Depending on the source, the United States apparently saw a surge in crime from the 1960s onwards, which has been attributed to anything from the relaxing of family values to the Baby Boom effect and beyond. We could spend many a word exploring the theses, but why don't we fire up The Great Stick-up from Pragmatic Play instead to get a first-hand look at the era, sort of. The Great Stick-up is a crime-themed game set in a small North American town in the 60s that recreates a world of goodies, baddies, mystery symbols and free spins.
Not much time has passed since Pragmatic Play last ventured into the world of crime in their playfully styled slot Cash Patrol. The Great Stick-up, by comparison, has a very different set of features and tone. This one is a bit more debonair in look and a lot more rocking in sound. Its setting is a bit unusual, too. There's a Wild West feel to the empty background streets and few clues to who or what is being stuck up. A bank, a wealthy citizen? Who knows, so the story isn't as clear cut as Cash Patrol's cops chasing robbers, Money Collects chasing Money symbols premise. The Great Stick-up's plot gains some clarity during free spins, where it looks like a jailbreak has been planned. Not to worry, everything has the trademark Pragmatic Play gloss to it, so there's plenty of incentive to see what happens next.
Step one is picking a stake where the options range from 20 p/c to $/€100 per spin. While doing so, it's worth taking a look through the help docs to verify the RTP version you've got. The most optimal one has a value of 96.3%, dropping as low as 94.4% depending on the configuration. No matter the return value, expect a highly volatile math model and an average hit frequency of around 1 in 3.
Whatever the device, the crime-addled action takes place on a 5-reel, 3-row game matrix, covered in 20 fixed paylines. Symbols pay left to right, starting from the first reel onwards, and require at least three of a kind to create a win. All symbols are crime or crime-busting related, such as pipes, magnifying glasses, detective hats, handcuffs, maps, stacks of cash, guns, and four gangster symbols. Non-character symbols pay 1 to 10 times the stake for five of a kind, increasing to 15-50x the bet for five of the gangsters, which look more 1990s than 1960s, but whatevs. Wild symbols hit on all reels, too, either substituting for any regular symbol or paying out up to 75x the bet for a line of five wilds.
The Great Stick-up's base game is a lean one, with no special features to mention. Hitting 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols switches this up by awarding a payout of 2x, 10x, or 100x the bet, plus 7 free spins. During free spins, a new sticky mystery symbol appears, along with a progressive feature. Whenever the sticky mystery symbol lands, it remains in the same position for the remainder of the free spins. It always opens to reveal the symbol type displayed in a box located to the right of the reels.
Also appearing in free spins, little overlay symbols can randomly land on any normal-sized symbol. Whenever 2 overlay symbols are collected, the current mystery symbol is upgraded to the higher value one on the paytable. If it reaches the top-paying premium symbol, the progression feature cannot be triggered again. In addition, each time an upgrade occurs, an extra free spin is awarded.
There is some sticking up going on here, though its greatness is questionable, as the gameplay felt a little too thin to warrant such a lofty word. The base game's pretty dry, with nothing except regular line wins taking place, so it fell to the bonus round to provide the vast bulk of any pulse-racing action. During testing, at least, free spins did tend to trigger quite often. Noticeably more often than is usually the case in a Pragmatic Play slot. Not like every other spin, but it would have been good to back up the anecdotal evidence with official bonus round frequency figures, had they been provided.
Actively promoting a juicy, free spins hit rate might have helped Pragmatic Play sell The Great Stick-up, too, because the rest wasn't super exciting if we're being honest. As mentioned, the base game spent a lot of time going around in a loop, not accomplishing much - maybe that's the reason Pragmatic Play used such a funky disco track, to add drama where there was none? Or, not much, at least. The Great Stick-up gets more interesting during its bonus game, but not substantially so. It's not hard to race through the progression feature and end up on one of the higher symbols, yet it was tough to land substantial numbers of sticky mystery symbols in useful positions. Not all bonus rounds turned out to be disappointing, but enough did to get tiresome after a while. Maybe our luck wasn't running hot on the day since The Great Stick-up does come with a win cap of 5,000x the bet, which instantly ends a bonus round if hit.
Whilst The Great Stick-up has a good look plus a high energy soundtrack, its thin features and drip-drip frequent yet low-value bonus rounds ended up weakening the experience. Not saying thrilling moments can't happen in The Great Stick-up, but when we'd been through a string of disappointing free spin rounds, it was tough to stick it out to experience one, and it got to the point where interest simply dried up.
Play for real money
