X-Men is a name that doesn’t need much of an introduction, not if you’ve been following the news or going to movies in the last decade or so. It’s the name of a team of mutants from the Marvel universe, characters in a comic book that is popular these days, thanks in no small part to the series of movies that were created based on it. With characters like Wolverine, Professor Xavier, Magneto or any of the other good or bad characters, X-Men makes for a great choice for a slot machine topic.
One of the Marvel comic book themed slots from Cryptologic, X-Men gives you only 9 paylines on the 5 reels it provides. Prizes consist in either the slot’s own $37,500 or in one of the progressive jackpots from Marvel. As for the feature list, it will give you a bonus feature, a scatter and a wild symbol.
Features of X-Men
X-Men is not as feature rich as some of the other Marvel slots, but even so you still get a scatter symbol, a wild and a bonus feature that is triggered with their help.
Xavier, the professor and the leader of the group of mutants known as X-Men, gets the biggest role of all in this slot machine. I’m talking about the wild symbol, of course, the one that has two classic roles. The first one would be its ability to act as the wild, substituting for the symbols that try to form combinations on regular paylines (which excludes the scatter). The second role would be that of the trigger for the big jackpot, the reward being 7,500 coins, though for that to happen you need all five positions on a line to be taken over by wilds.
The Logo, representing the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning, gets the second classic role that is often present in a game like this, that of the scatter. Though normally you would see a scatter symbol contribute to its own payouts from any random position it happens to appear in, X-Men introduces a limitation to this feature. The scatter symbols are required to appear in consecutive order, starting from the leftmost reel and going towards the right (from reel 1 to 5). If you don’t have the scatters arranged on the right reels, they are not taken into account when it comes to triggering the bonus game or its cash prizes. These prizes will reach 100x the bet.
Bonus Game
Three or more scattered Logos, appearing from left to right, get you inside the only bonus game that X-Men has. You will notice that Xavier has identified four potential trouble spots, and they are all displayed on a map. You pick the X-Men that are going to be sent to each location. Each location has an opponent, that the X-Men you’ve sent has to defeat.
If your X-Men are winners, you get a prize whose value depends on how much of their life meter is left. Losing X-Men get you a consolation prize, plus an amount that takes into account how much damage they’ve done to their opponents.
Betting options and jackpots
The betting requirements are standard for a game with 9 paylines, no big surprise here. You get the chance to use only one coin per active line, and if you want to select fewer lines you use fewer coins. The coins go from $0.05 to $5, so you end up with a $45 maximum bet, if you maximize all the options available.
There is also a decent reward in the game, for the players that invest $5 per line, since that will take the 7,500 coins of the jackpot to a value of $37,500.
Three Marvel progressive jackpots are the target here, each one of a different value. The best one is the Marvel Hero jackpot, the next one would be Super Hero and the least valuable is called Hero. Your odds of getting this prize, offered at random, go up if you use larger bets.
Design and symbols
The theme is based on the X-Men characters, so almost all the symbols have some kind of character in them, either from the side of Professor Xavier, or from Magneto. Each one is highly detailed, so you will find yourself a bit overwhelmed when you spin the reels. Since they get a lot of details and colors, and they appear close together and without other types of symbols, you end up with a screen that looks very busy. Other than that, no complaints, the game looks as good as you would expect from a title themed around Marvel comics.
Symbols: Xavier (wild, 7,500x), Logo (scatter, 100x the bet), Magneto (2,000x), Wolverine (750x), Storm (250x), Cyclops (250x), Jean Grey (150x), Rogue (150x), Nightcrawler (125x), Gambit (125x), Mystique (100x) and Sabretooth (100x).
Is It Worth Playing?
X-Men proves to be a game that is focused only on the characters from the comic book, which is a good thing, as it gives you a chance to see them all in one place. On top of that, it has a couple of features you will want to try out, an average top payout, but also a lower than average maximum bet. Fans of the series shouldn’t miss it.
The X-Men Universe
X-Men is the name of a team of superheroes that are part of a series published by Marvel Comics. While many superheroes get their powers from being born on other planets or being modified in some way by experiments or substances, the ones that are part of X-Men are part of the human population, but they were born with a mutation that makes them part of humanity’s next evolutionary step. They have as enemies a group of similar mutants that are led by Magneto, while the X-Men are on the side of good and they are lead by Professor x (Charles Xavier).
The X-Men series started with five members initially, but eventually more were added to the group. The initial five were Marvel Girl, Iceman, Cyclops, Beast and Angel. Some of the later additions include Wolverine, Storm, Rogue, Nightcrawler, Havok and Gambit. The first number of the X-Men series was released in 1963, its creators being Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
This X-Men slot is offered by all online casinos with Cryptologic software, playable either in practice or in real money mode.
