Feature by Frank Legatto

Here Come the Games

New slots appear in casinos on a regular basis, but by and large, slot directors from around the country look to one event, held every fall, for a preview of the following year’s mix. The World Gaming Congress, held this month in Las Vegas, is where all the world’s slot manufacturers unveil the results of a year’s worth of research and development efforts to casino officials. It’s the sales event of the year for the slot-makers; the products seen on the convention floor are the new slots that will be released to casinos for the majority of the following year.

Rather than make you wait for the new games to trickle out over an entire year, we thought we’d give you a behind-the-scenes peek at what’s in store for 2001.

For anyone who loves to play slots, the next year is going to be packed with variety and fun. The manufacturers evidently have given their software engineers free reign to create–and create they have. The new types of bonus games, special gambling features, branded themes, hilarious cartoon bonus sequences, and multiple ways to win truly boggle the mind.

There are slots that use the touch-screen feature to make the player a participant in the bonus game. There are game-show slots that mimic their television counterparts with precision. There’s even a slot that takes a picture of the player and incorporates his image into the bonus screen.

Because of the sheer number of games the manufacturers are set to introduce over the following year, space restricts us from giving you detailed descriptions. But, we can give you a taste of the most notable games from many of the top manufacturers in the industry.

Here’s a glimpse of what’s in store:

Leading slot manufacturer IGT is showcasing a remarkable collection of games, the majority of which are in the refined "iGame Plus" multiline video format. For two years, IGT’s engineers have been refining and improving the iGame Plus line, exploring its capabilities, and using its operating system as the foundation for a wealth of new bonus features in its games.

More than 50 new games are being launched at the trade show, including a host of original concepts and a couple of night-and-day improvements in the video format on games that were introduced over the past few years.

"Creature from the Black Lagoon" is an ode both to cheesy "B" horror flicks and to the drive-in movies that showed them in their ’50s heyday. It re-creates the experience of going to a drive-in to see the ’50s classic the game is named for.

The main second-screen bonus game is an amusing rendition of the campy intermission vignettes the drive-ins used to play, with animated hot dogs, popcorn, sodas and other snacks marching across the screen to the tune of "Let’s all go to the snack bar…Let’s all go to the snack bar..." The "Snack Bar" then fills the screen, and the player is prompted to pick from the selections to reveal various bonus amounts. One of the goodies hides a "Bonus Treat" that doubles all the values.

"The Terminator" is a masterpiece of game design. It resurrects the menacing main character and climactic scenes of the Terminator movies, which starred Arnold Schwartzenegger as a "cyborg"–a thinking robot programmed for assassination–sent back in time from the future to kill the mother of a pivotal historical figure.

Second-screen bonus games make the player a participant in several action sequences from the films. In the "Hunter-Killer Bonus," the player shoots the cyborg to reveal bonus credits. The "Red Eye Bonus" re-creates the dramatic film sequences in which the audience was shown the world as seen by the cyborg; the player views a scene through the calibrated grid of the Terminator’s red eye as it zooms around and focuses on bonus awards.

The "Crush the Terminator" bonus round re-creates the climactic scene of the first Terminator movie, in which the robot survives an industrial press before meeting an apparent end in an acid bath. The player chooses from several weapons to "throw" or "shoot" at the cyborg if it survives.

"Austin Powers–International Game of Mystery" features a wealth of bits, one-liners and retro ’60s culture involving the cast from both hit Austin Powers movies. Digitized video clips from the movies, which spoofed the sex-symbol "super spy" movies of the ’60s, have been woven into the bonus games.

Three branded games are the results of IGT’s partnership with Shuffle Master Gaming. Shuffle Master called on IGT this year to rework two of its previously released licensed-brand bonus games–"Let’s Make A Deal" and "The Three Stooges"–in the iGame Plus format, and to create and manufacture games for its newest brand, "The Honeymooners."

The new versions of "Let’s Make A Deal" and "The Three Stooges" are fantastic. The latter includes a bonus round called the "In Yer Face Curly" bonus–a life-size portrait of Curly Howard’s head fills the screen and the player uses the touch-screen to actually perform one of several slapstick bits used by the legendary comedy team. The player earns bonus credits by poking Curly in the eyes or tweaking his nose. The Curly character on the screen actually reacts, as if you were in the bit yourself.

"The Honeymooners" uses characters and actual film clips from the legendary ’50s comedy series in one of the most entertaining bonus rounds you’ll find anywhere. The main bonus screen displays a grid of quotes from the history of The

Honeymooners–lines like "Shaddap!" or "One of these days, Alice..." or "Get out!" The player picks quotes until matching two. While the bonus racks up, the screen plays a video clip of the scene containing the quote.

Shuffle Master is also introducing several proprietary originals, using its own new video slot platform.

"Press Your Luck" is based on the popular early ’80s game show of the same name. Shuffle Master plans to release a total of seven games featuring aspects of the game show. Contestants were faced with a flashing board and had to hit a red button to stop on either a prize or a "Wammy," an animated character that would wipe out their accumulated total.

The first game in the series is called "Big Bucks, No Wammy." The bonus board contains credit amounts, bonus multipliers, and, of course, Wammies. Players get several chances to gamble their winnings in the bonus round, the goal being to collect all the bonus amounts without hitting a Wammy.

"BIGFOOT" is a second-screen video slot showcasing "The Original Monster Truck," the legendary 4x4 with the giant tires that created the car-crushing demolition derby/tractor-pull events that still tour arenas across the country. There are several different bonus features, including the "BIGFOOT Car Crush Mystery Bonus."

Here, BIGFOOT enters the primary screen and crushes car symbols on the reels to reveal bonus coins. There’s also a scatter-pay bonus that triggers one of five different second-screen bonus rounds, all featuring BIGFOOT smashing cars, jumping over flaming airplanes, maneuvering through mud or racing on figure-eight courses.

A.C. Coin & Slot is featuring both the wildly popular reel-spinning version of its "Slotto" game and a new video version engineered with the help of IGT. The video version is hilarious; one of the three bonus features is a trip to "Slotto Mart," a lottery-outlet convenience store where the customer gets to "shop" for his bonus payout. The

convenience store clerk hosting the bonus round is the stereotypical Indian immigrant, similar to the Apu character on The Simpsons.

Both versions feature the Plexiglas lotto sphere on top, in which balls swirl around on air until the player hits a button to select one, revealing a bonus.

Bally displays several new games in the standard Game Maker platform. One of the most clever is "Cash Encounters," Bally’s answer to IGT’s "Little Green Men" alien abduction theme.

IGT’s game has a bonus round in which you pick abductees from a group of people. In the second screen of this game, you pick the abductor. Three spaceships appear over a pastoral scene. There’s a barn in the background and three groups of cows in the foreground. The player picks a spaceship, and it beams one of the cows up to the ship for a bonus. They emit a comical, startled mooing sound while they’re rising through the air. The more cows, the more money.

Bally will also show a completely revamped version of "99 Bottles Of Beer." This game, a multiline video slot on the Game Magic multimedia platform, was one of Bally’s major game introductions of last year’s trade show. Bally has reworked the graphics, made the bonus events more frequent, and added on-screen bonuses.

Anchor Games introduces a huge lineup of top-box bonus games designed to add onto IGT and Bally base slots, as well as a new version of "I Dream Of Jeannie," the IGT video slot, with Anchor’s patented "bonus wheel" added.

The wheel bonus works in concert with the video screen. Players select one of several bottles from a beach on the bonus video screen, for a random number of spins on the wheel. (It’s the beach from the TV show where the astronaut found Jeannie in her bottle.) The wheel spots are multiplier amounts; the number is multiplied by the line bet.

Reprising its original alliance with Bally, Anchor is also introducing the latest descendant of the original Wheel of Gold game, called "Wheel & Deal." It’s a nine-line video slot with the original wheel game, plus a bonus game–a hand of video blackjack. If a "Deal" symbol appears in any position on the middle three reels, the screen switches to a blackjack table containing five face-down, two-card hands. The player selects a hand, and is paid the value of the two cards times the total bet. If the hand selected is a suited black Ace and Jack, the bonus is a whopping 1,250 times the total bet–a top possible bonus of more than 56,000 coins at max bet.

Finally, Anchor is launching a game that marks its first collaboration with new subsidiary VLC (which Anchor acquired last year). It’s called "Mayan Wheel Of Gold." The video slot combines the tried-and-true wheel concept with the innovations now standard on VLC’s Power Series format.

Aristocrat, now finally licensed to sell games in Nevada, will display a new type of progressive slot system, as well as a host of new games with varying degrees of complexity.

The patented Hyperlink system works differently than any other big-money progressive, in that the progressive jackpots are not won through any reel combination.

Progressives are won through a second-screen bonus game that is triggered randomly when any slot in the bank reaches a predetermined coin-in threshold. Slots on this system are linked to four separate progressive jackpots, from a "mini-jackpot" resetting at $20 to a "grand jackpot" resetting at $25,000.

With a full bank of 20 Hyperlink games, a second screen–and its shot at any of the four progressive prizes–is triggered every minute or two. Even without a full bank, but with good, steady play, the mini-progressive jackpot hits about every five minutes.

Once a bonus game is triggered, the random number generator of that machine determines which progressive jackpot the player wins–in other words, the math of the program takes over. However, with someone getting the chance to go for a life-changing jackpot every couple of minutes, there’s a constant buzz of excitement.

Among the highlights in Aristocrat’s new multiline video slots is a nine-line game called "Keep Your Hat On"–also offered in a 20-line version under the title "Bachelorette Party."

This game marks the return of the off-color Aussie humor that made "Chicken" such a success last year. This time, instead of chickens being flattened by trucks, the humor manifests itself in a hilarious second-screen bonus game depicting a male stripper.

The bonus game is triggered by three or more "screaming women" on adjacent reels. The screen depicts a fully-clothed man surrounded by zippers. The player touches a zipper to reveal a piece of clothing. If it matches something the man is wearing, off comes that piece of clothing while a bonus award racks up. The player keeps touching zippers, accumulating bonus coins, and stripping the stripper until selecting a nonmatching piece of clothing.

If the player finds all the matching clothes, well...no…it’s not what you think. The man stands there with nothing on but a top hat covering his you-know-what. And he "keeps his hat on." The hat spins around while the total bonus amount is doubled.

Sigma Game is offering "Full of Sheep," a multiline video slot game built around a comical family of sheep who share the video reels with other animals from a farm. The characters feature "Farmer Sheep" and his family, including off-the-wall cast members like "Arsenio Sheep" (he says "Whaaaats up!") and "Banjo Sheep" (he plays the banjo; the bluegrass tunes were recorded by top Chicago musicians).

One of the bonus events is the "Dream Bonus," triggered by three or more sleeping baby sheep symbols on an active pay line. The screen transforms into a surreal cartoon dream scene–the baby sheep counts sheep (What else?) jumping over a fence in dreamland. They turn into bonus coins after they jump, and accumulate until the alarm clock goes off and the player collects.

The other secondary event is called "Sheep-Tac-Toe." It’s a tic-tac-toe game between the wolf and sheep. The player chooses one of nine sheep, which each hide bonus amounts. When he picks one, the bonus amount appears and an "X" is displayed in one of nine windows on the screen. The Wolf then tosses an "O" toward the windows. If it lands in an empty spot, that window is out of play and the player chooses another sheep and another bonus amount. (Sometimes, the wolf misses the windows altogether.) Each time the player makes a "Sheep-Tac-Toe," a bonus multiplier increases incrementally.

WMS Gaming is introducing "Money Grab," the first game in the popular "Monopoly" series to utilize the dual-video-screen technology first seen in "Cast for Cash." The primary multiline game carries the familiar Monopoly theme and special bonus features, but the main bonus feature is a money-grab booth. As with Cast for Cash, the two video screens link together for the main bonus round. A collection of brand-new characters–some of the funniest ever to be created by WMS–mills around on the lower video screen until the player selects one. That character walks to the top of the main screen and reappears in the top-box screen to walk into the money-grab booth, a glass box with cash swirling around inside. The participant tries to grab as much money as he can in the time allotted.

WMS is also launching the "Puzzle Pays" series. These slots involve word games of one type or another.

The first game in the series, to be displayed at the trade show, is "Jumble," a nine-line video slot in the dual-screen "Cast for Cash" platform. It’s based on the popular 45-year-old scrambled word game that appears daily in some 600 newspapers across the country. The Jumble bee character from the newspaper is featured with a supporting cast of bees both in primary game reel symbols and in three separate bonus features.

The top-box video screen displays a beehive beside the traditional Jumble puzzle, which displays five words with the letters scrambled. The primary screen fades and reappears as an "audience" of animated bees. On the upper screen, the game show host ("Buzz Buzzby") and the queen bee, a Vanna White-style hostess ("Queenie Monroe"), emerge from the hive and fly around.

The player is prompted to pick one of the bees in the audience. The bees chatter funny lines while the player is making his picks. The bee selected either gives the player a letter to help solve the puzzle or a special tile that multiplies the bonus values in the puzzle. The player picks audience members until one word in the puzzle is solved. The words start out short and get longer further down the screen; the longer words pay larger bonuses.

These games only scratch the surface of the incredible array of new slots being introduced this month. As usual, watch Strictly Slots for the details of each new game as it is delivered to the nation’s casinos.