Huh, funny, not long before this review was conducted, we reviewed Buster’s Bones from NetEnt, which brought back memories of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner and now along comes Wild Coyote Megaways, which is practically the animated cartoon’s spitting image. It comes from casino game maker OneTouch which isn’t a studio that hasn’t pinged on the radar much till now. That’s all about to change largely due to the Megaways association, in an online slot carrying some of the usual Megaways extras plus a few lesser-known additions.
If you’ve seen any of the Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoons, then Wild Coyote Megaways will feel comfortably familiar. It’s set out in the desert where there’s not much else besides dust and rock formations, maybe a few dry habitat-adapted plants. It’s here that Road Runner meep meeps along roads which seem to run forever, and Wile E. tries a lot yet never manages to succeed in catching the whip-fast bird much, despite deploying a vast array of wildly creative ways in which to do so. You think he might’ve given up after the umpteenth time, but showing an iron determination, or an unhealthy obsession, or a bit of both, Wile E. refused to give up. Apparently, according to the Internet, Wile E. caught the Roadrunner once, in 1980, then asked viewers, ‘Now what do I do?’
Located mid-screen is Wild Coyote Megaways’ gaming grid constructed of 6 vertically spinning reels and a 4 symbol top tracker reel which spins in a horizontal direction. When including the top tracker reel into the equation, each reel can hold up to 7 symbols each, creating up to 117,649 ways to win. A stock Megaways set up, in other words. With a highly volatile math model and a 96% RTP value, players can load up bets of 20 p/c to £/€100 per spin on any preferred device.
6-of-a-kind wins are the most desirable and pay 0.5 to 1 times the bet for the low pay 10-A card royals, or 1.2 to 10 times the bet for six bats, bombs, rockets, hammers or coyote premium symbols. Helping pull together wins is the regular wild symbol, but only from the tracker reel since it’s the only reel it lands on. Wilds of all types substitute for any regular pay symbol. Lastly for now, Wild Coyote Megaways operates with a cascading wins system that removes winning symbols from the board and replaces them with new ones dropping from above. A cascade session stops when no new win is formed.
Wild Coyote Megaways: Slot Features
Time for Wild Coyote Megaways to reach into its bag of tricks and show us what it’s got. Specifically, what will be covered here are TNT Symbols, Roadrunner Wilds, free spins, and a bonus buy.
TNT Symbols
TNT Symbols are mystery symbols, and whenever they land, they transform to reveal any pay symbol.
Roadrunner Wilds
The Roadrunner Wanted symbol appears only on the top tracker reel and is wild. When a Roadrunner symbol hits, it creates a stacked full reel wild beneath it on the main grid with a multiplier of up to x6 in the base game and always x6 in free spins.
Free Spins
The bonus round is triggered when 4, 5, 6, or 7 scatter symbols land to award 10, 12, 14, or 16 free spins, respectively. One thing added to free spins is a win multiplier starting at x1. Following winning cascades or spins, the multiplier increases by +1 and does not reset till the round ends. In addition, when symbols on the main reels match the symbol above them on the tracker, they are converted into wild symbols. Also, when a Roadrunner symbol hits, +4 free spins are awarded.
To wrap things up, players who would prefer instant access to the bonus round can buy free spins for 100x the bet. This produces a spin which triggers the feature but does not produce any other winnings.
Wild Coyote Megaways: Slot Verdict
In the words of Weird Al Yankovic from the comedy film UHF ‘Right now I’d like to show you one of my favourite cartoons. It’s a sad, depressing story about a pathetic coyote who spends every waking moment of his life in the futile pursuit of a sadistic roadrunner who mocks him and laughs at him as he’s repeatedly crushed and maimed! Hope you enjoy it!’ To be fair, Weird Al’s character George was in a bit of a mood when he said that and Wild Coyote Megaways, by contrast, is a bright, energetic slot which does a nice job of capturing some Saturday morning cartoon spirit. Interestingly, by a quick check, it appears neither Road Runner nor Wile E. Coyote is in the public domain just yet, so whether the characters’ owners will drop the legal equivalent of an anvil from a ten-story window remains to be seen.
While it is available, the gameplay in Wild Coyote Megaways is rather entertaining. Having knowledge of the classic cartoon that pits coyote vs bird will likely deepen the connection, but Wild Coyote Megaways can be enjoyed with cursory to no knowledge of the show. One reason is the neat cartoon show vibe; the other is features which are, for the most part, Megaways favourites, plus one or two extras that aren’t quite so well used. For starters, the mystery symbol, free spins with increasing multiplier combo, has shined in numerous Megaways games of the past and is likely to do so for the foreseeable future, for good reason. The less used parts aren’t completely unique; the spreading Roadrunner Wild is similar to ideas used in games like Power of Thor Megaways, and the matching symbol/wild conversion feature in free spins feels familiar, too, though the originator, if one exists, eludes mental recollection.
This comparison exercise isn’t a dig at OneTouch’s efforts, though, and while Wild Coyote Megaways isn’t bursting at the seams with innovation like a stick of dynamite about to blow, it’s a fun game all the same. Factor in winning potential in the region of 10,000x the bet, and it was easy to whisk up some youthful exuberance and settle in to appreciate what Wild Coyote Megaways had to offer.
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