Pacific Gold

Rejoin adventurer Kane on his expeditions with Pacific Gold, the online slot from ELK Studios. Kane's travels have previously taken him all over the world, but this one challenges him in a completely new way with an eerie underwater world that awaits. If you can face the watery depths, you could just find hidden treasure as there's a top payout of x10,000, which could be won by the bravest of explorers. 

ELK Studios have been keen to establish a series, so regular players will have recognised the name straight away. The Gold series of online slots from ELK all feature Kane dashing to far flung places around the globe in search of the best prizes and payouts. Previous titles have included Black River Gold, Kathmandu Gold, Zulu Gold, Tahiti Gold and Ecuador Gold. As the names suggest, there’s nowhere out of reach for the main protagonist, but this time he’s going to have to plunge beneath the surface of the water to emerge victorious.  

Play takes place on a 6x4 grid, but this can enlarge when certain features are triggered (more about that below). There are 4096 ways to win in its basic form, which means all players have to worry about is landing matching symbols on adjacent reels running from the left to the right. Betting starts at 0.20 and can be upped to the max bet of 100.00. Volatility is high, and with an attractive top prize of x10,000, this is a slot that will attract all. 

Kane has visited many spectacular landscapes in his journeys around the world, but going underwater is a new experience. And it certainly feels a long way from the surface, almost like an aquatic graveyard with aeroplane wreckage visible and a very industrial feel. This contrasts almost bizarrely with the bright and vivid colours on the board, which seem out of place, creating a real juxtaposition.  

The reels appear to be made from stone and start with the standard playing card symbols as the low pays. There are four very bright symbols in the mid-pay section, finishing off with three masks and Kane himself at the top of the table.  

As a final helping hand, there's also a wild included, which can substitute for any of the regular symbols. 

Every time you land a win, you'll create an avalanche. Regular players will have seen this mechanism before, which involves the winning symbols disappearing, new tiles cascading down, plus an extra row being added. This cycle will keep repeating until there are no more visible wins. The grid can grow up to a maximum of eight rows which means 262,144 ways to win at its largest.  

All of the symbols on the reels can land in different sizes and different configurations: 1x1 (normal), 2x2 (super), 3x3 (mega) and 4x4 (epic). These larger tiles count as the number of regular tiles that would be needed to create them - i.e./2x2 counts as four tiles.  

Other configurations include a power stack of four 1x1 symbols on top of each other, and Pacific Waves which is a horizontal stack of identical symbols.  

A ghost box may not sound terribly inviting, but it's an excellent feature that can be very lucrative. The ghost box collects all symbols from wins, before exploding and removing non-winning symbols and replacing them with the winners it's collected for yet more prizes.  

Land three or more bonus symbols, and you'll open up the free drops round. The number of scatters you get determines how many drops, but there are 10-25 which can be awarded at the start.  

If you want to buy your way into any of these features rather than waiting, there's an X-citer menu that offers different features at various price points. 

Pacific Gold from ELK Studios is the latest in a long line of online slots in the Gold series. While many features are similar to those which were included before, there are some new elements such as the Ghost Box and Pacific Wave. With lots of features, changing reels and many opportunities to win, this slot is another excellent instalment that players will be thrilled to try.