Game: Wheel of Fortune 4D
Manufacturer: IGT
Advantage play potential: Medium
What Makes it Special: You get the Wheel of Fortune theming and wheel on an Advantage Play machine! But it’s basically Golden Egypt gussied up.
Wheel of Fortune 4D is the latest in the venerable slot franchise that’s long been one of the most popular on the casino floor. Where Wheel of Fortune 4D differs from its predecessors is the linked video screens on the cabinet, the use of gestures instead of touches to play the game… oh, and the unusual nature of persistent state reels on a premium game like Wheel of Fortune, and with it Advantage Play potential. So let’s take a look!
Understanding the Game
If you’ve read our deep dive of Golden Egypt or its clone Dancing Phoenix Soaring Dragon, much of the base game structure will look and sound familiar to you. This is a 5×4 reel game with 75 lines, just like Golden Egypt. However, once you look at the bet panel, you’ll see the first immediate difference between the games.
First off, you’ll see the chair rumble/sound and 4D settings, which come with the nature of this game. But you also see the absence of choosing how many lines you wish to play, which is shared by both Golden Egypt, its clones, and its successors like Golden Egypt Grand (review coming soon). Here, you have no choice – you’re playing 75 lines… but you’re also betting $1, which is upping the volatility accordingly, and while not unexpected given it’s a premium, licensed game, it’s something to be aware of if you like Golden Egypt but don’t like to be forced into bigger bets.
You’ll also see the three higher bets are eligible for a massive jackpot. This is another difference, and something unusual to be accessible on a persistent state reels game. Otherwise, similar to other persistent state games, each bet has its own persistent state so you have five different bets you can check.
The $ sign is your collector symbol, and when you get two of them the next two spins will feature that reel wild. Like other games with this format, multiple reels can be wild at any given time, and can be triggered relatively easily. Timing is everything as it can frequently give you a new wild reel just as another is exhausted.
Understanding the Advantage
As usual, left behind wild reels are better, and secondarily a lot of one $ reels towards the left is better than towards the right. If you have wild reels it’s easy to see how many spins are left before they disappear, so make sure you look for gold dollar symbols above the reels with wilds to confirm they’re still active in the following spin. If they’re not there, they will disappear on the next bet and aren’t worth playing.
Bonus Feature
Getting three Wheel of Fortune symbols triggers the Wheel of Fortune bonus. This is a bit different than Golden Egypt and brings the theme into focus.
Vanna White will appear, congratulating you as she always does on these games, and then you’re invited to spin the wheel for a chance at a cash prize, a free spins feature or a jackpot feature.
The free games option falls back to the Golden Egypt free spins model, except it automatically issues you the most volatile version – 5 spins, three wild reels per spin. This version of the bonus can be really hot – or a massive bummer – depending on the placement of those wild reels. If they cluster to the right and hide, such as a placement of 1-4-5 or 2-4-5, they can make winnings pretty limited. But if they get over to the left, you could have a reasonable shot at a big payday. You can also retrigger the wheel spin during the bonus, and potentially get more free spins by landing on free games again.
The Jackpot bonus brings up a predetermined picking game that either pays you a cash prize (which starts at 20x) or the big jackpot for qualifying bets. For non-qualifying bets the jackpot is replaced with a still hefty prize- at $1 a spin you could still win $5,000. That’s not a half million but still a massive win for that bet size. (Still, that’d be painful to realize if you were betting more you’d be a multi-hundred-thousandaire…)
Watch and Learn
Here is IGT’s promotional video on the game:
And here is RandomSlots with some game play:
Have you played Wheel of Fortune 4D? What’s your thoughts about the game? Share in the comments!
When it’s raining coins after a win, Vanna tells the player to catch the pink coins. I caught a few but didn’t see any advantage. Why does she tell you to catch the pink coins? Thank you.
PS… game is super fun, frequent bonuses
It’s been awhile since I’ve played that game, but I think it was just an interactivity element to encourage players to play along.