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Review of the new MG games - Hitman (March 2007).

Joined
Dec 1, 2005
Location
Denmark
Three new games was just released by MG today in their usual monthly shipment.

First there is a 'fruit slot' which is not new actually. I have seen "Cash 'n' Curry" at Ladbrokes almost one year ago. I have played it, but as always I did not like it. I am not much into these 'fruit slots'. They are low variance and I am not sure payout% is as high as the normal slots.

The usual VP release was also nothing special. Double Double Bonus VP that can now be played with 4-hands instead of one. Again I am mystified why they can not offer all VP games at 4/10/50 play at once.

The third game was the new 5-reel 'Hitman' Video-slot, and these I am really into - so a few words about that one.

Hitman:
15 linie
Medium variance

When you see the intro for the slot, you know something new is comming. Until now all intro has been in the MG cartoonish style which I happen to like actually. But changes can be for the better and it this case it definately was. If MG had used the old cartoonish style and you had play the slot, you would know it would have been way out of place. Instead the intro uses very realistic graphics just as you see in the computer game and the slot.

After taking a few spins you will realize this is a new experience. The sounds are all new and fits perfect to both a slot and the theme and the graphics are the best I have soon so far in both online slots and B&M slots(I have not been in Vegas for 2 years though).

'Hitman' does not use the 9TJQKA symbols. Instead they are used to bind the theme together. All low pay symbols are assasination weapons instead. And for the first time MG released the slot with a more 'adult' theme. ( "Loaded" comming in second)

Spinning it feels really smooth, maybe the black layout and realistic graphics improves this feeling. So technically(software) I believe this slot is superior to the earlier MG slots and also other casino software providers.

The slot only has wild on reel 2,3 and 4 and they always expand to fill the reel just as in "Enchanted Unicorn" from Wagerworks. But the wild does not multiply winnings in 'Hitman'. Expanding wilds are one of my favorite mechanics though it is not a new one.

The expansion animation is interesting. If you get two expanding reels next to each other, you will see a new animations using the full size of the two reels. I did not manage to get three expanding wilds but I guess you will see another animation using all three reels.

There are three features in the slot:

Freespin:
3 scatters gives 18 free-spins with *2 multiplier. They can NOT be retriggered and also sadly there is no paytable for the scatters. I did not manage to hit any of the feature during free spins, but I am sure winnings from the picking games are not multiplied by 2. Tell me if I am wrong.

Picking game - reveal prize:
There are special bonus symbols only on reel 1,2 and 3. If you get all 3 symbols you get a picking game where you have to select
one of the scatters and a price is revealed. It is very similar to the "Mad Hatters" picking game, except you can only get 3
bonus symbols. The winnings seems to be from *2 to *20 bet-size. But most of the time the highest win is just around *8 bet size.
This feature is not that hard to get and it is also not very interesting because you winnings are so limited.


Picking game - assassinate:
There are special bonus symbol only on reel 3,4 and 5. If you get all of them you trigger another much more interesting picking game. First you have to pick one of 5 target. Each target has a minimum win and maximum win showing (always the same with same bet size) but the variance increases from left to right. So picking the left one will give a better worst-case win but maximum win is not as high as the others. On the other hand picking the one to the right gives the highest maximum win but also the lowest minimum win. So it is up to you how much you want to gamble. The different minimum wins are not that much different, but very often you will get a win very close to the minimum value. After you have picked one and winnings are revealed a random multiplier from *2 to *6 is applied. This is what makes this feature interesting since you now actually can win a big prize from a picking game.So this is one of the better picking game. Still no picking game
beats 'The 50000 Pyramid'.
This feature is harder to get, but it can also pay a lot more of course. When playing this feature it actually feel like you are making a choice in the Hitman computer game because the graphics are more like what you encounter in a game than in a slot. It is very nice implemented and a good use of the theme.

Highest win on a payline is on 4000*line bet. But because of the expanding wilds you can hit this win three times if with 3 expanding wilds. Big wins from this slot will most often be from 3 expanding wilds and a few from the assassination bonus game.


This slot made it into my favorite list. Basically there is nothing new about the slot: A theme, freespins, expanding wilds and picking games.
All of this has been seen before over and over, but in 'Hitman' all of these are just done very good. I do miss the wilds on reel 1 and 5 (non-expanding) and I am not that happy about the feature 1 picking game. It can never pay much and the bonus symbols keeps getting into the way for other wins.

But they did not make this slot to please me, but instead target the masses, which they did. This slot has most of the features people know from other slot in the same slot and it is nicely done, so it will be popular.

My message is still the same to MG: invent some new mechanics instead of stealing and re-using.

My favorite MG slots
#1 Isis
#2 Mad Hatters
#3 Hitman
#4 Avalon
#5 Mega Moolah
#6 Moonshine
#7 Harvey's
#8 Loaded
#9 Thunderstruck


Earlier reviews:
February 2007: https://sussexmskpartnershipeast.com/forums/threads/review-of-the-new-mg-games-february-2007.16857/
January 2007: https://sussexmskpartnershipeast.com/forums/threads/review-of-the-new-mg-games-january-2007.16370/
December 2006: https://sussexmskpartnershipeast.com/forums/threads/review-of-the-new-mg-games-december.15581/
November 2006: https://sussexmskpartnershipeast.com/forums/threads/review-of-the-new-mg-games-november-mega-moolah.15319/
October 2006: https://sussexmskpartnershipeast.com/forums/threads/review-of-the-new-mg-slots-october.14887/
September 2006: https://sussexmskpartnershipeast.com/forum...-new-just-one-mg-5-reel-slot-september.14271/
August 2006: https://sussexmskpartnershipeast.com/forums/threads/review-of-the-new-mg-games-august.13925/
Juli 2006: https://sussexmskpartnershipeast.com/forums/threads/review-of-the-new-mg-slot-games-july.13554/
June 2006: https://sussexmskpartnershipeast.com/forums/threads/review-of-the-new-mg-games-june.13084/

Zoozie
 
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Another superb review Zoozie - many thanks! :notworthy

From your description it definitely sounds like the MG software designers have been spending many an hour at a WagerWorks casino... :p
Not a bad thing at all, cos I love the WW slots & warmly welcome something different at MG. :thumbsup:

Might have a spin or 2 hundred to cheer myself up later, after watching another dismal England performance, and will report back with what I think of it... and the slot! :rolleyes:
 
Thanks for the review.

I've played it for 3 a spin and - in common with people in the other thread (wasn't sure which one to post in!) - I liked the gameplay, but not the payouts...

After quite a while I got the free spins, which was exciting. The result wasn't... if I hadn't also hit the assisinate feature during the freespins, my total payout from the 18 spins would have been: 1.75.

As it was, hitting the assassinate feature (got a rubbish result in that too) gave me around 100 (33* bet)...

So in my limited experience, it's nice and flashy, but it's a bit rubbish if you know you're not going to win anything at all before you start...
 
Been playing for about an hour or so now, and all in all quite good fun! Seems there is potential for good wins, particularly when those wilds line up. The free spins have been hitting reasonably regularly too (120x my best result) - which is actually my only complaint... I HATE it when the scatter symbols don't pay!!! I understand what with all the features and stuff they have to make the odds work, but I want my bet multiplied by x amount goddamnit when the scatters land!

Other than that - nice work MG - Lovely looking and fun to play! :thumbsup:


P.S - This is by far the most new-era Las Vegas style slot to date. My feelings are we'll see the land based version of this one also in the very near future...
 
Can someone please tell me where I can play it? Nothing at Palace Group or 32RED yet.

That can't be, because i've yesterday tested "hitman" from the beginning of the day on "Ruby Fortune" so it must be available ;)

Oops, sorry, i haven't read the second side before i had posted this answer, but now you have tested this slot :)
 
I agree that the slot is flashy, looks nice and is fun to play. No argument there. One thing that really annoys me though is when the wild pops up lol Even on my home pc which is a powerful machine, i find myself sitting there waiting and waiting oh and waiting a bit more for the machine to finish its ridiculously long counting process when going through the win lines. On my works pc which is slower it makes the autospin feature on the slot hard to even use unless of course you dont mind waiting for 2 minutes each and every time the wild comes out lol That and the fact that the first bonus which pays nothing are my real only gripes with this slot
 
of course you dont mind waiting for 2 minutes each and every time the wild comes out

You can cancel this animation ;)

You have only to take your mouse coursor and click it in the Slot Screen, then it will stopped this flash movie directly :)

The same works also on all another slots, where you have big wins on the bonus rounds. So you must not always wait, till the coins counter ends :)
 
Lol Mike it does indeed your right but ONLY when playing each spin individually. If your on autospin im afraid all you can do is sit and wait it out, or cancel the auto spin and start it again, but this too gets very frustrating lol
 
maybe i don't understand what you mean, but i thought, that you would only cancel the "wild" animation?

as i said, you must only click on the slot to cancel this and you must so or so start the autoplay after free spins, because it will always stop after them :)
 
i mean on auto play feature its not possible to skip the win countup when wilds come out or anything

?

now i understand nothing, because i only play in autoplay, so it is possible to cancel this animation, but maybe, your mouse button doesn't work, same like your "Edit Button"? :D *joke* ;)
 
It isnt at Maple casino or goldenreef either. Personally I think they use certain casinos as `test beds` for new games and if no problems arise, they release them for all other MG casinos.

No the casinos can choose when they release them. 32Red have decided to wait a day or two :thumbsup: I would imagine MG release the games onto a central server/ftp site and tell the casinos they can grab them from x date and then the casinos have a routine to d/l and integrate at their leisure. There are occasions when a casino doesn't want a specific game.
 
VPL are reporting these too? Seen them yet?

 
Presumably more clones of old games just to fill up our hard-drives & slow our casinos down to an agonizing snails pace... :mad:

King Neptune's just crashed my laptop 3-times & just refuses to start up... :(

Spin Palace only have Hitman at the moment.
Can't check VPL's as I had to uninstall them all to make room on my drive...
except I just found 'Cinema' - but when I started that one the newest game in the lobby was Supe it Up! :eek:

Oh well, another 3-4 hours of total frustration for anyone wanting to play an MG tonight.

Anyone heard from VinylWeatherMan - last seen heading towards MG HQ with a large scimitar & a hand-grenade... :D
 
Presumably more clones of old games just to fill up our hard-drives & slow our casinos down to an agonizing snails pace... :mad:

Anyone heard from VinylWeatherMan - last seen heading towards MG HQ with a large scimitar & a hand-grenade... :D

I saw him one hour ago. He is the man on the very right of the big contract bonus screen in Hitman , choose him- it will give a fat reward (MG pays!!)
:D :D :D
 
I've looked everywhere for the other 2 slots, but haven't found them yet. Not even on casinos that show them as released in their welcome popup. It's pretty darn annoying.
 
Just thought I'd post a follow-up on my previous post, where, but for hitting a bonus round within the free spins, my total free spins payout on Hitman would have been nothing.

Well I just hit the free spins again! Total payout this time: 10.40.

Wow. Time to give up on this one now... :(
 
Managed to get King Neptune's working eventually!

Tried Hitman - in fun mode...
Well the graphics certainly are very nice, but not so sure about the game.
The picking bonus with the 3 scatters on reels 1,2 3 seemed to pay OK, but I had the 18 free-spins twice - and both times I got less than 4 x my bet! :eek:
The 'assassin bonus' is just way too long & tedious for my liking. Maybe people who play the video game will like it though..?

When I got two wilds on reels 2&3 the first time it nearly crashed my laptop again - everything just completely froze for about 2-3 minutes - my mouse pointer disappeared & even ctl-alt-del refused to bring up the task manager!
I was just about to hit the 'off' switch when it finally cleared & carried on.
I guess the graphics are very resource-hungry - not good for any less powerful PC's.. :(

So it looks like MG have produced another 'PC killer' which could be very frustrating for some players.

As to the game itself... the jury's still out. I'll have to play more before deciding.
 
It's a fun slot to very low roll but anything over 75 cents a spin and it seemed like I was flushing my money down the toilet. Playing at 1.80 a spin, hitting the pick em's and free spins twice I lost 200 and never once got over what I started with. I think I will pass on this slot for sure in real mode and play it some in free mode.
 
I quite enjoy Hitman.. Only playing in fun mode because I have yet to find another method of depositing since Neteller decided to screw over Canadian's for no damn good reason. I find the free spins don't hit much, but I had 2 of the assasination bonus rounds and one was worth $420 and one was worth $480.. off a $3 bet, not bad. I really like the graphics and how the symbols and sounds all really work with the theme. I'll definitely give it a go for real $ once I sort out a deposit method. :thumbsup:
 
 
I see that many players getting 1-3xtotal bet during 18 free spins, wins are doubled. This makes me wonder whether Hitman is really a medium variance slot. Maybe it's rather medium/high variance?

It is a good question, it is a close call.

The bonus games win are very limited though the second bonus can pay a fair amount (few 100*bet-size).

18 freespin with *2 multiplier gives 36 which is a measure for how the freespins are in terms of 'base payout'. For Thunderstruck it is 15*3=45, but because of retriggers the value for Thunderstruck is 16.76*3=50.28 Also wild doubles wins for the thunderstruck paytable. And 4 or 5 rams has a VERY good paytable also. So I believe Thunderstruck is a high variance
while 'Hitman' is medium.

A good measure for variance is also how high the 'base payout' for a slot is. The higher this is, the lower variance. Of course the variance can be calculated exact with the slot analyzer program, but you would then have to know the reel.

The following equation is for 5-reel slots with freespin feature. Case1 is with retriggers allowed and case2 is with retriggers not allowed

Pr= payout% effective
Pb=payout% base (if no freespin feature)
n=number of freespins (retrigger allowed)
m=free spin multiplier.
f=chance of getting a feature ( 3 or more scatters normally)

Pr=Pb*(1+f*m*n(1/(1-nf)))

If retriggers are not allowed then this becomes the simpler form, as the average number of spins for
feature just is n:
Pr=Pb*(1+f*m*n)

Since we know that all MG slots has payout(Pr) around 95-96%, we actually know all variables except the base-payout and probability of getting a feature. However for most freespin slot this probability is close to 1/143 if they are as Thunderstruck with only 1 scatter on each reel.

When I determine the variance I mostly look at the number I just calculated which was 36 for for Hitman. I then look at the paytable which is a bit high
for Hitman, but there are no wild multipliers though. And the slot is missing the good 5 scatter wins also. But as I wrote in my review the 3 expanding wilds can give some very good wins and maybe I have underestimated this. So I could live with calling it medium/high variance, but I tend to go with medium only. Lets see soon how many good wins with 3 expanding wild will show up in the winning screenshot thread. For a slots with only 1 wild on each reel(Thunderstruck) it does not matter much for the variance if 5 wilds pays 1K or 10K since it is so rare.

Zoozie
 
Be that as it may.

Thanks Simmo, we have also been in discussion with them and have forwarded them all the threads reporting 'slow microgaming' etc.

The problem is that while they are "still working on it", they have extended the problems of All Slots and Royal Vegas to all the MG casinos this month. They should have aborted this till they had properly assessed all the data and problem reports, and to the point where they could say exactly what was going wrong, and what players could do with their PC to tune it to respond better for MG casinos.
My biggest problem is an exit corruption. While I can launch and play SOME of the affected casinos, they cause a fatal train of escalating errors on exit, which complely kills the OS in three moves.
The hallmark of this train of events is that the casino fails to reset the graphics display mode to what it was when it was launched. The routine that is supposed to do this produces an exception instead, and the desktop is returned in the casino's display mode rather than the user desktop mode. This means no "task bar"! It is possible to recover this by right clicking on the desktop and resetting the graphics mode. This returns the task bar, however many OS functions have become corrupt, and in particular the shut down function produces the BSOD instead of closing Windows and shutting down the PC. CTRL-ALT-DEL is also disabled, and the only option is to switch off using the power button. This also leads eventually to the corruption of the hard drive FAT, with it reporting far more space than is really available. I recently found that I had a mere 100 or so Mbytes left, despite "My Computer" showing some 12 Gigs of remaining free space.
This particular problem has not been mentioned by anyone else, however KK stated that the King Neptune upgrade crashed his laptop, and this upgrade included the new lobby that gives me all my troubles. It is likely the same problem, but because of its nature it will manifest differently on different PC configurations.
 


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