The Wild Life is a 5 reel, 10 payline slot powered by IGT. It pays both way (i.e. both left to right and right to left) on all paylines. Playable from 10p to £2,000 per spin on desktop, mobile and tablet devices, it has an African wildlife theme and benefits from expanding wilds as well as a free spins feature where expanded wilds remained locked in place.
Visually, you are taken to Africa – set in the African plains at sunset, symbols on the reels include playing cards (A, K, Q and J) which are all animal skin print, zebras, giraffes, rhinos, elephants and lions. The lion is the most valuable symbol rewarding you with 2,500 coins (or 250 times your stake) for 5 on a payline.
As mentioned, it’s a win both ways game meaning you can win when you get winning combinations on consecutive reels starting from the leftmost or the rightmost reel. The roaring lion is the wild symbol and appears only on reels 2, 3 and 4. When the wild is part of a winning combination, it will expand and turn the whole reel(s) wild. If you get 3 wilds on the 3 middle reels, you will benefit from 3 fully wild reels.
The Wild Life is all about the Free Spins Bonus feature which is played when you get 3 or more Africa scatter symbols anywhere on the reels. 3 will give you 10 free spins whilst 4 gives you 15 free spins. If you get 5, you will receive 20 free spins.
The wild symbol is more important in the feature – again, it appears on the 3 middle reels (2, 3 and 4) and also expands to take over the whole reel. However, once the reel is wild, it remain locked for the duration of the feature! If you get them early on, prepare yourself for roaring wins of up to 1,030 times your total stake on each free spin.
The Wild Life may be a simple slot but it’s a high variance offering – it’s all about the expanding wilds in the base game and Free Spins Bonus feature but having locked wild reels in place during the feature is where the real big wins will come from. The key is to get 20 free spins with the 3 locked wild reels early on but you need to be patient – it reminds me a lot of WMS’ Black Knight II which also has locked wilds reels in the feature.
