Released to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the film’s release, NextGen Gaming has put in plenty of effort into the design of The Mask. Joining the A to 10 symbols are sacks of money, The Mask’s famous hat, Tina Carlyle (Cameron Diaz) and Stanley Ipkiss (Jim Carrey).
The top paying symbol awards 150 times your stake if you land a 5-in-a-row combination. The game is played using a win both ways game engine so winning combinations can be created starting from reel 1 or reel 5. Central to the base game are 4 wild modifier extras that can hit on any spin:
- Alarm Block feature - an alarm clock bounces onto the reels. It’s then smashed by hammer. In its place is left a giant 2x2 wild.
- In A Spin feature - the animated Mask comes onto the reels and turns into a whirlwind and in the process turns all Milo, Tina, Moneybags, hat and A to 10 symbols on up to 3 selected reels wild.
- By The Horn feature - this can land at the end of any base game spin. A blast of the horn can turn selected symbols on up to 4 reels wild.
- Mask Unmask feature - Milo places a mask over a random 3x3 portion of the reels. All Stanley symbols that are covered by the Mask are turned into wilds and a new payout follows.
Landing 3, 4 or 5 scatters triggers the game’s Free Games Bonus feature - here you can look forward to 10, 15 or 25 free spins. Hope to see your wins include a multiplier as they trigger multipliers which boost payouts by 2x, 3x, 4x or even 5x.
Look out too for the masked figure of Milo the dog during the feature - every time 1 or 2 of these land, up to 5 extra free spins are added to your total. There’s no limit to the number of times these extra free spins can be triggered.
The film version of The Mask was a manic affair. That’s not really true of the volatility here which is in the medium range. Saying that, there are prizes of up to 30,000 times your total stake on each free spin with a 5x multiplier – the maximum payout is 6,000 times your stake in the base game.
The design here is nicely done, complete with music and clips from the film (which you can skip unless you’re a Mask fan). The wild extras and free spins with multipliers are solid features, if not especially original. The film version of The Mask gained unexpected cult status - it certainly has its charms though and is certainly worth a look whether or not you’ve seen the original movie. If you like Jim Carrey, he also features in Ace Ventura Pet Detective which is by Playtech.