Ghost Pirates Slots

Ghost Pirates is a new slot from the team at Net Entertainment. This combines the latest 243-ways to win technology with an entertaining theme which reminds me of Pirates of the Caribbean. The quality of design in this game is excellent as you would expect from NetEnt. There is a free spins round, though no bonus feature or more involved game-play. This feels like a shame, with the amount of effort which has gone into the design of this slot, a bonus round would have certainly made it more competitive with the many other slots around.

The Ghost Pirate slot is covered in considerable detail in this article. First of all the game setup and winning possibilities are covered in a how-to-play section. This includes information on the winning combinations, as well as the different sized payouts. After that the free spins round is covered, this is simple enough – though you can get more spins by playing the game with 243 combinations. At the end of this article, I have summarized the game and compared it with many of the other recent NetEnt slot titles.

How to play Ghost Pirates Slot

The first thing you will notice about this slot is that the play options are listed as winning combinations and not win-lines. This slot works with the latest ‘all-ways’ 243 winning combinations. This is any sequence of symbols starting from the left side reel in any part of the reels showing. What makes this game different is that you can reduce the number of combinations downwards. The options are for 81 combos, 27, 9 or 3. The coins remain the same, with the number of bets you are making going down proportionally (along with the probability of hitting a win on any individual spin).

By sticking with 243 ways you maximize your chance of hitting a winning combination, including the scatter symbols (chests) which kick off the free spins sequences.

Bet sizes do depend on how many winning combinations you pick, these start at 1c and go up to 50c. You can also choose to bet up to 5 coins on each line (these are known as levels). This makes the smallest bet 25c and the biggest $67.50. Many NetEnts casinos work in Euros or Pounds, which increases this bet sizing further.

There are many ways to win on this game, with the ship equipment giving the smaller day-to-day payouts. These symbols include the anchor, cannon, maps and pistols. Wins range from just a couple of coins up to 200 for 5 pistols. Note that there are dual pay-tables, with better wins for 243 ways compared to the other winning combinations.

The main characters in this slot pay the bigger amounts, with Peggy-Rotten, One Eyed Ed, the Mad Monkey and Polly all giving significant wins for 5 of a kind. Peggy is the best of all, paying out a generous 1500 coins. Note that only the highest win is paid in the event of getting 2 or more character wins. Chests are the scatter symbols in this game. They trigger the free spins round, and also have a payout of their own, with 50 coins for 5 of them. There is a wild skull and crossbones, which acts as a substitute for any regular symbol.

Free Spins Feature Round

The only bonus game is a free spins round. This is triggered by hitting 3, 4 or 5 chests on screen. The number of spins you get depends on whether you are playing in 243-way mode or for a smaller amount of combinations. The 243 mode gets you 25, 20, or 15 for 5, 4 and 3 chests – below this these numbers are reduced by 5. There is no special behavior or changes to the symbols on the screen during the free-spins round. Any wins accumulated during this game are trebled in value.

Other than the ability to select your combinations, coins per line and coins bet, there are no more features on the Ghost Pirates slot game.

Ghost Pirates Summary

This game looks fantastic, and does well in creating the atmosphere of a ghostly pirate ship – while keeping things light hearted and entertaining at the same time. I really like the selection of combinations. Every other 243-ways game out there at the moment only lets you configure coins and coin amounts, and this creates an extra level of flexibility in the game.

While there are some generous wins possible (especially when trebled in the free spins round) this game does suffer from the lack of decent bonus round. I can only assume this was a deliberate omission – since most other NetEnt slots have at least one unique game or feature.

This is not the game for players seeking for huge jackpot wins. Instead it is entertaining, with regular smaller to mid-sized windfalls and the chance of a reasonable payout. The low variance will ensure that players get a lot of value for money – and the graphics and game-play make this slot worth checking out on their own.