Stone Gaze of Medusa

Stone Gaze of Medusa: Slot Overview

Might be best to look away now, readers, not from the review, but from the review's main character. In this game, the leading lady is none other than the snake-haired Gorgon from antiquity, Medusa, who had the ability to turn anyone who looks directly into her eyes into stone. Bummer. The slot is Stone Gaze of Medusa and has been designed by software developer Stakelogic as a contribution to the rapidly expanding collection of scatter-paying slots crowding the market.

Hmm, scatter-paying slots with a character from Ancient Greek belief… it feels like we've heard of this sort of thing before. Just kidding you. Obviously, Stone Gaze of Medusa follows a path laid down deeply by Pragmatic Play's mega-hit scatter-paying slot Gate of Olympus. Instead of Olympus, however, Stone Gaze of Medusa takes place in a busted-up location of fallen columns and twisted stairs, ruled by the wiggling snake-haired entity herself. Medusa takes her place next to the reels as tradition dictates, and she lands on the reels as part of the bonus scatter symbol.

Stone Gaze of Medusa's active gaming area is a 6x5 space where winning combinations are made up of 8 or more identical symbols landing anywhere on the board. A highly volatile slot with respectable winning potential, the default RTP of this game comes in at 96% while taking wagers of 10 c to $/€50 per spin. Another thing to be aware of is Stone Gaze of Medusa's Super Stake ante bet, which is optional gambling extra. When the Super Stake is active, the stake increases by 25% 'for extra chances of hitting insanely valuable winning combinations!' Whatever this precisely means is unclear.

For pay symbol, Stone Gaze of Medusa lands purple, green, blue, orange, and red gems as its lower pays, as well as daggers, goblets, helmets, and shields as the highs. Winning combinations of 8-9 OAK are worth 0.3 to 5 times the bet, while 15-of-a-kind scatter wins pay 2.5x to 50x the bet. The cascade mechanism removes winning symbols from the reels, allowing others to drop down and replace them. Cascading continues until no win is formed after the symbols drop.

Stone Gaze of Medusa: Slot Features

Avert your eyes from Medusa's gaze to check out the features, which include multiplier symbols, Power symbols, free spins, and a free spins buy.

Multiplier Symbols

Multiplier symbols bearing values of x2 to x1,000 may land in the base game or in free spins. When they do land, the total multiplier values are added together and applied to scatter wins on the spin.

Power Symbols

In the base game and the free spins round, Power symbols of varying values may land, affecting the game like so:

• Level 1 Power Symbol - turns to stone and destroys all 1 of a kind symbols.
• Level 2 Power Symbol - turns to stone and destroys all 1 or 2-of-a-kind symbols.
• Level 2 Power Symbol - turns to stone and destroys all 1, 2, or 3-of-a-kind symbols.

Free Spins

Medusa is printed on the scatter symbols, which land anywhere on the gaming grid. Getting 4, 5, or 6 scatters on the board means 10, 15, or 30 free spins are respectively awarded. During free spins, all landed multipliers are collected by a global multiplier, which gets applied to winning combinations. It is possible to win more free spins while the free spins round is in action.

Buy Free Spins

Stone Gaze of Medusa lets players buy the free spins bonus round for the cost of 100x their bet.

Stone Gaze of Medusa: Slot Verdict

Barely a week goes by, it seems, without at least one reference to the mack daddy of scatter-paying slots, Gates of Olympus. Stakelogic has at least attempted to distance Stone Gaze of Medusa from Pragmatic Play's mega-hit through the use of Power symbols, bigger multiplier symbols, and tweaks to the free spins global multiplier. Is it enough to step the game out of the super popular Zeus-populated slot's shadows? Probably not, but Stone Gaze of Medusa is arguably different enough for scatter-paying slot aficionados to go out of their way to have a try.

Different, how you might be asking? Well, it is nice that multipliers are added to the global multiplier, which then gets applied to winning combinations throughout the free spins round, regardless of whether a multiplier landed at the same time as a win. Gates of Olympus famously requires a win and a multiplier symbol to hit at the same time for the global multiplier to spring into action. The max win is quite impressive, too, going all the way up to a win cap of 10,000x the bet. That leaves the Power symbols. They're not a bad add-on either, as they add a pinch of spice to the proceedings.

It means that Stone Gaze of Medusa puts a few degrees of separation between itself and the slot it's both trying to be and not to be. And so, in this world of Gates of Olympus wannabes we find ourselves floating in, Stone Gaze of Medusa might not be a prime challenger for the number one spot, but it also isn't the worst bandwagoner out there.