For anyone studying to be an amateur zoologist in the reading audience, please note there is no such animal as an “ice phoenix,” despite the fact that it is the title of a fun online slot game from Win Studios over there on your BetMGM casino app.
Nope. No such thing as an ice phoenix, or in this case, a capitalized Ice Phoenix.
Obviously, everyone knows a phoenix could never live in an arctic climate.
And … this just in. There is also no such animal as a phoenix. It’s a mythical creature, I’m told, signifying immortality.
Well that’s nice and all, but there ain’t no immortality in this game available in Michigan, not with a RTP of 95.23%. I mean, that’s a slow death right there, but so are all slots, so I won’t hold it against the lovely and talented Ice Phoenix.
In fact, I won’t hold anything against Ice Phoenix, as not only is it a fun slot, but it also ended up being a wildly profitable one to play for this here non-mythical creature. Shall we explore? Let’s explore.
The facts
Ice Phoenix is a five-reel slot with 20 paylines. Instead of a spinny system, the symbols just drop from the heavens fully formed into the game.
Three in a row gets you a win, four or five in a row gets you a bigger win. The orange fire phoenix is wild. Standard stuff.
But the non-standard — and much more fun — stuff happens when things start exploding and/or cascading.
Let’s start with the exploding: On the last reel, the possibility exists of the ice phoenix himself appearing. If he does — and after payouts — the phoenix, along with the three low-paying symbols, will explode into new symbols. But the real fun begins when three low-paying symbols are in the same reel. When that happens, the entire reel turns into one giant wild fire phoenix for the next spin.
Ice phoenix or not, each spin carries with it the potential for more spins. A winning spin will beget another spin, with the winning symbols replaced. Win again, spin again. And after four consecutive wins, the free spins feature is activated with seven free spins. Get five winners in a row, and you get 10 free spins. Six wins equals 15 free spins, seven gets 20, and eight or more consecutive wins gets you 25 free spins.
Additionally, get three or more wins in a row during the free spins portion, and extra free spins are granted.
This can go and on and on until you win $250,000, which is the maximum amount you can pocket.
Look and feel
It’s arctic-y. Light blues and whites and pinks are the colors, there’s a tinkly, ethereal soundtrack playing behind you, and snow is continually falling.
The spins happen quickly. There is about zero time in between hitting the spin button and the symbols — snowflakes, weird hieroglyphics, and scary-looking monster-type things — appearing. So player beware there. You can fire off a spin a second, basically.
When you win, a pleasant moving line appears on the screen, showing you where your winning symbols are.
My chief and only complaint here is really the speed. The game could slow down by half, and it would still be faster than virtually any other slot on the market.
The results
Well, things got crazy. My first 20-cent spin ended some 55 spins later with a profit of $53. I hit the free spin bonus, and kept on hitting it, triggering more and more free spins. Obviously, 265x winnings are not standard here, and to prove it, I spun the wheel about 150 more times, losing back half the winnings. But I did get two more free spin bonuses in there, giving hope that those bonuses appear often enough to keep a player entertained.
Again, the only negative is the relative speed of the game. Tilting potential, I’d imagine, is increased as a result. But overall? Super fun, and with the exploding and cascading, pretty exciting to boot.
