Cleopatra

Even back in the day of land-based casinos, Cleopatra stood out as something special. Players often shared success stories of this slot, which in turn, drove more people to try it out.

And that was all we had! Unlike the online games of today, we didn’t have the volatility and RTP clearly available to make our picks. So when IGT announced they would be porting their most popular release to desktop and mobile devices? We were incredibly excited at the very prospect of playing it again!

Cleopatra Slot Review

Cleopatra is played on a five reel board, with each reel being three symbols high. Players get 20 fixed paylines, which they can turn on and off at will. This allows gamblers to lower their minimum stake past the limit set by the developers. Of course, this comes at a price. With less paylines, your odds of winning are also lowered.

To win, collect three or more identical icons in adjacent positions, starting with the leftmost reel. All winning combinations must follow one of the active paylines, or else the cash prize will not be awarded.

In our excitement, we forgot how barebones old slots used to be when it comes to special features. This game is no exception to this rule, unfortunately. With only a free spins round with all wins tripled, it’s great if you’re looking for something simple and fun. It’s also quite a good release to start with if you’re relatively new to slots. Or, it would be, if it weren’t for Cleopatra’s one, major flaw!

Theme & Symbols

The flaw, of course, being the outdated graphics! The theme isn’t that badly affected. Ancient Egypt and Cleopatra have been a presence in online gambling for a while now. IGT isn’t the first one to bring them to life in a game, and they won’t be the last. Our minds were blown by this release when we first played the physical machine all those years ago. But now, several years down the line? The slot is nowhere near as impressive.

Nowhere is this more apparent than the background image. It’s just a picture of some Egyptian ruins, with a shade of hot pink painting over everything. It turns into a more manageable blue further up, but that doesn’t solve the core issue. And this is after IGT doubled back to give it a slight visual upgrade in 2017. Before that, Cleopatra didn’t have a background image at all! What we’re trying to say is this: don’t play this game for the visuals. Because you’ll be quite disappointed!

Surprisingly, it was the symbol design that spared us from ragging about the graphics too hard. Anyone who’s read our reviews knows we’re quite critical of icons. And sure, the premium symbols are all things we have seen before. Eyes of Horus, the pharaoh’s crook and flail, a tablet with hieroglyphs, and an onyx scarab. They looked cool back in the day, and the update simply turned them HD. The rich decorations even made the playing card royals look great. Fantastic work, IGT!

How to Play Cleopatra Videoslot

You play this release on a 5×3 board with 20 flexible paylines. Being able to turn paylines on or off is a mechanic mostly forgotten about in modern slots. But Cleopatra still gives you the option to use it. We usually like more choice, but we advise against turning off paylines unless you absolutely have to. It lowers your chances of winning anything. And with the RTP as low as it is, that’s not a good idea.

And while gamblers are spoiled for choice nowadays, back then, just one or two bonuses was all you got. This game gives you two special feature. However, one of them is a simple 2x multiplier attached to each Wild. The other bonus is a free spins round where all wins are tripled, except a five-of-a-kind Wild prize. And yes, it is possible to combine the free spins and Wild multipliers.

One thing we’re not big fans of is only using coins, which is what this IGT release does. This wasn’t a major issue when this was a slot in a land-based casino. You knew the value of each coin you put in the machine. However, this is a needless complication in the era of online casino’s. We know the developer went back to upgrade the graphics. They could have swapped things to display cash values instead and saved everyone the trouble! Your jackpot is worth 10,000x your total stake.

Bonus Features

After playing something like Inspector Gadget, coming back to just two special features is quite weird. We’ll admit, we like having lots of bonuses. But we’re perfectly fine with a small number of special features, so long as they’re interesting and lucrative.

• Wild Multiplier

When a Wild substitutes for any icon in a winning combination, it will automatically double the granted cash prize!

• Free Spins

Collect three, four or five Scatters to win fifteen free spins. It is possible to win more bonus turns by collecting three or more Scatters during the special feature. A maximum of 180 free spins can be played from a single bonus trigger. During free spins, all wins are multiplied by 3x. And yes, this multiplier can be combine with the Wild multiplier from before.

Cleopatra Slot Payouts

Cleopatra has a medium variance and a jackpot worth 10,000x your total stake. The slot’s RTP is 95.02%, which is a whole percentage point lower than the current industry average. To sum up in two words: not good.