The Choice Is Yours Megaways

The Choice is Yours Megaways: Slot Overview

In this modern world, does it sometimes feel like we are bombarded with an ever-increasing number of choices? Never before have we had so many options when it comes to buying a car, choosing what to watch, picking holiday destinations, where to eat out, or which shampoo to wash our hair with. In some ways, this might be a consumer paradise. However, according to psychologist Barry Schwartz, when 'everything is possible' it leads to paralysis rather than freedom, and decreases satisfaction. It's good then that while Iron Dog Studios' online slot, The Choice is Yours Megaways offers certain choices, there aren't too many and mainly revolve around picking three volatility options in free spins.

Though not explicitly stated, we're wondering if Iron Dog found inspiration for their game from an unsold 1970s game show pilot called 'The Choice is Yours', hosted by Bill Cullen. Of course, it could be a complete coincidence, fair enough. But the font used for the show and the game are kind of similar, and the slot has a vaguely 1970s feel to it, largely expressed through a funk disco number. Whatever the case, The Choice is Yours Megaways does have a game show vibe, like one of those talent programs where contestants strut their stuff on stage in front of judges who hit a buzzer to advance or deny the acts they like or dislike.

Taking centre stage is a standard Megaways game grid of 6 reels holding 2-7 symbols each and a 4 symbol horizontal tracking reel. On each spin, this highly volatile game can produce anywhere from 324 to 200,704 ways to win. The average RTP value is 96% which may change depending on whether you play normally at 10 p/c to $/€50 per spin, or buy the bonus round, if available in your jurisdiction. Stats for the latter were not up at the time of review, though.

Regular wins occur when at least two of the most valuable symbol type land left to right from the first reel, or at least three of any other pay symbol. When a winning way lands, it is destroyed and cleared from the grid in typical Megaways fashion. Symbols left on the reels tumble down to replace them, and if a new win forms, the tumble feature triggers again.. Starting from the less valuable end of the paytable are 10-A playing card icons, worth 0.4-0.5x the bet for six of a kind, followed by microphones, buzzers, two female characters, and a host. Landing a six of a kind win made up of the five higher value symbols triggers a payout of 1.5 to 20 times the stake. Lastly, wild symbols can appear on all but the first and last reels in the base or bonus round to substitute for any non-special symbol.

The Choice is Yours Megaways: Slot Features

The Choice is Yours Megaways has several features to look out for - mystery symbols, free spins with a volatility picker, and potentially a bonus buy.

Mystery Symbols

In the base game, mystery symbols can land on reels 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 and transform into either wilds or pay symbols. In the base game, mystery symbols only land on the initial spin, not on tumbles.

Free Spins

Moving from the main game to the bonus round occurs when 4 scatter symbols are in view on reels 2, 3, 4, and 5. When this happens, players get to choose one of three options for the bonus round, depending on their volatility preference – low, medium, or high. In all options, free spins have a win multiplier that increases by one following winning tumbles.

In free spins, the mystery box can appear on all reels, except the top horizontal reel – on spins or tumbles. When mystery boxes hit, they reveal wilds, pay symbols, +2 to the win multiplier, or +2 free spins. If the mystery box lands on a reel holding 7 symbols, there is a chance it will lock that reel at 7 high for the rest of the feature. Another way of extending the bonus round is with the help of consecutive tumbles. A minimum of four consecutive tumbles are needed to win an extra +2 free spins.

Buy Free Spins

Hit the star in the upper right part of the screen, if it's there, to open the bonus buy menu. Here players can pay 85x the bet for 8 low, medium, of high volatile free spins. Or 128x the bet for 12 low volatile free spins, 164x the bet for 12 medium volatile free spins, or 168x the bet for 12 high volatile free spins. The 12 spin options come with Bonus Upgrader though no specific details are provided over what this entails.

The Choice is Yours Megaways: Slot Verdict

Game show to slot crossovers have tended to be highly successful, as the Deal or No Deal/Who Wants to Be a Millionaire franchises are a testament to. Admittedly, those slots are backed by massive tv shows, so they've got audiences ready-made to tap. The Choice is Yours Megaways, on the other hand, will likely struggle to attract as many players without a massive household name behind it. Where it also differs from DOND or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is that it doesn’t really incorporate game show elements in its features. Players do get to choose volatility for free spins, but there's no hot seat or dealer situation as in the other games, so it’s a less immersive game show slot experience. It's funky and all, yet The Choice is Yours might have been more absorbing if Iron Dog had embedded a few stronger game show references.

Having three volatility options for free spins is a nice touch, giving players some influence over the proceedings and justifying the game's title. It would have been nice if they'd explained what made one option more or less volatile than the others, though. Like slots that provide multi-choice bonus rounds of varying volatilities by awarding a different number of free spins and win multiplier. Here it's not obvious what the difference is, and extra clarity would have been appreciated. From an anecdotal perspective, it seemed there were more mystery boxes in the high volatile option, but we got better returns from the low volatile one. Of course, studios calculate these things after running millions and billions of simulated spins, so these are just observations we came up with during test runs. Whatever choice players select, the win cap appears to remain a sizeable 20,000x the bet.

All in all, The Choice is Yours Megaways was a fairly enjoyable if unexceptional game. Its positive aspects include a bubbly atmosphere, free spins volatility options, and a decent win cap. It does feel a little generic without major branding behind it, so let's see if The Choice is Yours Megaways performs the online slot version of making it past the pilot stage or remaining unsold like its 70s game show namesake.