Santa Strikes Back is a holiday themed slot, which is a part of Real Time Gaming’s Christmas series which includes Rudolph’s Revenge. The series follows the ongoing turf war between the famous reindeer called Rudolph, and Santa Claus and in this game Santa gets the upper hand.
The war, as all wars are, is a violent affair, with bruises, toxic gifts, and innocent elves that seem to be roped into the conflict. The humour is a bit dark, but highly entertaining and will keep players going to find out who comes out top in the end. Like all RTG slots, Santa Strikes Back features dazzling animated graphics and crystal clear sound. The storyline is immersing, and rewards players many different ways with wild symbols and scatters, bonus games and free spins.
Symbols, Wild and Scattered
The whole series sticks to a certain design, with all the symbols in all three games looking similar. In Santa Strikes back, you can find the regular card symbols from Ace to King, as well as Mrs Santa, a voodoo elf, a Toxic gift and an elf in an ice block.
The wild and scatter symbols work slightly differently to other slots, and here you need to pay attention. A player does not find out what the scatter symbol is until two or more land in the reels. Potentials are Victorious Rudolph, Victorious Santa, defeated Rudolph or defeated Santa.
Basically when Santa and Rudolph appear in the reels, an epic battle takes place, and the winner becomes the scatter symbol. If three or more scatter symbol battles have the same result, a bonus feature will be triggered. If Santa wins in three symbols, the Santa Strikes Back feature is triggered, and if Rudolph is victorious three times, the Rudolph’s Revenge feature is triggered.
Features, Free Spins and Jackpots
Onto the two feature games, both of which offer big rewards. If the Santa Strikes Back feature is triggered, a player starts at seven free spins with no multiplier. While this feature is active the Rudolph and Santa symbols have a candy cane through them. When a candy cane appears on a reel, the star at the top is lit up. If all five stars are lit, then the number of free spins is reset to seven, and the multiplier is increased by one. The stars remain lit until a reset is triggered or the feature ends. This reset can happen up to nineteen times to finish with seven free spins and a twenty times multiplier. Scatters are not available during this feature.
The Rudolph’s Revenge Feature awards seven free spins with a multiplier of two plus the number of wild Santa symbols appearing on the reels at end of each spin. Rudolph is guaranteed to win all the battles when scatters land in this feature (It is Rudolph’s revenge after all!) so three scatters will always retrigger the feature no matter what.
There is also a progressive Jackpot which can be won when five Santa symbols appear on an active payline. It is also worth noticing that this game has an Auto Play option, where a player can fix the settings to let the game run by itself. The game will continue until all funds are exhausted, so it is encouraged that players keep an eye on it even when in auto play mode.