Secret of the Sword is the second Tomb Raider slot machine to be released by Microgaming. They’ve did some things better in it, increasing the number of features and paylines, but the design hasn’t seen much of an improvement, which is a shame given how much the visuals matter when Lara Craft is involved. The theme is built around the female hero of the Tomb Raider series of video games, which has seen all kinds of movies, books and comic books being made based on her.
You get 30 paylines on the 5 reels of this game, along with a Super Mode, with free spins, mltipliers, Rolling Reels, sticky wilds and regular ones, plus a bonus game. The biggest prize advertised should put up to $15,000 in your bank account.
Features of Tomb Raider – Secret of the Sword
There are multiple ways that you can enjoy the features of Secret of the Sword, starting with the wilds, the scatter symbols, a Super Mode, free spins with multipliers and an interesting bonus game.
Lara’s face is the only thing visible in the symbol which is used as the wild, while the regular symbols show a lot more of her. You can get the wild to be part of those regular combinations, as it will use its substitution ability to help you get wins in situations where you don’t have all matching symbols for a combo. The same wild can offer its own prizes, between 5x and 7,500x the line wager being offered for combos of 2 to 5 wilds.
Super Mode
This feature will start only as a result of luck, being randomly triggered by the slot and not taking into account any symbols that you might have present. If it triggers, Super Mode gives you 5 spins for free which have multiple wilds present and sticky, remaining in place until the games are all used up.
Free Games Feature
The free spins of Tomb Raider II can be obtained through this feature as well, not just during Super Mode. You need the scatter symbol with the Artifact to be present at least three times in order to give you the free spins and the rolling reels which accompany them.
The Rolling Reels feature is the standard one, where the symbols that are part of wins will dissolve and will leave their place to new ones, hopefully bringing you new wins this way. If you have consecutive wins as a result of the Rolling Reels, the multiplier will go up for each additional one, up to a maximum of 5x.
Scatter symbols don’t give you only free spins though. You’re also going to get regular prizes, which multiply the triggering bet by 2x to 100x.
Global Adventure Bonus
The game has a bonus feature as well, called Global Adventure. It needs for all five reels of the slot to be activated, which is something that happens when the Passport symbol appears in the middle position of a reel. You don’t need the reels to be activated in the same round, they will do so one by one, as you continue to play the game. Once all five have been activated, the bonus game will start.
The prizes of this feature take into account all the wagers you’ve made since you’ve activated the first reel, up until you got the last one active. An average of those wagers is made and used as a basis for the prizes offered in it. That average bet can be multiplied by up to 450x.
You first pick a location on the map, where you think the fragments of the sword are hidden. Each location has booby traps that you need to be wary of. If you stumble upon two traps, the bonus game ends.
The Hidden Treasure bonus will give you either a bonus prize, a 2x multiplier, all the wins for the present location or access to the Shootout level.
If you get into the Shootout level, you are shown a total of 15 discs, behind which you have mystery prizes. You choose one of those discs, and the others will go away, leaving only your prize active.
Betting options and jackpots
The maximum line bet you can use is worth $2, using up to 10 coins with the maximum denomination of $0.20. With 30 lines active, the bet can go as high as $60.
With Lara’s help, you can win a top jackpot of 7,500 times the line bet, which in this case would be a total value of $15,000 (75,000 coins).
Design and symbols
Compared with the first Tomb Raider slot, Secret of the Sword has seen some improvements, but not a lot. The quality of the Lara Croft symbols is slightly better, but you still don’t get the kind of design that recent video games have offered. There are also the same old boring playing cards, which attempt some sort of 3D look that isn’t successful.
Symbols: Lara Croft (7,500x, wild), Artifact (scatter), Passport (bonus), Lara hanging on (2,000x), Lara with guns (1,000x), Lara on bike (500x), Lara at night (300x), Ace (100x), King (80x), Queen (80x), Jack (60x) and 10 (60x).
Is It Worth Playing?
It’s a game that I’m sure you will enjoy, especially if you actually played Tomb Raider and you’re a fan of Lara Croft. The design is far from the one I would’ve wanted for it, but otherwise it’s a pretty decent title feature and prize wise.
Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider Series
Though originally Tomb Raider was just a video game, its popularity grew so big that now it’s a true media franchise, with all sorts of things named and themed around Lara Croft. Lara is the main character of the Tomb Raider games, an attractive young woman that also happens to be kicking ass Indiana Jones style. She’s a British archaeologist that you can also see in two movies, where Angelina Jolie is the one taking Lara’s role.
The Tomb Raider – Secret of the Sword slot machine is offered through the Microgaming platform, so if you want to play it for real or just to practice, look out for casinos that use it.
