The Batman franchise is huge, with easily the most popular film series of any of the big superheroes. Bruce Wayne’s alter ego may not be as historic as Superman, but the gothic edge that Batman has has seen him given cult status throughout the years. The fact that he is also human, free from alien blood or nuclear radiation, seems to increase his appeal.
The Batman game in question was played at the William Hill bookmakers, a European bookmakers that was founded in the UK and is home to one of the oldest and most popular sports books in the world. The review was completed by a member of our team who resides in the UK and therefore has access to this website, and for the sake of transparency, an equivalent of $50 was used with a total bet of around $0.80 per spin.
The game is simply called Batman, and is trademarked with the DC logo.
Graphics and Sound.
It’s a fairly simply slot, without any major graphical interfaces. The layout is neat, with a Batman vibe for the action buttons and a darkened comic strip superimposed over the background, but it’s all very simple. The symbols obviously relate to the Batman and Gotham City universes, with an image of the Dark Knight himself acting as a wild symbol and a joker card, a bat weapon, a gun, a spotlight and a joke flower as the smaller win symbols. There are also pictures of Batman’s good friend Commissioner Gordon, and his not so good friend The Joker. The symbols come from the comic book as opposed to any of the films.
There are added graphics when the user wins. For instance, when the wild symbol connects in one of more lines then the image of Batman steps out of the symbol and reacts. Similar movements apply to the other symbols.
As for sound, there is no background music but there are a range of sound effects that you would expect to hear from any slot machine based on a comic book. These include dramatic klaxons, sounds of fighting and more, usually dependent on which symbols win.
Wins
The biggest winning symbol here is The Joker, who will net you 2000 times your stake if you can get him across all reels. For a bet of just $1 per spin, that gives you a potential win of $2000, which is huge considering you have the chance of landing it with every spin. Five of the Commissioner Gordon symbols also pays well, albeit a tenth less than The Joker, and he is the second highest paying symbol. The others, such as the gun and the spotlight, pay even less than that at just 125 times your bet, but this is to be expected from the lower symbols. The lowest symbol of all pays just 100 times your bet, or $100 for a $1 bet, when you get five of then.
There is a minimum bet for this game and only 1p can be staked on each line, so if you intend to play all 50 lines then the minimum bet is £0.50 or around $0.80. But the game allows you to play as few lines as you want, so theoretically you could play for as little as £0.01 or around $0.02 per spin.
Bonus
There is a unique Bonus Bet feature that can be activated on this game with every spin that you make. It costs 10 extra coins, or another 1/5th of the bet in this instance, which pushed the total spin from $0.80 to around $1. The activation of the Bonus Bet allows for the Descent into Madness feature to be activated, which is triggered when three or more of the “scatter” symbols appear on the page. The added incentive of the extra bonus round certainly makes this worth clicking, and if it does go over the amount you are willing to spend then it is worth lowering your standard bet to accommodate it.
This is a very fun bonus round and one that can win a substantial amount of money, but more often than not players will win around 10 to 30 times their bet, which for a $1 bet is between $10 and $30. The same applies to the other bonus round, albeit with slightly less winning potential. This other bonus round is also less fun, but at the same time you don’t need the bonus button to be activated and so you can spend less money to get to it.
When Bonus Bet activation is triggered the player is greeted with an alternative background and a gold color. “Bonus Bet Activated” also appears prominently at the top of the screen.
Summary
The game is very simple and very fun. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that many of the newer slot machines game have, particular the ones using the names and likenesses of superheroes, but it is quick, aesthetically pleasing, true to the franchise and it also has a few unique features. This reviewer didn’t manage to leave the game with a profit and after around fifteen minutes lost the money he gambled with, but that’s down to luck more than the game itself and the potential for big wins are huge here.
Overall, the game gets 4/5 stars from us, with the lack of graphics being the only let down, and the unique features being the thing that made it stand out.