Big Money Show

Slot machine name:  Big Money Show

Manufacturer: WMS

Slot Type: Video / G+ series

Lines: 30 lines 

Reel dimensions: 3x5

Bonuses: Free spins bonus round

Rebranded:  No exact copies, but is part of the G+ series.

Progressive:  No progressive.

Author's Rating: 6 / 10


Big Money Show is one of the entries in WMS's G+ series.  G+ machines are generally known for their moderate volatility, and free spin based bonus rounds.

Big Money Show's bonus round is triggered by getting three or more scattered bonus symbols during regular play.  The player will receive 12 bonus spins regardless of the number of bonus symbols they get.

On each spin during the bonus rounds, a random multiplier between 2x and 5x will be applied to the results.  Some symbols on the 5th reel have a boomerang symbol on top of them in addition to the regular symbol.  If the boomerang appears anywhere on the 5th reel, then the multiplier will be between 4x and 30x instead. In my experience the multiplier averaged around 7x.

The bonus round may be retriggered during the free spins, resulting in 12 additional free spins.

Forbidden Dragons by WMS

Slot machine name:  Forbidden Dragons

Manufacturer: WMS

Slot Type: Video / Colossal Reels

Lines: 100 lines (usually 50 credits minimum bet)

Reel dimensions: One reel set 4x5, and one colossal reel set with 12x5

Bonuses: Free spins bonus round

Rebranded:  Van Helsing Colossal Reels is an exact reskinned copy.  Also shares many features with other Colossal Reel games.

Progressive:  No progressive.

Author's Rating: 9 / 10

Forbidden Dragons is the most fun I've had playing a slot in quite a while.  I've played multi-games before, but this was my first venture into the Colossal Reels series.  The game features a standard 5x4 reel set on the left, and a gigantic 5x12 reel set on the right.  All reels stop in sequential order from left to right.

If a player manages to fill a whole column in the left reel set with stacked wilds, then that entire column of wilds transfers over to the 5x12 set of reels on the right also, creating a gigantic 12 wild symbols!

The bonus free spins can be initiated by getting three or more bonus symbols. The symbols appear on reels 1,3, and 5 of both the 5x4 reel set and the 5x12 reel set. A player only needs 3 total bonus symbols to trigger the bonus. That is, you can get one bonus symbol on the 5x4 set and two bonus symbols on the 5x12 set and that would still trigger the bonus.

During the bonus spins, any pays that you pull off on the right colossal reel set are multiplied by five. This is creates a bit more volatility than the other games in the colossal series, but can create some pretty big pays.

Overall I found this game quite fun, and one of the more original concepts I've seen from WMS recently.  I'd suggest you give it a few spins and see what you think.

Cassiopeia by Konami

Slot machine name:  Cassiopeia

Manufacturer: Konami

Slot Type: Video

Lines: 40 lines

Reel dimensions: 5 reels in a 4-5-4-5-4 configuration (22 symbols total)

Bonuses: Free spin bonus with mirror reels feature.

Rebranded: Part of Konami's Konxion mirror reels series

Progressive:  No progressive

Author's Rating: 8 / 10.




Konami's Cassiopeia is part of of the Konxion series, which introduces a reel configuration of 4-5-4-5-4. A nice feature of this configuration for the player is that the lines are not confusing. A line is any two symbols which connect left-to-right. Lines don't scatter top to bottom or in any other configuration. If the symbols touch then it is a playable line.  As a result of this, there is no choice to the player for number of lines to play - only bet per line.

Cassiopeia features stacked symbols, including stacked wilds, both during the bonus rounds and during normal play. The fact that all symbols are stacked, not just wilds, as well as the game's relatively low number of symbols contributes to Cassiopia's low to medium volatility.

The bonus is triggered by getting three or more scattered column symbols.

• 3 symbols: 10 free spins
• 4 symbols: 15 free spins
• 5 symbols: 25 free spins

During the free spins, Cassiopeia's mirror reels feature kicks in.  This feature causes the 1st and 5th reel, and the 2nd and 4th reels to be duplicates.  Therefore, if you line up symbols on the first three reels, you will automatically have the final two symbols to complete a 5-of-a-kind. When combined with the stacked symbols that are fairly common, it's not unusual to see larger pays during the game's bonus round.

The video below features a re-triggered bonus round with a single pay involving stacked symbols.

Valiant Knight by WMS

Slot machine name:  Valiant Knight

Manufacturer: WMS Gaming

Slot Type: Video (4 games)

Lines: 20 lines per game

Reel dimensions: 5 reels, 3 symbols per reel, 4 games per play.

Bonuses: Free spins with wilds and multiplier when one or more games has three scattered king symbols.

Rebranded: Part of the super multi pay series, including St. Petersburg, Nautilus, GEMS GEMS GEMS , Rose of Cairo, Silver Sword, and Samurai Master.

Progressive:  No progressive

Author's Rating: 7 / 10.


Note, this is not the same as the version with the major / minor jackpots with the same name.




Valiant Knight is part of WMS's Super Multi Pay line of slots. All the machines in this line are 4 game machines. Bets are offered in denominations of 20, 40, 60, and 80 credits. For each twenty credits the player bets, one of the four games is opened up. Each game has twenty lines. It is highly to the player's advantage to play all four games - 80 credits.


Knight is similar to it's counterpart GEMS GEMS GEMS in that the primary reel spins first, and any bonus or wild symbols the player gets are then transferred to all three of the side games. Valiant Knight's variance in the base game is a bit lower than Gems due to the fact that Gems' wild symbols are stacked, whereas Knight wilds are not.


The bonus round in Knight is initiated when the player obtains three scattered king symbols on any of the four games.  The number of kings determines the number of free spins:

• 3 king symbols = 5 free spins
• 4 king symbols = 10 free spins
• 5 king symbols = 10 free spins + 100x total bet

If the player obtains 3 or more king symbols on multiple games, then the free spins and winnings will be added together. For example, if a player got three kings on the primary game (transferring all three to the three sub-games), then obtained a forth king on one of the sub games, the player would get 5+5+5+10 = 25 free spins.

The bonus round has only one set of reels as opposed to four.  During the bonus round, wilds on the 5th reel are replaced with "5x" and "10x" knights. Whenever a multiplier knight appears on the 5th reel, he transforms all other wild symbols on other reels into the same multiplier as he is, even if the 5th reel wild is not part of the paying line.  This amounts to a high variance bonus round when compared to the base game.

Credit to casinomannj on Youtube for the below video.