When you think of the Serengeti, what's the first thing that springs to mind? Blazing sunsets through silhouetted Acacia trees, grass waving in the wind as far as the eye can see, migrations, elephants, antelopes, predators, prey, the struggle of life and death played out on one of Earth's great canvases? For the purposes of this review, we can add precious stones to the list, thanks to developer Pragmatic Plays' African-themed online slot Gems of Serengeti.
African slots abound, and it's not hard to see why. The landscape, already stunningly beautiful in parts, is ripe for further romanticising in a gambling vehicle such as Gems of Serengeti. When firing the game up, players are greeted with a view common in this style of slot. We're talking about grasslands, a meandering river, rocky outcrops, huge sprawling skies, and loads of lifeforms on the reels. There's nothing new or outstanding to feast your eyes on in Gems of Serengeti, but nothing metaphorically punching them either. Gems of Serengeti looks agreeable without serving up anything exceptional. Will the gaming side of things rectify that?
Before slipping into the action, some housekeeping is in order. When inspecting the engine and stats, we find a game with a highly volatile math model (4.5 out of 5), generating a maximum return to player value of 96.4%. Hitting the plus or minus icons by the spin button is one way of picking a stake with options ranging from 20 p/c to $/€100 per spin, while any device may be used.
Placed in the middle of this representation of the Serengeti is a game grid made up of 5-reels and 4-rows, holding 20 ways to win. For symbols, the low pays are J-A card ranks, while the high pays are vultures, leopards or cheetahs, lions, a female character, and a male character. Hitting a five-of-a-kind win pays 5-7.5x the bet for the low pays and 10-37.5x the bet for the high pays. Paying a bit more, at 10x the bet for five-of-a-kind, is the wild symbol. Wilds can also substitute for all normal pay symbols.
Two other symbols with important roles in the game are the Gems and the Bonus symbols, which trigger the Respin feature and free spins when enough of them hit, respectively.
Gem Symbols appear on all reels, and when at least 5 hit, the Respin feature is activated. The feature starts after any line wins have been paid and is played on a grid that lands only Gems or blank spaces. The triggering Gems are held in place, and 3 respins are awarded. If new Gems hit, they lock to the reels and reset the respin count back to three. When respins end or all positions are filled, the round ends. Then, a payout is made depending on the number of Gems in view – 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, or 20 Gems awards 1x, 2x, 5x, 10x, 15x, 20x, 30x, 45x, 60x, 80x, 100x, 150x, 200x, 250x, 300x, or 500x the bet, respectively.
When 3 bonus symbols hit on reels 1, 3, and 5, 10 free spins are awarded. During free spins, Gem symbols are collected when they land. At the end of the free spins, if 5-19 Gems were collected, a respin is awarded which starts with the number of collected Gem symbols placed in random positions on the reels. If 20 or more Gems are collected during free spins, a prize amount is paid without playing the respin feature. When 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, or 27 Gems are collected, the payout is worth 500x, 1,000x, 1,500x, 2,000x, 2,500x, 3,000x, 3,500x, or 4,000x the bet, respectively. Free spins cannot be retriggered.
Gems of Serengeti came across as one of these slots that does what it does to a satisfactory degree while feeling like it's slacking off at the same time. Pragmatic Play has been in the game for a while now and has an impressive catalogue of slots, yet it sometimes seems content releasing a lot of stuff which is okay, kind of clever in parts, yet lacking a major spark. Not always, of course; there are exceptions to the rule. Not so much in the case of Gems of Serengeti, though. It looks nice, sounds nice, plays okay, but it doesn't really hang everything out there for the world to see, take risks, or make a bold statement, thereby carving its mark on the world of gambling when the dust settles.
There are highlights when the going is good. Prizes from the Respins feature aren't terrible when Gems hit in great numbers, for one. Free spins, too, if an ample number of Gems have been collected, can lead to even larger prizes when 20 or more have accrued. When sizable hauls of gemstones don't build, then the action can be pretty middling. In that case, Gems of Serengeti is basically a plain base game leading to a plain hold 'n win round and/or free spins. Not hugely creative as such, but again, it all hinges on how many Gems you can get. Score a load, and the trip to this Serengeti might feel justified. For the record, the win cap is equal to hitting 27 Gems, in other words, 4,000 times the stake.
Add it all up, and Gems of Serengeti offers a cheerfully stylised African outdoors experience with a basic hold 'n win add on. If it sounds a-okay, then there's not much about Gems of Serengeti's straightforward gaming that is likely to blow away expectations of how it might function. On the other hand, there's not a lot here to bowl over players looking for an explosively unique experience like an out-of-control stampeding herd of wildebeests.
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