does not appear during regular play.

Razor Reveal

If the Nudge & Reveal feature creates stacks of golden sharks, this secondary feature stage will be activated. All the mystery stack symbols currently visible will begin to spin as if they were single reels. Each mystery symbol will now transform into a bet multiplier coin or a scatter symbol. If three or more scatters are revealed, the free games feature will trigger just as it would if the symbols landed during regular play.

The free spins bonus round is triggered by hitting three or more scatter symbols during the base game or the Razor Reveal feature. If more than three scatters land, then then the mystery reveal symbols will start one position higher at the beginning of the feature.

Free Spins

A multiplier is introduced to the game in the free spins feature. The multiplier begins at 1x on your first free spin and will increase by 1x each time the Nudge & Reveal feature is activated.

The second and fourth reels are guaranteed to be filled with mystery stacks at the beginning of the free spins feature, giving you a head start on boosting your current multiplier. The free spins feature will continue as long as at least one mystery stack is visible on the reels at all times.