City of Sound: Slot Overview
Software provider Play’n GO has shown a fondness for music over the years, expressed in part through adrenaline-filled rock slots such as Twisted Sister and Kiss Reels of Rock. Where those two were branded slots with monster names attached, the studio has turned to something a little more homegrown for today’s music release. The name is City of Sound, and it touches on Britpop, a subgenre of alt-rock which peaked in the mid-90s when bands like Blur and Oasis battled it out in the charts. This might sound like literal music to Britpop fans’ ears, pun intended, though the actual features and gameplay are less exciting since they’ve all been brought in from the so-so Ancient Rome slot Legion Gold Victory.
In City of Sound, the rain has just cleared, and a rainbow has come out to shine down on a piece of urban UK that could be anywhere up or down the country. A reliable, sturdy, red brick house creates a homely British background scene that’s about as quotidian, though not in a negative way, as it gets. A quick online image search revealed the Gallagher’s (of Oasis) family home apparently looked a lot like the one on the screen, but in saying so, there are probably a lot of houses in the UK which look quite close to this, too.
The gaming area is a 5×3 grid that’s vaguely disguised as a piece of musical equipment and evaluates winning combinations along 25 paylines. Arrows are used to choose a stake of 5 c to $/€100, and the green knob to the right is the spin button. Before hitting play, gamblers should know this is a medium volatile slot, where the highest of the five RTP configurations is 96.3%.
City of Sound’s symbol lists consist of J to A royals, microphones, tambourines, sunglasses, and bucket hats. Winning combinations of 5 matching royals pay 2x the bet; the rest are worth 8x to 20x for a 5 OAK hit. Wilds are worth the same as the hat symbol, land on all reels in sizes of 1×1, 1×2, or 1×3, and substitute all regular paying symbols.
City of Sound: Slot Features
Like Legion Gold Victory, City of Sound’s features are Gold Respins, Gold Record Cases, Mega Free Spins and a Gold Record Stack Win prize feature.
Gold Respins & Gold Record Case
Landing 6 Gold Record symbols awards 3 Gold Respins, where only Gold Records or Gold Record Cases may land. If a new Gold Record hits, the number of respins is reset to 3. Gold Records stick in position, and when the feature ends, all Gold Record values in view are paid out. Gold Records have a random value of 1x to 1,000x the bet. If Gold Records fill all positions on the grid, a 1,000x Golden Prize is awarded in addition to all values of the Gold Records in view.
Landing a Gold Record Case awards the total value of all Gold Records currently on the reels. During Gold Respins, Gold Record Cases do not stick, but they do reset the respin count back to 3. Gold Records can be collected multiple times during Gold Respins.
Mega Free Spins
Hitting 3 scatters triggers 5 Mega Free Spins. A 3×3 Mega symbol lands on a random position on every spin. Mega Free Spins can be retriggered by landing the Mega Scatter up to a cap of 45 free spins. Gold Respins can be triggered during Mega Free Spins by landing the Mega Gold Record, which breaks down to 9 Gold Coins with random values.
Gold Record Stack
If Gold Records land but Gold Respins are not triggered and there is no Gold Record Case, then the Gold Records are collected by the Gold Record Stack above the grid. When this happens, there is a chance that the Gold Record Stack awards the player a Win Prize. Players may win up to 100x, though the chance of the Gold Record Stack triggering is not affected by the number of Gold Records collected.
City of Sound: Slot Verdict
After clocking that City of Sound was a remake of Legion Gold Victory, any initial excitement about playing a Britpop-type game quickly turned to a damp squib. It’s a bit of a shame in some ways, too, because the 90s produced some epic tunes which remain popular to this very day, and Play’n GO has a respectable track record of producing rocking music slots. Not all of them have been hits, but serious hand bangers exist amongst the developer’s lineup – Lordi Reel Monsters or Testament being two that crank up the volume dial, for instance.
Reskins also dot the studio’s portfolio, and for whatever reason, the team decided to reuse the engine from Legion Gold Victory. Perhaps British gamblers have taken to the Legion Gold range in large enough numbers to encourage Play’n GO to furnish them with a jingoistic musical version. The result is okay at best, hamstrung by the limitations of the original slot, a sort of British version of Dansband På Turné, which was also a reskinned slot from Play’n GO with a specific regional focus.
It was said that Liam and Noel Gallagher would make more money from the Oasis reunion tour than they made during the entire 1990s. The same cannot be said about City of Sound, though its 4,000x max exposure (take this number with a grain of salt) is the biggest figure to be found amongst the Legion Gold-related slots. It all ends up being a bit of a missed opportunity, really, because while a Britpop slot could rock if done well, even a generic non-brand one, City of Sound is more like an opening band that no one remembers the name of.
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