Guns N’ Roses

Guns N’ Roses: Overview

If there was one band that was guaranteed to fill stadiums in the late 80s/90s big hair era, it was LA rockers Guns N' Roses. Swedish developer NetEnt has taken all of the excitement of their tight jeaned music and crammed it into their branded slot of the same name. The result is the most successful title in NetEnt’s popular trilogy of rock series.

At the time of writing, the band still tours, but if you can't make it to a gig, why not get a taste of one with the slot version which comes with a bunch of GNR tracks. Ready to be welcomed to the jungle? Let's sample NetEnt's sweet child of a slot and see how hard it rocks.

Hey, we didn't use the concert idea just as a metaphor. The Guns N' Roses 5-reel, 3-row game grid is set at a gig with a crowd that literally leaps around and cheers during the game. Flashing lights against a cloudy sky complete the outdoor concert visuals, and if you squint a bit, use some imagination - you're there, sort of. Sounds are as heavy as any fan would hope for, with plenty musical highlights. Get started with stakes that favour a wide variety of betting requirements from 20 p/c up to the rock star level of $/€200 per spin.

The game has 20 paylines on which to land combinations of three or more matching symbols for a win. GNR features heavily throughout the paytable with the golden 10-A royals adorned in roses, while the premiums are two album cover guitar picks, Duff, Slash, and frontman Axel Rose.

Values for premiums are pretty high and range from 7.5x for the blue pick up to 37.5x for five Axels. The infamous band logo makes an appearance as the wild which substitutes for any of the pay symbols, and can land in 1x1 size or cover full reels which we will see in a moment.

Like the wide variety of bets there is a wide variety of RTP settings so make sure to keep an eye out for that before firing up the lads. On the insanely low side it may found at 90.05% all the way up to the insanely high 99.05% depending on the operator settings. GNR will most likely be found at the default RTP of 96.98% which is a pretty generous figure indeed. The math model, meanwhile, has been tuned to a low/medium setting, with a hit rate which varies from 28.33% - 28.49% depending on RTP version.

Guns N’ Roses: Features

You want features? You'll find plenty here during both the base and bonus game. The main game has three random features - Legend Spins, Appetite for Destruction Wild, and the Solo multiplier to look out for.

Legend Spins are activated at random and award 1 stacked wild for the first spin, then 2 respins with 2 stacked wild reels. The Appetite for Destruction Wild feature randomly overlays the reels with the shape of a cross in one of three positions when activated. This cross-shaped wild can substitute for anything except the bonus symbols. Finally, the Solo Multiplier is a random multiplier of x4-x10 that may randomly appear when there is a win on the first three reels.

Keeping up with the triple motif, when 3 scatter symbols appear on reels 1, 3, and 5 during the base game, a spin on the Bonus Wheel is awarded which results in one of three things – Encore Free Spins, the Crowd-Pleaser Bonus, or a coin win.

Encore Free Spins awards 10 free spins that are not retriggerable. With each free spin, one of the band members lands as a stacked wild on reels 2, 3, or 4. If any matching band member symbols appear on that spin, they also turn wild.

The Crowd Pleaser feature is a picking bonus game with three levels. Players choose from 8 musical icons such as instruments, to reveal coin wins, free spins, or +1 pick symbols. On level 1, players start with three picks, with the goal of colleting 60 coins which move them to level 2. On level 2, players get more picks and need to collect 240 more coins to make it to level 3 for more picks. Should players rack up 800 coins or more in level 3, then the total win from the Crowd Pleaser Bonus is doubled. Alternatively, free spins are awarded if players pick at least 3 free spins icons throughout the feature.

Last, and kind of least, should the Bonus Wheel stop on the coin win prize, players win from a minimum of 200 up to a maximum of 600 coins.

Guns N’ Roses: Verdict

Some branded slots can feel like the developer took an old math model, pasted a few familiar images over the top and fired it at players looking for an easy buck. Not so Guns N' Roses, which comes across as a labour of love for fans of the band. The look, vibe and most importantly, the sound has been expertly captured to make players feel like they have standing access at one of GNR's concerts. You can virtually hear every one of Axel's vocals, with Slash's blurred fingers darting across the fretboard.

So NetEnt nailed the vibe, how about the gameplay? The good news is that the mechanics and features are just as enjoyable as any other aspect of the game, if not better. The only let down, is the rather truncated potential, though with the lower volatility, wins land theoretically more frequently than a high variance beast which will suit gamblers who like a steady stream of hits.

To sum up, NetEnt's Guns N' Roses is a slot that rocks hard. The band's ethos has been captured well and the game overflows with effective features. Guns N' Roses is definitely one for fans of the group, or any player looking for a gentler, feature-rich slot with plenty going on.