Let’s Get Ready to Rumble

Let's Get Ready to Rumble Slot (Relax Gaming): Overview

Earlier this year, Relax Gaming unveiled its first-ever branded video slots signed in agreement with legendary sports announcer brothers Michael and Bruce Buffer. The first of these to roll out, Let's Get Ready to Rumble, features the imagery and trademark cry of boxing announcer Michael Buffer, known for his instantly-recognizable "Let's get ready to rummmmble!" catchphrase. Whether or not Relax Gaming had to pay through the nose to persuade Michael to lend his voice remains unknown, but it certainly wasn't free. According to ABC News, Michael's world-famous catchphrase has generated over $400 million in revenue.

Wrap your hands and put on your boxing gloves, it's time to get in the ring and face the random number generator in this 6x4, 466 ways to win slot powered by Relax Gaming. It may have the mathematical upper hand, but thankfully, there are some features to help you along the way. On any spin, sticky re-spins may come into play with potential to land you a full screen of matching symbols or, better yet, up to 5 stacked wild reels in the shape of punching bags. The knockout, however, is delivered in the Rumble Spin feature where you'll benefit from Cross Wilds, Uppercut Wilds, Wild Hooks and, finally, the Title Fight which is played on an expanded reel set. Medium to high variance, you can play it across all devices from 0.10 to €/$100 per spin.

Visually, the Let's Get Ready to Rumble video slot has more in common with arcade-style boxing games than the more realistic and grown-up PEGI 18+ variants. In fact, there's no sign of violence whatsoever. No punches being thrown, no brain-damaged boxer slurring the name of his inamorata, heck - not even a single drop of blood. Not that we're a bunch of brutes craving guts and gore, it's just that it looks too harmless.

Set in a jam-packed arena, and with crowd noise heard in the background, symbols on the reels include an assortment of lower-paying bandages as well as medium-value microphones, ringside bells, boxing gloves, and championship belts. The license only allows for Relax to use Michael Buffer's face and voice, so the three premium character symbols don't represent famous boxers but are all generic. The most rewarding, of course, is Michael himself - six of him on a full payline will give you 4 times your stake. The speed bag is the wild; it appears on all reels and substitutes for all symbols.

Let's Get Ready to Rumble Slot (Relax Gaming): Features

Let's Get Ready to Rumble does not include any scatter symbols because there are no bonuses to trigger, at least not the traditional way. In total, there are three randomly triggered features which can come into play on any spin.

First out is the Sticky Spin feature. Triggered randomly on a winning combination, all winning symbols stick while a re-spin is played. If new symbols connect, these will also connect and yet another re-spin is played. This continues until either all tiles are covered with matching symbols or no more symbols add to the original win.

There's also a Wild Stacks feature which can activate on any spin and add between 2-5 fully stacked wild reels. Wild stacks cannot be placed on the leftmost reel, however.

The highlight is the Rumble Spins feature. Essentially, this is the game's free spins bonus which also means it's the hardest one to trigger. Here you will benefit from 4 types of enhancement features awarded sequentially before the reels come to a stop. These modifiers are:

• Cross Wilds - 3-5 wild symbols are placed randomly on the reel set.
• Uppercut Wild - A stock of wild symbols is placed on the rightmost reel, covering the full currently active reel.
• Wild Hook - Moves a wild stack from the rightmost reel to reel 2 or 3. If the active reel area is larger than the wild stack, it also expands the stack to fill the full active reel.
• Title Fight - Here, the active play area is increased by adding 2 additional rows above and below the reel set, expanding it from 466 paylines to 1436 ways to win.

Let's Get Ready to Rumble Slot (Relax Gaming): Verdict

As we've seen in the past, branded slots can be a hit and miss affair, and we have even speculated whether or not the added cost of the licensing has forced some developers to even things out by turning their branded titles into bloodsucking horror games. If you want to see for yourself, just boot up NetEnt's Planet of the Apes or, even worse, Emoji Planet...ugh. Come to think of it; this has mainly been an issue with NetEnt, although examples can be found elsewhere as well.

So where does Let's Get Ready to Rumble stand in the midst of things? Well, it certainly won't go down in history as the best branded slot, that we can tell you for sure. Why, you might ask. First of all, the layout feels horribly dated. With 6 reels and 4 rows, 4096 win-all-ways should be the norm, otherwise, just stick to the usual 5x3 standard. On the superficial side of things, the visual presentation feels equally dated, and to build a whole game around an announcer, regardless of how famous, seems a bit pointless as there's little to work with. Essentially, all there is to it really are the voice-overs and the picture symbols of Michael, the rest is just generic which, at times, makes you forget its supposed to be a branded slot.

You can win up to 1,864 times your stake in the base game, and 2389x in the Rumble Spins feature, which is quite disappointing. Ultimately, Let's Get Ready to Rumble lacks the ability to knock your socks off but can at least deliver a sucker-punch when you least expect it.