King of the Streets

I reckon Slotmill has done a proper job setting the scene here. You are dropped straight into a gritty 1920s New York, but instead of the usual mobsters, the place is run by a lion called Don Corlion. Properly hard he looks too, standing by the reels chain-smoking and flashing a piece. The game plays out on a large 6x6 grid using a Cluster Pays system, so you need at least five matching symbols touching to bag a win. It is definitely a high volatility affair with an RTP around 96.04%, so you have to be prepared for a bit of a scrap.

It feels like they have taken the skeleton of their previous game, Coins and Cannons, and dressed it up in a sharp gangster suit. The vibe is miles away from swashbuckling pirates, swapping the salty seas for the smoky Lion's Den club. You can spin from 20p up to 50 quid, and there is an Xtra-Bet option that bumps your stake by 50% to almost triple your chances of hitting the bonus. It is fast-paced, especially if you use that Burst Mode they have got.

When you look at the paytable, the low payers are your standard card suits—diamonds, clubs, hearts, and spades. They do the job but won't make you rich. The real money is in the gangster gear: guns, cigars in ashtrays, glasses of whiskey, and knuckle dusters. Don Corlion himself is the top dog, of course. If you manage to cluster 14 or more of the premium symbols, you are looking at payouts between 12x and 50x your bet.

There is also a Wild symbol, which is a police badge. It steps in for everything except the scatters, which is handy. One thing to note is that if a Wild substitutes for a Coin symbol, it does not carry any value itself. It is all about clearing the grid through avalanches, where winning symbols vanish and new ones drop in, spawning a Wild in one of the empty spots to keep the momentum going.

This is where the game gets tasty. You have got these Coin Clusters where coins with values from 1x to 40x merge together if five or more connect. They add up their values into one single coin that stays on the grid for the next drop, which reminds me a bit of playing Jammin' Jars 2. But the real kicker is the Multiplier Safe symbols. These bad boys land with random values from x2 all the way up to x500. If you get a win while a safe is on screen, it unlocks and applies that multiplier to your total round win.

Triggering the Free Spins with three scatters gives you 10 spins where the Multiplier Safe values get added to a total multiplier that does not reset between spins. It is proper intense. If you are lucky enough to hit the Super Free Spins, the coins accumulate at the bottom of the grid throughout the round, making it easier to form unmatched winning clusters. It feels a bit like Gates of Olympus with that persistent multiplier action, and it can go massive.

Honestly, if you liked the mechanics in Coins and Cannons but fancied a darker, crime-filled theme, King of the Streets is spot on. The shift to a persistent total multiplier in the bonus round makes a massive difference compared to its predecessor. It feels more volatile and exciting when those x500 safes start landing. Although the max win is capped at the same 15,000x as the pirate game, the journey to get there feels completely different with the new features.

I did miss the higher symbol values from the old game a bit, but the potential of the Multiplier Safes more than makes up for it. It is a solid successor that stands on its own two feet. Just mind your bankroll, because Don Corlion does not mess about.