Thunderhorn Pokie Review
With this exciting 5×4 video pokie, Bally transports you to the African savannah where you will see hosts of wild animals, feel the spirit of the desert and hear a rhino roaring. Thunderhorn boasts of stacked wilds and a gorgeous free spin round with up to 20 spins on offer. These free spins can be extremely profitable thanks to wild multipliers that can boost your winning paylines by x27. The maximum jackpot prize available in the pokie reaches an eye-watering $4800 up for grabs.
Thunderhorn is themed around Africa and the reel set is placed against an orange, red and black African landscape that is filled with heat and sizzling sunshine. The soft music accompanying the gameplay reminds of wild tribal dances, and every win triggers some catchy sound effects that fit the theme perfectly. The animation is simple but nice-looking during the base game and is on top when the bonus game begins.
Bally uses here a somewhat uncommon 5×4 field that features 20 symbols visible at a time. This means players have more chances of hitting a payable combination of symbols. On the reels you will see the following symbols: lower-paying cards 9 to A, a handmade clay plate ($2400), a tribal drum richly decorated with colorful strings ($2400 at the maximum stake), a panther ($4000), a green-eyed mask ($4000) and a rhino riding full tilt ($4800).
Bet options and pokie volatility
As many other games released by Bally, the game reviewed here features versatile bet sizes that start at 40 cents per spin. By using small triangle controls in the user interface below the reels, the player can increase or decrease a credit value, making it as high as $16, or $640 per spin. Now that you know the max bet size and paytable awards (see above), you can see that the top cash reward that can be potentially produced by the pokie is 7.5 times as high as the total bet. And this implies that the pokie is rather low- or medium-volatile. This further means you are going to have frequent wins that come on almost each spin of the reels.
How to play a 1024 ways-to-win pokie?
Thunderhorn has no paylines that would serve as basis for win calculations. Instead, Bally have utilized a 1024-ways method wherein non-feature winning combos consist of 2 or more identical symbols landed on adjacent columns from left to right. For example, hitting three rhinos, each on reels 1, 2 and 3 (their position on these columns is irrelevant), you receive a prize of up to $3200.
Note that themed symbols complete combos when 2+ of them appear, while at least 3 lower-paying cards are needed for you to be awarded. Pokies like this are fun to play since combinations fall on the screen very often, making your bankroll constantly ticking up and down.
Stacked symbols
All the four themed pictures come in stacks so you will regularly see rhinos, panthers and other related symbols appearing in groups of two, three or four on the same reel. This certainly contributes to a higher frequency of combinations, especially when the same stacked symbols stop on the first and second reels. Moreover, a wild picture is also stacked in the pokie.
Wild symbol
A tree at sunset serves as a substitute for all normal pictures. It has rather limited abilities because the wild lands on the second, third and fourth reels only. Besides, wilds cannot complete combos by themselves; they just assist other symbols to do so.
Free spins with wild multipliers
This is the most beneficial portion of the game that can result in hefty wins. You will sometimes see a Bonus coin symbol scattered across the game board. Upon getting 3+ in any position, you are awarded a free spin round. The duration of the feature depends on how many scatters have triggered the bonus. You receive 8, 15 or 20 free spins for 3, 4 or 5 scatters, accordingly.
Wild symbols, which are not actually very useful in base game, become real money-makers in free spins. Whenever a wild symbol appears on any of the three central reels, it is assigned a random multiplier of x2 or x3. If two or three multipliers land, they are multiplied together, not summed, thus you can scoop a truly big win if three wilds occur at a time, each featuring a x3 multiplier and taking part in a combination. To be exact, the max potential prize in free spins rises to $129,600 if you play at the maximum acceptable wager.
The feature can be retriggered from within itself if you land 3 or more scatters again. What’s more, two scatters also suffice to prolong the feature – in this instance, 5 extra spins will be added to the remaining free spins. It’s not hard to extend a free spin session because scatters stop on the board on a regular basis.
Bottom line on Thunderstorm
Thunderstorm is a 5-reel 4-row video pokie from Bally, which is based on a no-payline configuration. Players have 1024 ways to win and enjoy stacked symbols, wild multipliers and retriggerable free spins. The maximum potential jackpot available in the pokie goes over $120k.
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