Olympus Thunder

The Olympus Thunder slot, available at NextGen online casinos, is all about Zeus. Most people will know Zeus as the king of the Greek gods on Mount Olympus, and his motif is about thunder and lightning, so that's where the name of the game comes from. The graphics are solid enough with Mt. Olympus itself in the background, and you'll find that the gameplay is exciting with a combination of strong payouts and good features that drive things along in a nice way as you play. Lots of games use Greek gods as a theme, but this title stands out for focusing on a vary narrow aspect of that whole situation.

Game Format

The format for this game is probably the most common in the whole industry with five reels, three rows and a total of 20 paylines. Players do not have the option to change how many paylines they're playing with, so everything with the betting is based on 20 lines per turn. You can change your line bet wager to be $0.01 to $5, which corresponds to respective prices of $0.20 to $100 per spin, and that's a very reasonable range. We feel that this covers bet sizes low enough that will fit into the bankroll of any player while offering enough other options for everyone up to high rollers.

Zeus Wild Symbol

This game is all about Zeus, so it makes sense that he would be an important symbol. Along these lines, he's the wild, and he appears on every single one of the reels. You can get a massive 10,000x payout for five of a kind of this wild on a payline, and that's the largest regular payout that you can get in this whole slot. A secondary jackpot of 2,000x is yours for four on a line, and it drops down a bit to the 200x level for three of a kind. Something cool about this symbol is that you can also pick up 10x just for two of a kind of it on a payline, but it does not substitute for the scattered bonus symbol.

Zeus Re-spins Feature

Whenever Zeus appears on the middle reel, it will expand to cover that whole reel and give you three free re-spins. The middle reel will stay completely wild during this feature, so you're obviously getting a better value than if you were playing regular spins. Note that this feature can be triggered in the free spins mode that we mention below.

Free Spins Bonus Round

There's a bonus symbol with three lightning bolts, and when you get all three of these symbols on the reels at once, you're taken to the Olympus Bonus. This bonus consists of picking from a set of coins until you get a matching set, and the set you get determines which free spins bonus you get out of five options. You can get multipliers of 2x or 3x (at least 2x is guaranteed), and you can pick up between five and 20 free spins. If you re-trigger this feature with three bonus symbols during the free spins mode, you'll just add on the same number of free spins to your total as you were originally awarded at the same level of multiplier.

Additional Prizes and Winning Combinations

The faun will get you a 750x payout while the woman Hera, the bride of Zeus, gets you 600x for five of a kind. Each of these pays for just two of a kind, and they're the only symbols in this slot besides the wild symbol to do so.

From there, you can pick up a win of 500x or 400x for five of the harp or vase, respectively. The red A, blue K and green Q all pay out 200x for five, and five of the blue J, yellow 10 or purple 9 will get you 100x as well.

Overview

As far as Greek-themed slots go, the Olympus Thunder slot by NextGen stands out a bit because it focuses on a very narrow aspect of Greek mythology instead of trying to include as many characters as possible. With this more narrow level of focus, you get a great set of features that all tie together in a way that makes complete and total sense. While the volatility on this title is a bit higher than what some players will be comfortable with, you can compensate for that by lowering your bet size and playing longer sessions instead.