Wild Orient

The Wild Orient online slot by Microgaming is a very visually stimulating title. It has monkeys, birds, pandas, elephants and other animals from Asian jungles on the reels, and it has a high-paced gameplay thanks to its format. This is yet another game by Microgaming that uses the 243 ways format with their respin feature, and while it doesn't really stand out all that much on its own, it's a decent enough slot that many players will enjoy it, if for no reason other than the theme.

A Common Slot Layout

The layout of this game uses five reels and three rows. Every regular symbol acts like a left-to-right scatter, and that creates the 243-ways format that Microgaming uses quite a bit. Betting in this game is determined by sets of 25 coins per spin, and you can use coin sizes as low as $0.01 apiece and as high as $0.50. You can also bet as many as ten times the minimum bet of 25 coins, so even though betting starts at just $0.25 per spin, you can play for particularly high stakes in this Microgaming (read more) slot.

Payouts in this game are based on the size of your total wager. For the sake of clarity, we're going to describe the bets in this game based on a $1 wager per spin with $0.01 coins and four sets of coins (x25). Your available payouts will vary based on how big or small your bet sizes are, accordingly.

Payout Schedule

A wild symbol appears in this game on the second and fourth reels. It'll substitute for anything but the scatter symbols. The top two payouts are for the elephant and tiger, both of which pay for just two of a kind or more. Every other non-scatter symbol in the game requires three of a kind.

The elephant has a good top win of $160 for five of a kind followed by $16 for four. You can earn $100 for five of the tiger with $10 available for four of a kind. Five pandas will earn you a solid $80 win, and five of the monkey gets half that at the $40 level. You can pick up $20, a solid payout, for five of the bird in the water.

In many slots (like these), you'll see the A, K, Q, J, 10 and 9 symbols used as minor symbols. This is the case in Wild Orient as well. The red A symbol and orange K symbols are up first, and they both pay $8 for five of a kind. Five of the yellow Q has the same win as five of the green J, both of which give $6 for five. Finally, you can earn $4 for either five of the blue 10 or five of the purple 9.

Scatters and Free Spins With Multipliers

A common Microgaming bonus feature is a set of free spins with a multiplier, and that's what you get here for lining up three or more of the statue scatter symbol anywhere on the game's reels. Five of a kind pays $100, and four pays $10. Three gives you $2, and you only need two for a $1 payout.

If you get three or more, you'll get a set of 15 free spins with a multiplier of 3x. That means five elephants now gets you a whooping $480, the largest win available in the game.

Reel-Specific Respins

After any real money spin, you can decide to respin any of the five reels as you wish. That's what the respin buttons are for under the reels, and the cost for a respin on each of those reels is listed below. This can be a fun diversion from the regular game, but beware that the prices for the respins can get steep very quickly if big wins are likely.

Our Thoughts

Microgaming has a bad habit of releasing games that have a decent theme but that are largely just a copy of another game. This is the case with Wild Orient, and there are a handful of other titles that are more or less the same thing with the same payouts and features. With that having been said, it's not that it's a bad game, but it is pretty generic, and players who are experienced with online slots probably won't find much to get excited about.