Ride the Lightning Slot Review

The Ride the Lightning Slot Game

Most online slot developers prefer their classic slots to maintain a no-frills background without anything to keep players immersed. However, the Pragmatic Play team has taken a different path for this traditional-looking game.

The Ride the Lightning slot happens somewhere high in the sky, with the background depicting rumbling and fiery clouds. The clouds are moving at high speeds, albeit in a loop effect. Heavy metal music from the 80s accompanies the rumbling background design as if to collaborate with Metallica’s thrash metal album.

A 3x3 grid floats in the middle of the screen, flanked by the buy bonus banner and jackpot displays. Typical of most classic slots, such as Joker’s Jewels Cash, the paytable rests above the reels, while the controls sit below it for easy navigation.

Symbols and Payouts

This game is optimised to run smoothly on mobile, desktop/PC, and tablet devices, as long as you have a stable internet connection.

It includes five regular symbols denoted from classic one-arm bandits to cement its classic touch. With nine paylines, you must aim for 3 identical symbols to hit along the predefined paylines starting from the leftmost reel.

All the symbol payouts displayed in the paytable change to reflect the current bet. Since the Ride the Lightning symbols are few, I’ll list them below from the least-priced to the highest:

• Single BAR - 0.5x bet.

• Double BAR - 1x stake.

• Single Lucky 7 - 2.5x bet.

• Double Lucky 7 - 4x stake.

• Triple Lucky 7 - 7x bet.

According to the overhead paytable, it’s also possible to form winning combinations with Any 7 or Any BAR. These combinations pay 1x and 0.3x the bet, respectively.

The Blue and Red Lightning Bolts and the 3x symbol are wilds that substitute for all non-special symbols. Further, the game has a Bonus symbol, which can trigger the free spins after they appear in a particular combination.

Ride the Lightning Slot Bonus Features

The wild symbols here offer much more than substituting winning symbols, and the game also has free spins and a buy feature!

Wild Symbols & Jackpots

The wilds appear on all the Ride the Lightning reels during the base game and free spins. The 3x wild triples all winning combinations it’s part of, except for the jackpot wins. Further, the slot has four fixed jackpots that are triggered as follows:

• Mini (25x bet) - awarded when you hit any 3 wilds of a kind on a payline.

• Minor (100x bet) - triggered by 3 Blue Lightning Bolts on a payline.

• Major (250x bet) - triggered by 3 Red Lightning Bolts on a payline.

• Grand (500x stake) - awarded when you manage three 3x Wilds on a winning line.

For the record, you can only win up to one jackpot in a single spin.

Free Spins

Whenever the Bonus symbol appears on reel 3 in Ride the Lightning, it triggers the free spins feature worth 10 rounds.

On every spin of this bonus, a multiplier between 2x and 20x will be randomly applied to the current spin’s win, including the jackpot wins.

Hitting the Bonus symbol during the round retriggers +10 more free spins.

Bonus Buy

You don’t have to wait until the free spins trigger naturally. Instead, this game lets you buy the feature from the base game for 100x stake. The RTP of the game when using this feature is 96.48%.

How to Win at Ride the Lightning Slot

There isn’t much to deal with in a classic online gambling experience. Fortunately, the same goes for the gameplay, which should be straightforward.

In the case of Ride the Lightning, you’re dealing with 3 reels, 3 rows, and 9 fixed paylines. As mentioned, a winning combination happens when you match 3 symbols, as the paytable indicates, from the furthest left column to the right.

It’s also worth noting that the symbol combinations must be on the predefined paylines to qualify for a win.

Thanks to the broad €0.10 to €250 betting limits, any player can gamble on this slot regardless of their budget.

After selecting an ideal bet, you start a game round by clicking/tapping the Spin button or pushing your keyboard’s Spacebar. Alternatively, you can use the Autoplay function to gamble many preselected rounds automatically.

Finally, Ride the Lightning lets you speed up the reels using the Turbo/Quickspin options. You can also use the Menu icon to access the paytable and game rules.

Ride the Lightning Slot RTP & Volatility

Despite this game's ‘small’ nature, it boasts a high variance, translating to less frequent payouts. However, it has an above-average RTP of 96. 50% and a lucrative maximum win of 10,000x the stake!

The Concluding Verdict

Online slots inspired by old-school brick-and-mortar machines are popular in the online slot scene. So, whenever a game developer adds another to the ever-growing list, I’m sure most people question what makes the specific release outstanding.

I suppose Pragmatic Play imagined that creating a classic-themed slot inspired by Metallica’s popular album, Ride the Lightning, would do the magic. But since players don’t gamble aesthetics, does the gameplay have other interesting features?

In my opinion, it had just enough for a classic-inspired gambling experience. That includes fixed jackpots, wild multipliers, and free spins with a buy clause. However, it doesn’t match similarly themed games like Push Gaming’s Power Vault regarding the features.

But hold up: The developer incorporated wide-ranging bets to cater to every player's budget and a significant win cap. Although it doesn’t have much to distinguish it from the crowd, I bet it’s a good choice for conservative players looking for a decent winning potential.