Return of the Rudolph is one of the funniest Christmas themed slots I’ve seen, and it’s all thanks to RTG, the game’s creator. While most winter holiday slots will tend to make a big deal about the gifts and the carols and all that other stuff, Return of the Rudolph gives us an evil reindeer character, out for revenge and he’s doing some serious damage. This is the third game from a series with Rudolph as one of the main characters, the others being “Santa Strikes Back” and “Rudolph’s Revenge”.
This slot offers 50 paylines on its 5 reels, plus it has a decent collection of fun features and bonus games. Among the ones that got my attention, I’ll mention the free games, the scatter symbols, wilds and multipliers. The $30,000 top jackpot might seem average to you, but I’m betting that the progressive jackpot it offers will be a lot more appealing.
Features of Return of the Rudolph
RTG didn’t waste a good opportunity to create a great game, so they’ve made sure that it’s choke full of features. It actually includes a couple of bonus games, where you can take part in the action, but I’ll let you discover more about them below.
Rudolph, the returning reindeer, is armed with a baseball bat here and he’s ready to do some damage. He’s mostly helpful though, as he helps you get more combinations formed through his role as a wild. He is also the one that awards the game’s own big prize. The Rudolph wild will triple prizes whenever it appears on the 3rd reel, where it will also be able to expand and take it over. Unfortunately, it can’t substitute for the Thugs scatter.
The band of Thugs is considered a scatter, as it has the ability to appear in any position and still award its prizes. It’s an important ability to have, especially since five Thugs are enough to award the slot’s progressive jackpot. Fewer than four will still result in a prize, but it’s not going to be anywhere close in value.
If you have three or four Thugs scatters present, you might be one symbol short of the progressive jackpot, but at least you get the Pick a Feature round. You have to pick a Thug scatter symbol, and it will reveal one of three available bonus games.
Rudolph’s Rampage
In this bonus game, you are taken to Santa’s Workshop, where you have to find the three elves that are hiding. The factory is full of equipment and gifts waiting to be wrapped, so this is not going to be easy. The faster you find them all, the more free games you win. Getting all three elves in three picks gets you 50 free spins. These elves can also offer you extra gifts, which will be used during the free games.
A Red Present means that Thug scatters become wilds as well. The Green Presents will bring you an expanding wild for the 3rd reel. The Blue Present means that you get a 4x multiplier for all payouts.
Santa Strikes Back
This is the second possible bonus game that the scatter symbols will award. It gives you 7 free games, with a twist. Symbols that have Santa, Thugs or Rudolph, will have a Candy Cane in the top right corner. If a Candy Cane symbol is on a reel, that reel’s star is activated. Get all five reels to activate before the free spins are done, and you retrigger this feature with an extra 7 games, plus a slightly bigger multiplier (+1x). The spins can be retriggered up to 9 times, so multipliers go as high as 9x also.
Rudolph’s Revenge
This part of the game will give you 8 spins for free, with 2x multipliers in use for the duration. Thug scatter symbols which make appearances will also increase the spin’s multiplier and will affect all payouts from that round. On top of that, Thug scatters will also act as wilds, but only if the feature was triggered by four scatters, not by three.
Betting options and jackpots
While the game has a lot to offer when it comes to the game experience, it’s also very expensive to play, above what RTG usually asks of its players. You will notice that there are 50 paylines in the game, so you are required to always use 50 coins in order to activate them all. The denomination selected for these coins is left up to the player, with the minimum being $0.01.
If you want the big prize, worth $30,000, you will want to use the $5 coin and you will spend $250 per spin. The game’s symbols will also award a progressive jackpot, so keep your fingers crossed and hope you get that one.
Design and symbols
The game has Santa’s village as the backdrop, but the action is happening in the middle of a war. You can see one of the houses with the roof blown off, while the one right next to the reels has dynamite sticks tied to the chimney. Add to that images with the little old lady tied up to a chair and the battered card symbols, and you get the full picture. The design is expertly handled and it manages to turn the game into a comedy that is perfect for the holidays.
Symbols: Rudolph (wild, 6,000x), Thugs (scatter, progressive jackpot), Santa (1,500x), Mrs. Santa (1,000x), Santa’s Workshop (750x), Sleigh (750x), Santa’s Helper (250x), Ripped Teddy Bear (250x), Ace/King/Queen (125x), Jack/Ten/Nine (100x).
Is It Worth Playing?
Return of the Rudolph is special from beginning to end. It relies on its graphics a lot, but its features also work a lot in its favor, not to mention the progressive jackpot that you can win while playing it.
This Return of the Rudolph slot is offered by all online casinos with RTG software, playable either in practice or in real money mode.
