Athens Megaways

Review Athens Megaways

If there is one city that still echoes down the ages, it is the Greek city of Athens (although people from Rome would probably disagree). Yet, very few cities still manage to capture the imagination like Athens. Its Golden Age might have occurred a few centuries ago, but it’s still a great city to visit, full of art, architecture, and culture. Thanks to games like Athens Megaways, New Zealanders can use a bit of imagination to pretend they’ve stepped back into the past to meet Pericles or check out a tragedy at one of the amphitheatres. Does this sound like a good idea to you? Let’s go ahead and take a closer look.

The background of Athens Megaways looks like a painting. Ancient Athens is depicted in a romantic and realistic way, which gives you a feeling that you are really wandering around in the city. The attention to detail is something to point out as this provider has really put an effort into presenting a visually attractive game. It is difficult to describe the ambiance in the Athens of Athens Megaways, but those familiar with the atmosphere of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey will probably find some similarities. That popular video game also took place in the Athens of Classical Antiquity.

How to Play

Load this online pokie on your desktop, laptop, or smartphone running the Android, iOS, or Windows operating systems and you’ll find yourself surrounded by classic Greek symbols against a realistic background of Athens. There are some great graphics when the gods unleash wild ghosts, water horses, or bolts of lightning onto the reels, with a traditional soundtrack to build up the excitement during each spin.

Spinning the reels start at $ 0.10 and $ 100 and it’s easy to pick a level that fits your budget tapping on the Stake button. The Auto tab you find next to this will let you play without the need to click a button whilst the Turbo mode will make sure that the pace and action get’s sped up if so desired.

The 3 lines you find at the top of the game take you through to the game’s paytable. Athens Megaways takes place on a grid of 6 reels and from 2 to 7 symbols placed randomly on each to change the number of ways to win on every spin. With a max of 7 symbols on all reels you will have 117,649 different ways to win which is as good as it can get in a Megaways game. The paytable also lists how much each symbol is worth when you match them across connected reels as seen from the left side, with the helmet worth up to 3x the bet.

Symbol Wins

The game theme is all about Ancient Greece, with the reels set in front of a hillside where you can see the ancient temples that nowadays welcome tourists from around the world. The background of this game is very basic and the reels are not that exciting either. The overall look and feel of the game might be a bit dull at first, but things ramp up quickly once one of the bonus features gets triggered. The music of the game is quite calm as you spin away in the base game, but takes a dramatic turn during the bonus feature.

We have to say that we enjoyed the intensity of this and all the graphics and sound effects are well taken care of. On the reels, you’ll find yourself different letters from the Greek alphabet which represent the low values: Delta, theta, Sigma, Psi and Omega. These are joined by high value symbols like Lyres, pots, horns, shields and helmets. The helmet is the most profitable symbol in the game, awarding 0.7, 1.2, 2 or 3x the bet for combinations of 3, 4, 5 or 6.

The game’s wild symbols are recognised by souls that rise from the dead. These appear on the middle 4 reels only. Then, we also have some Super Wilds that are of overall importance in the gameplay. Here’s a complete table showing you the symbols you’ll come across in the game by Red Tiger:

Bonus Features

Every winning combination is removed from the playing field in Athens Megaways. New symbols are then placed at the top of the playing field, filling the empty positions. This means that the spin is not over yet, because these new symbols can lead to new winning combinations. The spin only comes to an end when new symbols no longer yield winning combinations.

In terms of features, the base game largely depends on 3 modifiers, which can be activated at any given time. Then there is also the free spins feature in Athens Megaways.

3 Modifiers

Three modifiers can rotate a 180 degrees spin during the base game. This can be activated at any given time coming with the following modifiers.

1. Soul Pit: 2 to 9 soul wilds are placed on the middle 4 reels.
2. Sea Fury: a full reel super wild can land on any of the 4 middle reels. This is a wild symbol that occupies the entire size of the reel. The full reel super wild has a multiplier of at least x2 and a maximum of x7. This applies to every winning combination it is part of.
3. Olympus Blessing: in an active spin, a progressive win multiplier comes into play. The multiplier starts at a minimum of x2 and goes up to a maximum of x5. Every time the waterfall mechanism gets triggered, the multiplier increases and at the end of the spin, this win multiplier is applied to the total win.

Athens Megaways Free Spins

You trigger 8 free spins by spinning 3 scatters in Athens Megaways. Before the free spins feature starts, 3 temples appear on the screen. You must choose 1 of these, which will trigger 1 of 3 modifiers. This is the only modifier that can be activated during the free spins feature, but it happens a lot more frequently than in the base game.

In addition, a win multiplier is also active during the free spins feature. This multiplier starts at x1 and is increased by +1 each time a winning combination is created on the playing field. This multiplier can go up to x20. It is important to know that the multiplier isn’t reset between spins.

The Olympus Blessing multiplier, should that be the win modifier, will be added to the free spins multiplier. However, the same rule remains that the multiplier is capped at x20. Furthermore, each spinned scatter awards an extra free spin.

Payout Metrics

The Athens Megaways RTP is set at 95.68%, which is quite a bit lower than what we would call the industry average for an online pokie. We need to note here that it is not uncommon for a Megaways pokie to dive somewhere below 96%, especially if the max win is fairly good. In terms of variance, Athens Megaways sits somewhere in the medium to high range. The max win in the Athens Megaways game is 19,992.7x your bet, which is quite generous. It’s not as high as some of the best Megaways pokies we’ve come across lately, but it is by no means a low figure. The Free Spins feature will be your best chance of getting anywhere near this max payout which is largely thanks to all the multipliers that come into play.

Summary

We highly enjoyed the visual presentation in this online pokie game, and Red Tiger Gaming has managed to give the game its own touch of authenticity even though it’s probably not how historic Athens originally looked like when it was at its peak. We reckon that most players won’t mind this at all as the 3 randomly triggered modifiers are still enough to keep the base game alive and interesting, and we very much like the dramatic effect when each of the features get triggered.

Capping the progressive multiplier at x20 might not have been the smartest choice if you ask us, but at the same we don’t really expect players to complain about this as Red Tiger Gaming has spiced the game up with an excellent max potential win of 19,992x the bet. This is a very good number on itself, but particularly high for Red Tiger Gaming that usually doesn’t offer max wins as generous as these. All in all, we consider Athens Megaways a game that is very well produced and adds yet another entertaining instalment to the overly crowded Greek mythology niche.