Just For The Win Studios in cooperation with Microgaming released its first video slot just five years ago, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the design of their online slots. With their “The Bandit And The Baron” video slot, Just For The Win are hoping they can replicate the success of other Wild West themed games such as NetEnt‘s Dead or Alive series and the more contemporary Money Train slots from Relax Gaming. This 25 pay line slot from the fledgling software house features a top win of 25,000x paired with a maximum RTP of 96.09% – these numbers that suggest they mean business here.
There’s a whole bunch of modifiers and features on offer here, including a wild symbol that expands to fill the entire reel every time it lands, double stacked scatter symbols, a second chance re-spin each time you land two scatters, and a bonus round which features from 720 to 3,125 ways to win. A feature buy option is offered, too.
The Bandit & The Baron video slot is brand new for 2022, so you’ll find no shortage of information about it on the web right now. Unfortunately, the developer’s website provides very little from the horse’s mouth, so to speak – there’s no back story here, so why not give our demo slot a try right here instead?
| Provider | Microgaming |
| Reels | 5 |
| Rows | 3 |
| Paylines | 25 |
| Bonus Rounds | 1 |
| Bet Range | 0.20 - 10 |
| Volatility | High |
| RTP | 96.09% |
| Our Rating | 7.8 |
The Bandit And The Baron Slot Casino Bonuses
The Bandit And The Baron Slot Free Play
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The Bandit And The Baron Slot Theme, Stakes, Pays & Symbols
The Bandit & The Baron slot game borrows influences from so many different places that it’s difficult to know where to start! Dead or Alive was one of the first Wild West-themed slots to reach mass popularity, but its mechanics were so strong it would likely have done well however it was skinned. The bonus round’s sequentially unlocking pay ways are reminiscent of another NetEnt classic named Reel Rush, but for all their similarities the quality of the graphics here are vastly improved over both the older games. The soundtrack is very basic during the base game, though the clicks of the spinning reels have a definitively satisfying quality to them, and things liven up considerably during the bonus round.
Considering this is a 25 pay line game, we couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed when first glancing at the paytable. The top symbols are the wild and open chest, both of which pay 20x stake for five a kind, dropping to just 3x and 2x for four and three of a kind respectively. Worse still, things go rapidly downhill from there – the gold bars pay 10x, 2x, and 0.8x, and the bag of gold coins just 5x, 1.5x, and 0.6x. The remainder isn’t even worth telling you about. Don’t stop reading just yet though, as Just For The Win has a little method to their madness.
The betting range has a spread of 100 units, which seems appropriate for a game with a maximum payout of 25,000x your stake. This means that the minimum bet is €0.20 and the maximum is set at €10.00 per spin.
Base Game & Modifiers
It’s a little-known fact that the women were some of the most feared outlaws back in the days of the Wild West – a good looking woman easily catch a man off guard or seduce him in a way that a male bandit would never be able to pull off. It’s interesting that Just for the Win seem to be aware of this fact and chose a female protagonist in their game. Unfortunately, this is about as deep as the game’s story goes, but the modifiers and bonus feature’s more than make up for this. To paraphrase John Carmack, the creator of Doom, story in an online slot is like the story in a porn movie – it’s expected to be there, but it isn’t important.
The Bandit and the Baron video slot is played on a relatively unusual 5×5 grid yet uses traditional pay lines to award wins. Regular slot players will immediately recognize that the larger than average grid coupled with just 25 paylines will make it harder to score a win on the Bandit and the Barn video slot. The developers are ahead of you here, however, and have used several techniques to ensure that you won’t be watching dozens of dead spins in a row:
Expanding Wild Feature
The Baron acts as the wild symbol in this game and will expand to fill the entire reel whenever he lands in view. If you score a Baron wild on reels one and two, the game will slow down the action momentarily, as hitting a third baron would guarantee you an enormous win. If the Baron lands on all five reels you will win 500x your stake. But hang on, didn’t Just For The Win say we could win 25,000x in this game? Read on….
Bandit Respin
If you manage to land two of the scatter symbols on reels 1, 3, or 5, the game will spin the reels again giving you a second chance to enter the bonus round.
The Bandit And The Baron Slot Bonus Features
Another trick that the developer has used in The Band and The Baron slot game is double-height scatters symbols. You only need half of the symbol in view for it to count towards the bonus, which is a huge boost for the player because of the 5×5 reel setup. On the downside, the scatters only appear on reels on 1, 3, and 5 – this feels a little tight, although the bonus does trigger more frequently than the bonus modes of other online slots.
Bandit Bonus
The bandit bonus awards you just 3 spins, so you better make them count! 12 spaces on the reels will be picked at random to be lockboxes, with the remaining 13 appearing as empty spaces on the reels. It’s not just the appearance of the reels which changes either – the standard reel set is replaced with a special bonus reel set that contains only three symbols – cash prize, keys, and an upgrade symbol.
Each time you land a cash prize, your free spin counter will return to three, a feature that is common in countless games in Las Vegas. Furthermore, your cash prize will remain in place for the remainder of the feature, reducing the number of spaces for new symbols to land. The prizes themselves are calculated following the size of your bet, with the maximum prize being 25x your current stake.
If you are lucky enough to find a key symbol, It will unlock one of the 12 lockboxes, and you might find a prize inside the box as well. The keys and cash prizes are all well and good, but it is the upgrade symbols that can turn your day into something special. Each upgrade symbol has a value between x2 and x10, and if you should manage to score three of them, their multiplier values will be added together, and applied horizontally, vertically, or both, to the cash prizes you have already collected.
This is how the top win of 25,000x is possible – score a 25x cash prize, then an upgrade symbol turns it in to 250x. another upgrade, 2,500x… and you know what we are going to say next. Note that if you do hit the 25,000x prize cap, your bonus will end immediately – there is no possibility of going on to hit a 250,000x win!
The Bandit And The Baron Slot Review Final Thoughts
This is a uniquely exciting and innovative game that does have many similarities to the land-based slots found in Las Vegas, but somehow the features found in those game is taking a long time to trickle down to the online market. This makes the Bandit and Baron slot an interesting game to try just because of its mechanics.
With releases like the Bandit And The Baron, Just For The Win are showing that they mean business, and other slot developers should take note. We’d be willing to bet it is only a matter of time before this company comes out with a mega-hit that will take the industry by storm.
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