Starburst

If you are reading this review and have never played or heard of Starburst, a game from leading software studio NetEnt, where have you been for the last several years? Starburst is undoubtedly one of the most popular video slots of all time, and many will suggest it is the best the industry has ever seen.

Now, you could look at Starburst and question why players, experts, and casino operators hold it in such high regard. Because let's face it, it looks relatively straightforward with its ten paylines and five reels. But, this is the element that makes Starburst the iconic slot that it is.

If you have been around the slot game world, online casinos or read reviews before, you will know that all the top games that have legendary status go with the simple but effective approach. So yes, it’s fun and exciting to play modern titles that have all these new functions and features, but do they appeal to everyone?

What NetEnt managed to do with Starburst is to develop a game that everyone would have no problem getting to grips with. And to do this, they had to ensure the slot looks the part but retains a level of simplicity that creates ease of use but an incentive to keep spinning the reels.

You only need to look at how NetEnt presents Starburst or spin the reels for a brief moment to get what we’re saying. And, we mentioned the idea of developing a game that is for the majority, rather than the few, with another component of the slot helping to deliver on this.

You can spin the reels of this popular NetEnt title from as little as 0.10, which is an excellent entry-level bet, with wagers going as high as 100.

Let’s be honest, nobody is expecting anything out of the ordinary or super innovative when it comes to the features in Starburst. And, it’s not a bad thing or a negative. But, it’s just not the approach intended by NetEnt, and if they were to hop off in a different direction here, it’d send out a mixed message to players and take away from what is so good about the game.

So, in keeping with the simple but effective approach, Starburst’s main icons are gems of different colours – purple, blue, orange, green and yellow. The yellow, which has golden elements, is the top payer of these symbols, which makes sense. There is also the 7 sphere, which can pay up to 12x the bet, and the BAR sphere, which will potentially produce wins of up to twenty-five times the stake.

As far as bonus rounds go, you get one in Starburst, but it’s more than enough. The feature involved wilds, which can appear on reels 2, 3 and 4 during the game. When this happens, the feature will trigger, regardless of which reels the wild or wilds land on.

The wild will expand on triggering the bonus round to give players a completely wild reel. It will then lock into position, and a re-spin will take place. The aim is for another wild to appear, to repeat the process.

You can end up with three completely wild reels, which can lead to prizes of up to 500x the bet. The feature works so well because it fits with the fast pace of the gameplay, showing thought has gone into how the game flows.

The popularity of Starburst, and the reputation of the game's developer NetEnt, very much speak for themselves. Video slots really don't get much better than this. And, if they do, we're yet to find one. Starburst is a simple yet effective game with a fast pace and soundtrack to match, and it will go down in history as one of the most incredible slots of all time.