Playtech Cowboys & Aliens Video Slot Review

Cowboys & Aliens Video Slot review

Cowboys & Aliens is a 5 reel 9 payline Playtech-powered video slot that is based on the classic comic book (it was subsequently made into a movie starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford more recently). You can play from a mere 9p a spin to as much as £45 a spin and has a 10,000 coin jackpot which is obtained by getting 5 Cowboys & Aliens wild symbols.

One thing that will strike you about this game is the superb comic book style graphics – their fantastic. Anyway, there are 3 bonus features in total. You have the Alien Weapon feature which is activated when the Gun symbol shows up on the first reel. There’s a triangle on the gun which spins revealing a number (1-4). The number means the number of symbols that are shot at by the gun and then turn into wilds. 4 wilds can be quite fruitful.

There’s the Alien Attack Bonus feature which you can activate by obtaining the Bonus symbols on the 1st and 5th reels. Aliens then attack in 3 waves but you need to choose 1 of 3 characters to use to try and kill them – each of these has a different amount of ammunition and their accuracy varies too.

For every alien you kill, you will get a cash prize, 2x multiplier or extra ammunition. The bonus feature will end if you run out of ammunition or you have killed all the aliens. If you manage to kill all the aliens, you will receive an additional cash prize.

The best is the Free Games feature which you can activate by obtaining 3 or more Cowboys & Aliens scatter symbols across the reels. You will receive 8 free spins and comic strip wilds. You will see a highlighted rectangle appear on the reels for every free spin – when the reels stop, the highlighted triangle covers an area and turns all symbols wild. So you could have 2 wilds on a free spin or up to 6 wilds in total. As this occurs on every free spin, you can win big amounts. The only negative I found is that you cannot get more free spins in the feature.

Graphically it’s brilliant and the Free Spins feature with the comic strip wilds is very good – the other 2 features are ok and do pay out less. Overall, Cowboys & Aliens is a low variance slot which is what you’d expect from a branded slot. Entertainment wise it’s very good but not one I see myself playing on a regular basis. If you want branded slots and higher variance, you can’t go wrong with any of the Marvel slots (like The Avengers) or some of their most popular titles like Sultan’s Gold or Great Blue.