Easter Surprise Slot

Easter 2014 marks Easter Surprise’s fourth outing as slot of the season (the game was first released by Playtech for Easter 2011). Nevertheless its popularity in online casinos hasn’t diminished and it’s not hard to see why. In our opinion, Easter Surprise isn’t Playtech’s strongest release in terms of graphics and dynamic bonus features (you might want to check out some of Playtech’s other holiday slots, such as Halloween Fortune and Ghosts of Christmas, for those).

Nevertheless, Easter Surprise excels at creating a cheerful, springtime, Easter atmosphere on the screen, with lots of bonus and free game opportunities. You can win beautifully wrapped Easter gifts, and the Easter eggs in your bonus basket are so artfully decorated you won’t want to break the shells. This slot’s extras include: a FREE GAMES round, an EASTER EGGS BONUS round, and a GAMBLE option that lets you double your winnings. Easter Surprise is a slot you could happily spin on for some time, for free or for real money.

Symbols

In contemporary Playtech style, all the symbols on this slot are animated, so your eyes certainly won’t get bored. The ordinary symbols are high-value playing cards from 10 to Ace, all dolled up with a cute Easter bow, in pretty purple and orange shades. When these symbols are triggered in a payline a wave of sparkly magic passes over them. The special symbols are a little more interesting and are as follows:

• Easter Surprise Scatter – this scatter symbol is a purple and green gift parcel. If you land more than three anywhere on the reels you trigger the Free Games round, in which the scatter acts as a x 3 multiplier.
• Easter Bunny Wild – the wild symbol is an Easter Bunny holding out a gift parcel. When triggered the Bunny moves the parcel out towards you – sometimes it turns into an Easter Egg – but it always melts away into a cloud of sparkly dust revealing the word “Wild.” The Wild symbol substitutes for all symbols on the reels except the Scatter and the Bonus.
• Easter Eggs Bonus – this symbol is a basket of intricately painted Easter Eggs. Three of these symbols landing consecutively on the reels starting from the left takes you to the exciting bonus round and a chance for even more winnings.
• Easter Egg symbols – the rest of the symbols are patterned Easter Eggs in orange, blue and yellow.

Wagers and jackpots

Easter Surprise is a 5-reel, 20 payline slot with a maximum and generous jackpot of 10,000 coins (for five Wild symbols) on an ordinary spin. The minimum jackpot is two coins for two orange or for two blue Easter Eggs respectively. Your wagering options run from 0.01 to 5.00 $/€/£ in whatever currency you use when you play for real money. There’s also an Auto Start function so you can line up lots of spins in advance and in quick succession.

Other ways to win

This being a cutting-edge Playtech slot, there are tons of opportunities to take away a prize in addition to the jackpots available on the reels.

• Easter Eggs Bonus – in this round, triggered by three or more Easter Eggs Bonus symbols, the Easter Bunny personally presents you with his basket of beautifully decorated Easter Eggs. You don’t need to worry about breaking the shell because there’s nothing inside except cash prizes! Chose the three eggs that most take your fancy and add the contents to your winnings.
• Free Games Round – triggered by the Easter Surprise Scatter symbol, this round gives you ten free spins during which three Scatter symbols on the reels triple your winnings – and give you another 10 free games.
• Gamble – you can potentially boost your prizes by gambling them. After a win click on the Gamble option below the reels. Then simply bet whether the next card to be turned over on the deck will be red or black. Get it right and you double your winnings, but beware! Get it wrong and you’ll lose the lot! Other slots with this extra Gamble feature include Top Trumps World Football Stars and Golden Games in the Sports Slots section.

Music, audio and graphics

As you’d expect from any recent Playtech release, music, audio and graphics are rated highly in this game. The animations are cute and in keeping with the theme, but could be a little more active, see the likes of X-Men and Incredible Hulk by way of comparison.

The Last Word

A great, fun game for the Easter holidays. Very appealing but perhaps a little bit girly because of all the pinks and purples, Playtech’s Santa Surprise slot definitely has more general appeal. Seven out of ten.