Thunderbird

In the past, Rival Gaming has been criticized occasionally for relying too much on really generic themes that have little to no substance. The Thunderbird slot, however, it's a far cry from the source of those complaints, and it's a great title with a native American theme. The graphics are extremely well thought out, and they consists of a great background, solid symbols and quality animations. This is a very impressive looking title from this software company, and the gameplay of this title is great as well.

Game Layout

One of the interesting things about video slots is that they all have very similar formats, but they still manage to have games that really stand out in spite of using those familiar layouts. With this game, you get five reels, three rows and 50 paylines, which is a relatively common layout for a slot. There's not really anything new here, but you do get some good betting options with coins that go from $0.01 up to $0.25 apiece and the ability to bet up to 10 coins per payline. You also have options to be on fewer than 50 paylines per spin, but we don't recommend you exercise those options and just keep it at the maximum number of paylines instead.

Wild Symbols and Scatters

The wild bird symbol replaces all of the regular paying symbols, and it also acts as a 2x multiplier. This gives you a lot of value by not only giving you more wins than you would have received otherwise, but it also gives you larger wins than you would have received without the multiplier. The wild symbols do not get their own payouts in this game.

There are two different scatters. The red fish gives you 10, 20 or 50 free spins for three, four or five of them on the reels. The yellow fish shows up during the free spins, and it gives you extra free spins in the form of the Super Spirit Round, which keeps the entire first reel wild throughout the duration. Additionally, the wilds become expanding wilds on the first four reels during all of the free spins, so you're getting a lot of extra value by giving you extra payouts, which keep the 2x multiplier.

High-End Payouts

There are several payouts at the top end that could be the single-largest win in a given video slot and be completely legit. The top win is five of a kind in the snake symbol with at least one wild, and that will give you 4,000x. You can earn 2,000x without it. The snake is also the only symbol that pays for just two of a kind in this game. The face on the round mask pays 3,000x for five with a wild, but five without a wild gives you 1,500x, which is solid as well. Five feathers pays 1,000x or 2,000x with a wild.

Mid-Level Wins

Four symbols make up the middle range in Thunderbird. It starts with the pine cones, which pay 600x for five (or 1,200x with a wild, which is a sizable win). You can also earn 500x for five of the drum, and that doubles to 1,000x for five of a kind in the drums with at least one wild symbol. The hat pays players 400x for five (800x with a wild), and the pig mask pays 200x (400x with a wild). It goes without saying that there are a lot of medium-sized payouts in this game, which is a major component of the overall balanced pay table.

Lowest Wins

To round out the bottom end of the pay schedule, there are five low-paying symbols. These symbols are the A, K, Q, J and 10, but Rival has put a tremendous amount of effort into stylizing these symbols so that they look great and fit in with the theme. They weren't thrown together at all, and they weren't lazy with them, which is a strong contrast with many other companies when they use these symbols.

You can pick up 150x for five of the A, 100x for five of the K or 80x for five of the Q symbol. A 60x win is also available for five of the J or 10. All of these wins are doubled with the 2x wild multiplier as well.

Overview

Thunderbird is a great example of Rival Gaming showing that they can produce games that can hang with the best in the world. With its cool two-level bonus feature, balanced pay table and excellent graphics, it's difficult to find anything to complain about in this game. The volatility is definitely up in the medium level overall, but it's not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. We recommend that players who like all kinds of slots try out this game because it will definitely appeal to a lot of different types of players.

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