The "Miracle on Ice" was a medal-round game during the men's ice hockey tournament at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, played between the hosting United States and the four-time defending gold medalists, the Soviet Union. I can still hear the announcer screaming “do you believe in miracles.” Yes – because we won! Thus, Break Away Slots is an ice hockey theme-based slot by Microgaming.
About the Game
We begin with a grid of 5 reels of 5 rows apiece as opposed to the old 243-way format of before. You still get the cascading replacement symbols for any wins which means more drop down from above to replace winning tiles. You don't get all-ways pays now either, but can choose to pay either 18, 38, 68 or 88 coins for the same amount of lines. As you can imagine the pays are rather odd so for 88 coins you get the following 5-of-a-kind awards:- Red Player 588, White Player 288, Goal Minder 208, Referee 188, Break Away scene 158, Rink 128, Face Mask 108, Skates 98 and finally Ice Sweeper 88. Symbols can appear stacked too and the Wilds are super-stacked on reels 3, 4 and 5. You can also get the old random Smashing Wild too which gives a fixed Wild reel on either 2, 3 or 4 until wins run out. The max coin bet is £44 per spin. The Return to Player is 96.1%. There are also special features in this game including: Cascading Grid, Free Spins, Multipliers, Rolling Reels Feature, Smashing Wild Feature, Scatters, Stacked wilds, and Wild Symbol.
Rolling Reels Feature
Break Away Slots has a Rolling Reels feature which means that the symbols will cascade. Thus, when you get a winning combination, those symbols will disappear and new symbols will replace them. The feature ends when the symbols that appear on the grid no longer form a winning combination.
The Smashing Wild Feature
The Smashing Wild Feature can come into play on any spin on reels 2, 3, 4 and 5. One of the player symbols becomes Wild for the duration of the Rolling Reels feature.
Free Spins Round
You need 3 or more Puck Scatters to get 12 free games which cannot be retriggered. During these spins, the Wild stacks on reels 3 to 5 grow by one each spin but the best enhancement is the multiplier trail. Your first win on any spin is paid at 2xs, the second 3xs, third 4xs, fourth at 5xs and finally five or more consecutive actions on one spin will be paid at 8xs. There is the potential for some really big totals here although it's a volatile game and often pays less than 10 or 20xs your bet too.
Commentary
Choosing the number of pay lines makes this slot game quite unique. You will find that this is a lucrative slot, albeit the unorthodox pay lines. But give it a go and see if you can score goals just as they did in the Winter Olympics of long ago.
