The Lord of the Rings

Update (September 2011) : Microgaming have re-released The Lord of the Rings as a progressive game with a starting jackpot of $1,000,000 and made several changes to the original Fellowship of the Ring version. The original version is no longer available at any online casino featuring the game..

The Lord of the Rings is another blockbuster release from Microgaming. This follows up on the highly successful Tomb Raider and Hitman slots. The game is based on the very popular books by J. R. R. Tolkien and films directed by Peter Jackson..

The game uses the 243 Ways format which means you do not have to worry about pay lines. All symbols except the scattered rings pay as left to right aligned scatters. There are also stacked wilds on all reels which mean you can get the top jackpot a big 243 Ways on a single spin for some truely massive wins.

Microgaming have clearly raised the bar in terms of graphics with Lord or the Rings. The reel symbols are impressive and when you hit a win with one of the characters the symbols turn into a video from the film. We have seen this before on Playtech's very popular Gladiator slots so it is not entirely new.

What is now is a feature known as Cinematic Spins. This is quite a novel idea that looks great but might be more gimmick than anything else. When you press spin the background of the slot turns into a video sequence from the film. This looks impressive but does distract from the reels somewhat so more than likely most players will turn this off eventually.

Of course there is a lot more to a great slot machine than just pretty pictures. Lord of the Rings has a top jackpot of 4,680,000 coins which is a very healthy jackpot. To win this you need a whole screen of wild symbols with a X5 multiplier. At max bet of 300 coins the top jackpot pays between $46,800 and $234,000 depending on the coin size you choose to play in (1c, 2c, or 5c).

The game has a total of 47 unique winning combinations with the top pay for five wilds or five Frodo symbols. From there you have a good range of mid level pays for five Aragorn, five Bilbo and five Hobbits. All wins are multiplied by your coins pet of up to 10.

Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring has three bonus features. The first is a reel based feature known as the Gollum Feature. At any time Gollum can appear and a bonus. The bonuses during regular play include,

• Instant Win : Gollum awards an instant credit prize
• Win Multiplier : Gollum multiplies your win by up to five
• Free Spin : Gollum holds one reel and awards a free spin
• Extra Wilds : Gollum throws rocks at symbols and turns them wild
• Wild Reels : Gollum turns up to three reels wild

The second bonus is the free spin feature which is won by getting three or more rings anywhere on the screen. This awards 15 free spins with a starting multiplier of X2. During the free games Gollum can appear to add extra free games as well as increasing multipliers. Gollum can also award instant prizes, wild reels and extra wilds during the feature.

While the scattered Rings still appear on the reels during the free games the feature cannot be re-triggered. We always see this of a bit of a negative but in this case the Gollum can add extra free games so you can still win more than 15 free games on the feature.

The final bonus is the progressive feature. This triggers randomly and is the same as the feature on the Mega Moolah series of progressives. In fact The Lord of the Rings shares the same jackpots. Once win you pick a tower to start the wheel spinning. Land on the Mithrel section to win the top jackpot which starts at a big $1,000,000.

We were not entirely impressed with the original version of Lord of the Rings and felt that Microgaming could have made the game a bit more interesting.

With the release of this new version we feel that Microgaming have vastly improved the game. The random features keep things exciting, the game has a much bigger base game jackpot and you can now always win at least $1,000,000 for as little as 30 cents per game.