Pragmatic Play has a couple of releases left in store for this year, but the one game that caught our attention was Mustang Gold which is set to be Pramatic's first 2019 release. Admittedly, being the suckers for high variance and juicy potential that we are, this seemed like the most fun to review out of the bunch, at least so we thought.
As some of you may have noticed, especially if you frequent casino communities and Twitch live streams, Pragmatic has been getting a lot of coverage as of late. Some of it may be a result of a good marketing strategy, but the games themselves are undoubtedly starting to look more interesting with an increase in both volatility and potential.
Some things we're are not so impressed by such as the comparably low bonus frequency and a somewhat underlying generic feel to the games, which in all fairness many providers struggle with. What we're trying to say is that most providers have a certain style (look and feel) associated with their games that seem to be hard to shake. In some cases that is all fine and dandy but in other cases it quickly gets old and repetitive.
Mustang Gold is a western themed slot that any kid that's into horses would love to play (lol). It comes with that typical hallmark western tumbleweed type tune that was made famous with the movie The Good, the bad and the ugly starring Clint Eastwood. Albeit quite average in design, it's nevertheless a visually compelling slot with warm colours and a backdrop made out of a dusty canyon and blazing skies.
In terms of setup, it's quite ordinary as well making use of 5 reels, 3 rows and 25 paylines. Playable on all devices, players can bet between €0.25 and €125 per spin which is standard Pragmatic Play.
We have said it before, and we'll say it again - we absolutely love how straightforward Pragmatic's paytables are! No confusing coin values to calculate or any off that bullcrap. From a responsible gaming point of view, it means a great deal which is also why we want to give Pragmatic some encouragement to stick to it.
The values of the low-paying symbols, which are made out of A, K, Q and J royals, are somewhat unusual where 3 and 4 of a kind are worth next to nothing while 5 of a kind returns 4 times the stake. The premiums are 4 in total and are represented by cowgirls, cowboys, black mustang horses and white mustang horses with the latter being the most lucrative giving you 20 times the stake for 5 of a kind.
The wild symbol is represented by the Mustang Gold logo and appears on reels 2, 3, 4 and 5. Unlike the regular symbols which only appear as 1x1 symbols on the reels, the wild can appear full-reel stacked.
Mustang Gold comes with a Money Collect feature which can be triggered in both the main game and the free spin feature. There are two symbols to look out for here - the horseshoe symbol which is present on reels 1, 2, 3 and 4 as well as the Collect symbol which only appears on reel 5. If one or more horseshoe symbols land on the reels, each will also carry a cash value. If, on the same spin, the Collect symbol lands on the 5th reel, the total amount of the horseshoe values are collected and added to your balance as a winning spin.
A fixed jackpot bonus has also been fitted into the game. The Grand, Major, Minor and Mini jackpots are relative to the current stake and are worth 1000x, 200x, 100x and 50x respectively. The jackpot bonus is triggered by landing one or more JACKPOT horseshoe symbols followed by the Collect symbol. The player is then taken to a picking bonus where 3 matching jackpot symbols will trigger the corresponding jackpot.
3 fireplace scatter symbols on reels 2, 3 and 4 awards 8 free spins. The free spin feature can be retriggered by landing another 3 scatters which awards an additional 8 free spins. There is no limit to how many times the feature can be retriggered.
In the free spins feature, players will benefit from enhanced reels with more horseshoe and collect symbols, increasing the probability of landing big wins. Other than that, there's really not much more going on, making the free spin feature fairly similar to the main game in terms of playability.
During our sessions at least, Mustang Gold appeared relatively well balanced, something that is more or less expected from a medium variance slot. It should be pointed out, however, that individual sessions can vary a great deal with any online slot so there are never any guarantees of anything.
When it comes to the jackpot bonus, we're not really big fans of those. We'd much rather have seen it being left out, allocating the jackpot RTP to the free spin feature instead, possibly making the game slightly more volatile.
The theme does not appeal to us unfortunately, albeit Mustang Gold is a decent slot with a massive 12,000 times the stake potential. To get anywhere close to that kind of win we assume one would have to heavily depend on retriggers seeing the potential for every individual spin is relatively low (we'd say around 500 times the stake).
Is it something we will play? No, not really. The potential is in the end what admittedly saves the game for us, but other might of course disagree. If we would feel the sudden urge to play something recently released by Pragmatic, we'd go for Da Vinci's Treasure or Ancient Egypt Classic instead.
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