Trojan Horse Slot Machine
While you pretty much know what you’re going to get with any Zeus Gaming title, every now and then the software designers do mix it up and create a game that has clearly had a little bit of extra attention paid to it during the developmental stage – and like the famous Le Mystere Du Prince, Trojan Horse is one such title.
Looking much like any other 5-reel slot from Zeus Gaming at first glance, once you start playing the game you’ll notice all manner of little graphical flourishes and pieces of custom music that set the title apart from similarly-structured slots, making it far more engrossing experience for players.
Beware Greeks Bearing Gifts
Featuring adjustable paylines and a variable coin amount, at the start of each spin in Trojan Horse, players must configure two buttons. The first selects the number of active paylines in play (with anywhere between 1 and 9 available), while the second allows players to bet anywhere between 1 and 50 coins per line. When combined, this means the game can be played for 9-450 coins per spin.
The minimum payout in Trojan Horse is 5x your stake per line for matching any three regular playing card symbols or any two higher value symbols, with the exception of Odysseus, who awards 10x your stake. Payouts rise significantly for the more valuable symbols – especially when more than three are matched – with the maximum prize award being 5,000x your bet for five Odysseus icons.
The Trojan Horse itself is also an important symbol in the game, with players receiving between 18x and 1,800x their line bet depending on how many they match. It is also a scatter symbol that triggers 10 free spins with an expanding icon feature, but we’ll cover that in more detail a bit later on.
Horsing Around
As mentioned previously, Trojan Horse is a well-designed slot that features a bit more in the way of graphical flair than a lot of Zeus Gaming titles. The reels themselves are adorned with shields, helmets and two characters from the Greek legend – Odysseus and Helen of Troy – while even the regular playing card symbols have been given a slight tweak to make them look more relevant.
Visually-speaking, the game’s main strength lies in its animations, with each symbol coming to life when it features in a winning payline. This is particularly evident for the Trojan horse wild symbol, which opens up to unleash an army of Greek soldiers when the bonus feature is activated. This creates a real sense of excitement around the free spins, which are accompanied by great music.
The audio featured in Trojan Horse is also better than in other Zeus Gaming titles, with dramatic battle music being played each spin instead of the beeps and whirs that usually come as standard.
Siege Mentality
Although the basic payouts in Trojan Horse are already fairly substantial, the game’s real rewards are reserved for the bonus feature. Activated by finding three or more Trojan horse symbols across the game’s 5 reels, players receive 10 free spins and also benefit from an expanding symbol throughout.
At the start of the bonus round, a Trojan horse will be overlaid on top of the reels. Its hatch will drop down to reveal another reel, which will begin to spin and eventually stop on one regular icon. This icon will then become your expanding symbol during the free spins, meaning that whenever three or more appear on the gameboard, they’ll grow to fill the reel and create multiple winning paylines.
Naturally there is something of a balance to this, as while having the higher-value icons as expanding symbols will net you bigger prizes, there are fewer on the reels and you’ll trigger the feature less often. What you’re really looking for is something more common to maximise your chances, so getting a medium-value icon as your expanding symbol is what you should be rooting for at first.
A Crushing Victory
Overall, Trojan Horse is a really polished effort from the team at Zeus Gaming. While the game adheres to the same principles that have made so many of their other titles a huge success – namely ease of use and a free spin feature – it’s obvious that a little extra love has gone into its design. As such, it is one of the jewels in the company’s catalogue and is definitely well worth a spin or two.
