Chinese New Year

With 5 reels and 20 paylines, Chinese New Year offers its players a theme that might seem a bit unusual if they're not used with this country's culture, with a top jackpot of $6,000, free spins, multipliers, wild symbols and scatters.

The theme is obviously Chinese, and the focus is on the animals from the Chinese zodiac, the ones you probably heard about before. Each year falls under a certain animal under this zodiac, so it's not on a month by month basis, as it is with the astrology signs we're used to. The slot's sides are red, with Chinese characters on them, and with red lampions placed at the top. The reels occupy most of the screen otherwise, with the progressive jackpot display areas placed on top of them. The symbols include animals that you can find in the Chinese zodiac, animals like the rabbit, the buffalo, monkey, dog, pig, rooster, goat, horse or cobra. The only symbol that is a bit different is the one with the Chinese man, with the word Feature written at the top.

The bets placed in Chinese New Year are made on one to twenty paylines, with coin values being between $0.25 and $50. The game's largest bet, of $1,000, can result in prizes of up to $6,000, but there are also some progressive jackpots to consider there, so the top prize is not as small as it might seem at first.

The symbol with the buffalo is the one that gives away that 120 coins jackpot, when you have five of them on the same active payline. The prize is split in half for each coin missing, so four symbols will result in 60 coins paid, while three symbols will pay only 30 coins.

The progressive jackpots that are awarded by the next symbol, the one with the doe, are called the Mini, Midi and Mega Jackpots. The exact amount you're going to win with these is not clear, since they vary from one day to another, and they reset to an initial value when someone wins them.

A few nice features were included in the game, things like the wild symbol, which substitutes for other symbols and has a multiplier between 2x and 10x that it will use when it helps form a winning combo. Another feature is the scatter, a symbol that will give away free spins when a minimum of three show up at the same time.

Fans of astrology and of the Chinese zodiac should give the game a try. It's entertaining enough, despite the focus on the Chinese culture, which not everyone might get.