Wild Storm 2 — Game Details

The engine is better than the frame around it

Wild Storm 2 is an 18-line, 5×4 bonus-buy slot, a format with no shortage of entries, and it earns its place with one rule. In free games a Tornado Wild keeps its multiplier, takes it along as it moves, and doubles it after each win it joins, up to 1,024×. That is a ladder game's engine fitted to a payline grid, and my argument is that the engine is better than the frame around it. Every free-game round opens with eight spins and each extra Scatter adds one. A doubling multiplier needs spins more than it needs anything else, and eight is not many. The buy menu does not fix that. Its six purchases sell a better chance of free games, stronger starting Wilds, more Wilds or a random draw, and none of them adds a spin to a round. All seven modes, base game included, return between 96.071% and 96.11%, so what separates them is shape rather than value.

Because the multiplier belongs to one moving Wild rather than to the round, a big multiplier is only as useful as that Wild's next position. The value of a board lives in particular symbols. That is the idea worth the page, and the rest of the design decides how much room it gets.

Eight spins is a short clock for a doubling Wild

The ladder from 2× to 1,024× has ten rungs: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512 and 1,024. A 2× Wild is nine doublings from the top and a 4× Wild is eight. I count one doubling for each spin on which a Wild joins a win, since the multiplier doubles after the win it was part of and the new value pays from the next win onward. On that count, a 2× Wild that wins on all eight spins of an unextended Super Bonus pays 256× on the last of them and ends the round holding 512× it never used. A 4× Wild in Hidden Bonus doing the same pays 512× on spin eight. For either to pay at 1,024× takes a ninth or tenth spin: one extra Scatter in Hidden Bonus, two in Super Bonus, and a win for that Wild on every spin along the way. For the starting Wilds of the two higher rounds, the top of the ladder is a retrigger prize, not the natural end of a round.

That is how I read the Scatter ladder too. Three Scatters open Bonus with one Wild on the first spin. Four open Super Bonus with three 2× Wilds. Five open Hidden Bonus with four 4× Wilds. On an eight-spin clock, a 4× start is one doubling ahead of a 2× start, which is worth one spin of climbing, and Hidden Bonus adds a fourth Wild on top. The gap between the rounds is measured in spins, and the round has few to give.

The cap sits well above what one climbing Wild reaches alone. 25,000 divided by 1,024 is about 24.4, by 512 about 48.8, and by 256 about 97.7. A lone 256× Wild, the most a Super Bonus starting Wild can pay at without an extra spin, reaches the 25,000× cap on one line only if that line is worth nearly 98 times the bet before the multiplier. The cap is built for several multiplied Wilds paying on the same spin, which is the setup the two higher rounds open with.

Flat prices turn the menu into a choice of shape

The gap between the best and worst mode return is 0.039 percentage points. The base game, Extra Chance, Bonus and Super Bonus return 96.11%, Random Bonus 96.107%, Feature Spin 96.085% and Super Feature Spin 96.071%. No purchase gives up more than 0.039 points against a base spin. The expected cost of a 100× Bonus is 3.89× the bet, of a 500× Super Bonus 19.45×, and of a 1,000× Super Feature Spin 39.29×, each within a few hundredths of a point of the base game's 3.89% edge.

With the average fixed, the cap decides what each mode really sells. Divided by price, the 25,000× ceiling is 250 times the cost of Bonus or Feature Spin, 50 times the cost of Super Bonus or Random Bonus, and 25 times the cost of Super Feature Spin. Extra Chance, at 3× a spin, keeps a ceiling above 8,333 times its cost while raising the chance of free games without guaranteeing them.

Feature Spin is the menu's best answer to the short clock, because it skips the climb. At least three Tornado Wilds arrive on one spin, each with a random multiplier from 2× to 1,024×, so the top rung can appear without a single earlier win. Super Feature Spin is the same idea at ten times the price for at least six Wilds: 166.7× of bet per guaranteed Wild against 33.3× on Feature Spin. Ten Feature Spins cost the same 1,000×, guarantee at least 30 Wilds between them, and each keeps a ceiling of 250 times its own price. Both return about 96.1%, so Super Feature Spin is fair on average and the worst trade on the menu for anyone buying upside, because the cap stops it at 25 times what it costs.

Random Bonus sells a blank at Super Bonus prices

Random Bonus and Super Bonus both cost 500×, and their returns of 96.107% and 96.11% put the average result of the two buys 0.015× the bet apart. Random Bonus is not overpriced on average. The trouble is where its variance lands. The draw resolves to no bonus, Super Bonus or Hidden Bonus, and since the averages match, the Hidden Bonus draws have to make up for the blank ones. The buyer is swapping a guaranteed Super Bonus for a chance at four 4× Wilds instead of three 2× Wilds. By the clock arithmetic above, that upgrade is one doubling per Wild and one more Wild, roughly a spin of head start in an eight-spin round. Putting 500× at risk of a result with no round, for a one-spin head start, is a badly built purchase, and nothing in the price says how often the blank comes up.

Of the three bonus buys, Random Bonus is the one that can end without a round, and it is also the one that can open Hidden Bonus. The only bonus buy that reaches the strongest start in the game is the weakest purchase on the menu, which is the design choice I like least here.

The 100× tier is where this game makes sense

On a plain base spin the doubling rule is not in play. The Tornado Wild substitutes for every symbol except the Scatter, and the base game's real job is to count Scatters toward a better first spin. Among the purchases that guarantee a feature, Bonus and Feature Spin share the best ceiling, 250 times their price, at 96.11% and 96.085%. Super Bonus is the defensible 500× buy. Random Bonus and Super Feature Spin are not.

The game suits a player who wants a multiplier that builds on specific symbols and accepts rounds that end before the ladder tops out unless Scatters extend them. Anyone after long free-game rounds, or a top-tier buy with a guaranteed best setup, should look elsewhere. One real idea, a short frame and one badly built buy make a good game rather than an excellent one, and that is where I score it.