Pieces of Eight Slot

In the old days before metric money we had some strange coinage systems. The thing is however, even when you think about it, basing the whole world on the number ten just because illiterate French peasants have ten fingers (well apart from the ones who have twelve) is that it's not too practical. We used to have a system of pounds, shilling and pence in the old days that was based on the much more practical system of the number of 12. Lord only knows where those crazy pirates then came up with their pieces of eight. Well, we're sure someone out there does, but don't go spoiling the flow of this little story now. So, back to the pieces of eight; the best thing about them is that they are synonymous with piracy and that instantly makes them cool. In the very same way therefore the Pieces of Eight slot machine is cool. So in honour of this cool we're going to furthermore review this machine without using a single standard pirate pun (from the little book owned by most slot machine designers) as we predict puns will soon finally become un-cool.

The game itself has a very watery, relaxing soundtrack which could either be waves or someone drowning depending on your point of view. This aqua lullaby is emphasised by quiet, appropriate wavs when those reels roll in the wins. Graphically however, Pieces of Eight at first seems a more basic slot game, but when the wins come in the reel animations give a very polished feel to the game. Reel symbols are the usual pirate themes so we won't bore you with too many details save to say the game has got a scatter bonus activation symbol and its own little wild 'special'. The wild is given to you in the form of a compass and when it stops in the needle then 'sets' to N, E, S, or W with the symbol in that position also flipping into a wild. This literally gives you two wilds for the price of one!

The pieces of eight bonus affair is based on a skeleton (with no pun in its closet) game most players will be familiar with, however those cunning developers have added a twist. The player receives the same number of keys or 'picks' as scatter symbols that activated the game. These are then used to select a treasure chest. The chest amount is one of 20 or so in a side panel. Then in a take the box or move on twist the player gets to either choose that amount or shoot for one of the bigger remaining amounts left on the prize board. It's a nice twist and one that can be quite tricky with the marginal amounts.

So, Pieces of Eight; is it worth parting with puns about hard earned treasure and timbers being shivered? Yes it most definitely is, and developers have actually bucked my little trend of animosity towards them by skilfully avoiding all pirate cliché in a game that smacks of the side of pirates we all truly adore, guns, beards and money, lots and lots of lovely money...

Good luck!