Mad Cabs

Mad Cabs: Slot Overview

Do you long for the good old days playing Crazy Taxi on your Playstation 2? If you answered yes, then Mad Cabs from software developer Iron Dog Studio might be the slot for you. Mad Cabs celebrates paid transportation in a variety of forms while dishing out gaming devices such as Call a Noober, which expands pay symbols, free spins, and a bonus buy feature.

According to the Internet, the word 'cab' is the shortened form of 'cabriolet', which was a single horse-drawn two-wheeled vehicle that was popular for hire in Paris and London back in the day. The word has stuck and now refers to a taxi when talking about vehicles for hire. Mad Cabs has taxis, but it also has tuk-tuks and limos sprinkled across its gaming grid. The setting for Mad Cabs is downtown on a street with no people and no cars, so not the best time to be tooling around for a cab, in other words. Upping the 'mad' stakes or attempting to at least is an energetic rock soundtrack, leaning towards pop punk in free spins, and while the total effect might not be as 'mad' as the game's makers were shooting for, it's pretty unique all the same, which is something.

For more info on the gaming grid, it is made up of 5 reels, holding 4 symbols each, and covered in 20 paylines. To the lower right of the screen is a coins icon where players may select a stake from 20 p/c to $/€50 per spin, and there are three buy features available as well. Running on a medium-high volatile math model, Mad Cabs produces a default RTP of 95.06%, which changes when buying free spins.

Mad Cabs has nine regular pay symbols, creating a regular line win when matching symbols land from the left side of the screen over consecutive reels. The lower value 5 are racing-styled 10 to A card ranks awarding 1 to 2 times the bet for a 5 symbol win, while the high pays are a Tuk-Tuk, a Black Cab, a Yellow Taxi, and a Limo. Hitting a 5 OAK premium combination awards 10 to 125 times the stake. Flaming wilds also land on all reels, substituting for all non-special symbols. When making wins of themselves, wilds have the same value as the highest-paying Limo symbol.

Mad Cabs: Slot Features

To potentially up the winning possibilities or pretend to catch a ride, then Mad Cabs' features are the Call a Noober extra, free spins, and bonus buys.

Call a Noober

In the base game, landing at least 2 different sets of Mad Cab symbols (premium car symbols) that could form a win triggers Call a Noober. A set consists of 3 or more Tuk-Tuks, Black Cabs, Yellow Cabs, or 2+ Limos. Once activated, one of the Mad Cab symbols on the reels is picked at random and expands to cover the reels they are on. Expanded symbols pay all lines and do not have to be adjacent to award a win. Regular wins are not paid on spins when there is a Call a Noober payout.

Free Spins

Landing 3, 4, or 5 Noober scatters in the base game awards 10, 15, or 20 free spins, respectively. Scatters appear on all reels, once per reel, and only appear in the base game. During free spins, the Call a Noober triggers when there are Mad Cab symbols on 3 or more reels. The Mad Cab symbol selected transforms other Mad Cab symbols on the reels to match before expanding occurs.

Buy Feature

From the feature buy menu, players can buy 5 free spins for 40x the bet, 10 free spins without Tuk-Tuks for 80x the bet, or 10 free spins with only Black Cabs and Yellow Taxis for 80x the bet.

Mad Cabs: Slot Verdict

People have been paying other people to take them places for hundreds of years, maybe more, and while taxis abound on our streets, they aren't something you see much in gambling. So, it has fallen to Iron Dog Studio to give them some time in the spotlight, and you know, Mad Cabs has its moments, but all in all, it wasn't a game that we'd visualise hailing overly often.

One of the concerns revolves around the speed of the game, which is odd given it's about road travel. For instance, the cleverly named Call a Noober sequence is pretty nifty the first few times it occurs but turns into a bit of a time sucker after a while. A switch to turn the animation on or off might have been handy, though it's not so long. What the feature can do, stack the reels with identical symbols is a benefit, however, and one can dream about doing so with the Limo symbol spread across all five reels. In this scenario, the reward would be 2,500x the bet. 'Just' repeat the full-screen Limo 2 further times, and you've hit Mad Cabs' max win of 7,500x the stake. Also, maybe consider not getting the third bonus buy if you're shooting for maximum full-screen glory since it removes Tuk-Tuks as well as Limos from the reels - Black Cab and Yellow Cab full-screen wins are worth 300x and 400x, respectively.

The lingering feeling, once we'd reached our destination, was that Mad Cabs was to Iron Dog Studio what Road Rage was to Nolimit City. A deviation from the norm, boasting a few interestingly unusual features, but one which felt a little oddly unfulfilling overall.