Safari Sam slot review

Safari Sam brings us to the African plains where we spend all day travelling around and watching the wildlife as we follow Sam around. This game features free spins, multipliers and random wilds to occupy the rest of our time.

Players that are familiar with Betsoft will immediately recognise their style when starting up this 2012 slot. The game has not aged particularly well as it followed the 3D graphics craze of the time, which means that the look of it feels very outdated now. The textures are flat and the screen looks extremely busy, making it hard to see the different symbols. With a 5-reel, 3-row playing field all the colours blend together.

That said, there are some good points to its presentation. Firstly, it has some entertaining animations. We have Sam himself stand in the corner of the game, keeping track of what is happening and applauding any wins. Secondly, a lot of the symbols themselves are occasionally animated as well. Getting a win on one of its 30 paylines means that they are enlarged for a closer look.

The sound design wasn’t the strongest point of the game. There is some music that evokes an African sense but it is soft and plays in the background. As a result, the normal sound effects like the spinning reels completely drown it out and make it impossible to hear. It’s too bad, as the music could have enhanced the setting.

Symbols

Safari Sam uses a collection of unique symbols to fill out the reels. As mentioned before, they are all 3D graphics with the same yellow colour scheme which makes it quite hard to tell them apart. It’s also extremely busy to the eye. The high-paying symbols are different animals as well as the mysterious girl and Sam himself. Meanwhile, the low-paying symbols are represented by random sights you might find when out on safari.

The slot comes with Medium Volatility, owed in part to the relatively low number of symbols as well as the number of wilds that appear. During the base game, I managed to score regular wins quite often which helped keep my funds stable. The free spins mode will trigger occasionally, making a bigger win more likely.

If you’re a new player, if you want to test out the volatility or if you want to increase the risk, all this is possible by changing your bets. The game offers the possibility of picking a bet between £0.10 and £150 per spin. Meanwhile, there is a max. win of 1,666x your bet that is a little below the norm for games with this volatility.

Although the symbols can be quite difficult to differentiate, they do have different values. From most to least important they are:

• Tree (Scatter): Scatter symbols count towards a win from anywhere on the screen. Max. 10x your bet with five-of-a-kind on the screen.
• Safari Sam: Max. 16x your bet with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• Girl: Max. 10x your bet with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• Lion: Max. 3.3x your bet with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• Ape: Max. 1.6x your bet with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• Zebra: Max. 1.6x your bet with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• Monkey: Max. 1.6x your bet with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• Tent: Max. 0.8x your bet with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• Car: Max. 0.8x your bet with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• Nap: Max. 0.8x your bet with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.

Features

Safari Sam is a slot that features a number of different mechanics that work well together. I found most of them to not really interact with each other in any interesting ways, mostly existing separately in either the base game, the free spins mode or the bonus game. All in all, that keeps things easier to oversee.

The features included in the game are:

• Cascading reels: When a reel is filled with the same symbol, these symbols will cascade and award a win, before being replaced with new symbols.
• Wilds: Wilds will substitute all regular symbols in the game.
• Scatter: Scatter symbols count towards a win regardless of their position on the screen.
• Free Spins: Get the Gorilla, Zebra and Monkey symbols on payline 1 to trigger the free spins mode.
• Random Wilds: At the start of the free spins mode, pick either the Gorilla, Zebra or Monkey to act as a random wild.
• Bonus Game: Get 3 bonus symbols on the screen to activate the bonus game. Pick a location to observe the animals from and receive a coin win.

You’ll probably have seen these features in other slots before, and I didn’t feel like the game was trying to be original with the way it implements these. The game plays as normal most of the time. The only truly unique thing I’ve seen was the cascading reels mechanic. Whenever a reel is filled with the same symbol, they will collapse into each other and award a coin win directly. The bottom spot will still be that same symbol but the top 2 tiles will be filled with new symbols.

I thought this was pretty special and I haven’t seen it before, giving players an extra opportunity to win some coins as well as getting a second shot at a win. It occurred very frequently and even though the wins weren’t very big, the sheer volume did help.

The bonus game is a simple affair where you pick the places Sam will hide to take pictures of animals. This continues until you choose the Collect option. The free spins mode offers players the choice of picking 1 of 3 animals that will act as a random wild for that mode.

In Conclusion

Safari Sam is a standard slot in a lot of ways but it does have good intentions. The graphics have become outdated and are confusing to the eye but they are also animated and original. There are no standard card letters here as everything is tailored for the safari setting.

The gameplay is pretty much what you’d expect but there is a free spins mode and a bonus game to keep things interesting. The players that enjoy this type of variation will be pleased with what this game has on offer.

Unfortunately, the jackpot isn’t the highest considering the volatility but I did think the game offers enough regular wins to keep things interesting. If you’re looking for a slot with a strong sense of theme and variety, I would recommend you give it a try!