Paranormal Activity™ slot review

Unexplained scratches and knocking on the walls? The smell of rot? Yep, it’s Paranormal Activity, all right! So, get your video camera ready and go buy an Ouija board - what could go wrong?

Paranormal Activity is a slot game, released by iSoftBet in 2017. Going by the same name as the 2007 movie, Paranormal Activity brings the thrills and the horror of a demonic possession to be experienced in a new way.

If you’re not familiar with the movie or the brand, let’s do a quick recap: When the movie Paranormal Activity hit the theatres, it was quickly declared as a scariest supernatural horror film of all times. It’s a found footage film, meaning the material was supposedly shot by the characters. This subgenre was made widely popular when The Blair Witch Project was released in 1999.

In Paranormal Activity, a couple is experiencing weird phenomenons inside their home. While Katie isn’t too fond of finding out what the entity haunting her life is, Micah wants to document everything and even make a contact with it. The movie was so popular, it got five sequels of which the latest was seen in 2015.

So, Paranormal Activity the slot game has some big shoes to fill - even if it’s not an actual movie.

Graphics and sound

Paranormal Activity is definitely the scariest-looking slot I’ve ever seen. Even the Wilds are creepy girls with haunting black eyes and blood trickling from her mouth. The game itself looks like a screen from a camcorder. It shows the reels, as well as the background which is a dark room with only a dim light coming from the open door.

The scary ambient music starts already with the loading screen. You get to hear fast footsteps, knocking and demonic screeching - enough to scare off the sensitive ones. Sadly, the track is short and even though it loops quite nicely, it’s way too repetitive.

The game has some nice visual effects, with the title flickering and occasional TV noise covering the entire screen. However, the latter quickly gets old and there’s no way to turn it off. Also, you can only turn the music on or off. However, in general, I think the game looks a bit outdated for a 2017 slot.

Symbols and wins

Paranormal Activity has five reels, three rows and 243 ways to win. The wins are paid from left to right adjacent symbol combinations. To read the total wins, you need to multiply the number of winning symbols on each of the reels. Then, multiply this by the number of winning ways.

The value of each spin is 30 coins, so the paytable also presents the winnings as coins. You may adjust the value of a coin from 1 cent to $1, in which case the maximum wager is $30.

High-paying symbols:

• 5 x Ouija board pay 500 coins
• 5 x Planchette pay 400 coins
• 5 x Chandelier pay 300 coins
• 5 x Video camera pay 250 coins
• 5 x Ghost picture pay 200 coins

Low-paying symbols:

• 5 x A pay 150 coins
• 5 x K pay 125 coins
• 5 x Q pay 100 coins
• 5 x J pay 100 coins
• 5 x 10 pay 80 coins

Special symbols:

• Wild: Substitutes other symbols except for Scatter and Bonus.
• Scatter: Pay wins anywhere. 5 x Scatter pay 750 coins.
• Bonus: Three Bonus symbols trigger the Bonus Wheel.

Features

• Paranormal Activity: A randomly triggered feature which adds up to 5 extra Wilds to the reels.

• Bonus Wheel: Land three Bonus symbols on reels 1, 3 and 5 to activate the Bonus Wheel.

The Bonus Wheel awards you with either an instant win or one of three possible free spin features.

• Paranormal Free Spins: Unlimited free spins until you’ve won 5 times. Each win gets an increasing multiplier, meaning the final spin pays 5x normal win.

• Possessed Free Spins: 10 free spins with stacked Wilds.

• Demon Free Spins: 15 free spins with a Demon Wild, which turns other symbols into Wilds.

My experiences

Because I love all horror, naturally I’m also quite familiar with the Paranormal Activity movies. When I learned that there was a slot game with the same brand, I was very excited and couldn’t wait to get to play this one.

After a few hundred spins, I’d say that the slot would’ve probably come out better with another supplier. There’s nothing wrong with iSoftBet, but overall I can imagine seeing how this slot would look like if it was made by NetEnt or Yggdrasil. As it is now, it’s just a bit too old-looking, clunky and slow. The reels usually spin like they’re sticky with something and for a fast player like me, it was a pain in the butt not to be able to use any kind of quick spin or turbo spin.

While I played, I took note that the Bonus Wheel felt it was triggering quite often. On the contrary, the Paranormal Activity (which would add extra Wilds) I saw much less. I didn’t manage to win anything big, and only one round out of three free spin features actually paid up well.

I guess I was a little disappointed. The game does have nice features and a good theme, but the quality just doesn’t meet up with my standards. Also, I think it’s a big problem if something as trivial as visual effect makes me want to stop playing. This is what happened with the constant TV noise pixellating the screen.

If you love horror like me, I think Paranormal Activity is a fun game to try out. But, I wouldn’t spend too many coins on it myself.