The design in Buckle Up is superb. The reels feature just 6 symbols, all relating to the motor sport theme. In order of value are a chequered flag, a bottle of champagne, a helmet, a Peter Perfect-style racing driver a pit lane girl. The best symbol is the moustachioed driver who awards 1.6 times your stake if you land 3 on a payline. While the reels spin, you’ll see a driver race around an animated race track.
The tyre is the wild - whenever this hits, it expands to fill the whole of the reel. Land 3 wilds on a payline and you’ll pocket 4 times your stake. To the right of the main reels is the Booster Reel. This becomes active following any successful spin. Depending on the letter that lands, it awards 1 of the following modifiers.
- Extra Wild Booster feature - this delivers a stacked wild on reel 1.
- Level Up Booster feature - all of the symbols in the winning combination are upgraded to the next value symbol.
- Extra Symbols Booster feature - this transforms symbol that are non-winners into winners to create an expanded winning combination.
- Multiplier Booster feature - this increases your win with a multiplier of up to 25x.
It’s possible to land more than 1 Booster on the same spin which can lead to some impressive results – especially the Multiplier Booster and Extra Wild Booster features!
Land 3 of the trophy scatter on the same spin and you’ll pocket a payout of 80 times your total stake as well as unlocking the Circuit Complete feature – you’ll then head to the Jungle Circuit. The payout the next time you land 3 trophies increases to 100 times your stake as well as unlocking the Beach Circuit. The process is repeated until you unlock the Night Circuit and get 120 times your stake. If you get 3 scatters in the Night Circuit, your reward will be 160 times your stake.
Buckle Up really does offer something different from your common or garden slot game. The cartoon visuals are terrifically well done and you’ll hear the roar of the engines as you spin. The gameplay is rather unusual too. You won’t find many traditional extras here. The modifiers that come along with every winning spin deliver plenty of action though.
We can’t think of much more boring on the sporting calendar than a grand prix so we didn’t have high hopes for Buckle Up. We were very pleasantly surprised though. The cracking design and extras come together really well to create a very entertaining slot game that should appeal to a wide variety of players and not just petrol heads. If you want to hit the open road though, Harley-Davidson Freedom Tour by IGT is recommended.