Bonus Bears is a Playtech slot machine, its theme’s action revolving around a bear that lives in a national park. The character somewhat resembles Yogi Bear, mostly because he loves two things, honey and picnic baskets. The bear might be the main character, but he’s not the only one, with bees and sexy redhead park rangers also being present among the symbols. The return to nature motif is a good one for a slot machine, especially if it’s well handled, and I’d say that this is the case here.
Bonus Bears gives you the option to wager on a maximum of 25 bet lines, with 5 reels being their host. A $250,000 jackpot should be impressive enough to convince anyone, but there are also bonus games (Honey Feature), free games, multipliers, scatters and wilds present inside.
Features of Bonus Bears
A bonus game, a scatter symbol and a wild symbol that can get you free spins, these are the main features offered in Bonus Bears.
The Bee Hive symbol is the scatter, capable of offering you cash prizes and a bonus game. It’s quite unusual for a slot machine, but the wild is the one triggering the free spins in this case. There are two things you have to know about a scatter symbol. First of all, it’s the way it triggers its prizes, without forming regular combinations. The presence of multiple symbols in scattered positions will be enough to get you paid. The second thing to know is that its prizes multiply the total bet of the round, not the line bet. You get up to 100 times the bet of that spin, when you have up to five Bee Hives on the reels.
The wild symbol is represented by the cool Bear character, but you only get it on the middle three reels of the slot (2 to 4). On its own, the Bear will help out whenever it can, substituting for the other symbols and hopefully making the game a lot more profitable.
Free Games Feature
You don’t get paid directly by the wild, but when you have three of them on the three middle reels, you get the free games feature. There are 15 free spins awarded, all of them with x3 multipliers.
The Honey Feature
The scatter symbol, the Bee Hive, will be the one to trigger the second bonus feature of this slot. A minimum of three Bee Hives need to show up, a standard requirement in most slot machines.
A bonus game starts, called The Honey Feature. You have to pick the trees where the bear should look for honey. If he finds it, you get a bonus prize. Finding the beehive gets you a quick prize worth 2x the bet.
Betting options and jackpots
The bets in Bonus Bears are a bit on the high side, but that’s how it can afford to offer huge prizes. Each payline allows for up to 10 coins of $5 to be wagered on it, with 25 lines active resulting in total bets of $1,250. The use of fewer coins or smaller denominations is allowed, so everyone can play this slot, high rollers and penny slot players alike.
A 5,000x top jackpot is on the line, the maximum value being up to $250,000, but only if you used $50 line bets.
Design and symbols
The national park is visible in the background picture, but the game is more than just about the majestic beauty of such a place. It involves the presence of bear as well, as he’s looking for honey or sandwiches, whichever is easier to get. The presence of a sexy redhead in the role of the park ranger can only help the design. Overall, the game is a bit cartoonish with its style, but that’s a good choice for a slot that reminds me of Yogi bear.
Symbols: Bear (wild), Bee Hive (scatter, 100x triggering bet), Redhead Park Ranger (5,000x), Skunk (1,000x), Bee (500x), Picnic Basket (500x), Ace (200x), King (200x), Queen (150x), Jack (150x), 10 (100x) and 9 (100x).
Is It Worth Playing?
The game does OK in most areas, but its prizes are not nearly as good as they seem at first glance, not when you have to place bets of up to $1,250 to get them. If you like the theme, go for it, but otherwise you will discover that Playtech has a few other similar slot machines, with huge prizes and bets that are sized accordingly.
You will find Bonus Bears at any online casino which chooses to use software from Playtech, playable either for free or for real money.
