Invading Vegas Las Christmas

Invading Vegas Las Christmas: Slot Overview

After already causing havoc in Sin City in the 2022 slot Invading Vegas, the malevolent extraterrestrials have returned to repeat the performance in Play'n GO's online slot Invading Vegas Las Christmas. Hate to state the obvious, but for Invading Vegas Las Christmas, Play'n GO has repackaged much of the prior game by giving it an Xmas makeover. As well as updated visuals, the studio has also updated some of the features, so while most of the gaming remains the same, alterations on the edges mean Invading Vegas Las Christmas looks and performs differently, ish.

Looks first, and since this is Christmas time, the scene contains a lot more festive lighting and snow than before. Vegas still looks wrecked, in the base game at least, where the faux Eiffel Tower has been chopped in half, and a crashed UFO indicates bad driving or offers evidence of human resistance. A major transition takes place for free spins, though, as if the whole city has been rebuilt and is swinging as ever. Perhaps this phase is pre-invasion, or maybe people and aliens have made amends and are now friends? Whatever the case, the emphasis in Invading Vegas Las Christmas is on humour rather than horror, meaning if Invading Vegas Las Christmas was a film, it would be closer to B-movie schlock (in a good way) than a Spielbergian takeover thriller.

Facts and figures for Invading Vegas Las Christmas include a medium volatile math model and a default RTP of 96.2%, with lower models available. As for setup, the gambling action takes place on a 5-reel, 3-row matrix with 20 paylines (paylines are fixed this time) and bets vary from 10 c to $/€50.

Winning combinations of 3 to 5-of-a-kind are possible, awarded left to right, starting from the leftmost reel. The low pays are casino chips with clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades on them, while the high pays are five character symbols, including a snowman done up like Elvis as the highest pay. Five-of-a-kind Values vary from 0.8 times the bet for the card suits chips up to 1.6 to 8 times the bet for 5 matching premiums. When wilds appear, they are able to substitute any of the regular pay symbols to help link wins. A winning line of 5 wilds pays 30 times the bet.

Invading Vegas Las Christmas: Slot Features

Play'n GO hasn't just changed the packaging, it has also altered some of the features. Invading Vegas Las Christmas' list includes mystery symbols, Lock on Re-spins, Walking Wilds, and free spins.

Mystery Symbol

When mystery symbols are in view, they reveal the same matching pay symbols, or they may reveal wilds with an x2, x3, x5, or x10 multiplier. Any wins with multiplier wilds multiply the win by the displayed value. When more than one wild multiplier is used, the values are added together.

Lock on Re-spin

A re-spin is triggered on the center reel when reels 1 and 2 show the full stack of the matching symbol, including wilds, and no win was achieved. The other reels are locked in place during the re-spin, and free spins can be triggered by the re-spin feature.

Walking Wild

Stacked wilds may land on the center reel during a re-spin. When this happens, the stacked wilds become a Walking Wild that moves to the right one reel with each subsequent re-spin until reaching the last reel. An additional re-spin occurs on all reels once the Walking Wild reaches the last reel. As the Walking Wild moves, it also adds 3 to 12 mystery symbols on highlighted positions. While the Walking Wild is active, scatter symbols do not land. However, if 3 scatters land on the near-win re-spin feature, the Walking Wild is not triggered. Free spins start instead.

Free Spins

Getting 3 scatter symbols awards 12 free spins. During the free spins round, Walking Wilds move to the left until they reach the first reel instead of to the right. In addition, more stacked high-paying symbols may land on the first two reels. It is possible to win up to 120 free spins as landing 3 scatters during the round grants +12 free spins.

Invading Vegas Las Christmas: Slot Verdict

The more things change, the more they stay the same, as they say, but minor changes can also make things feel pretty much the same as well. So it was during Invading Vegas Las Christmas, which, despite the changes, felt, for the most part, the same as before. The other game did come out around a year ago, so perhaps memories of it have faded. Outside the playful aliens invading Vegas theme, it wasn't a hugely memorable game to start with.

Neither is Invading Vegas Las Christmas, really. The first impression was of getting slammed by dead spins and waiting ages for features to trigger. Lock on Re-spins hit every so often, but Walking Wilds, initially, were few and far between. It felt like there was a better chance of staring at the night sky and spotting an actual UFO. Perhaps it has something to do with Walking Wilds being able to sprinkle mystery symbols (which may reveal wild multipliers), which they couldn't do in the previous game. If that doesn't happen much, Invading Vegas Las Christmas could turn into a slog. However, after a while, the moonwalking alien Walking Wild hit in greater abundance, causing the balance to seesaw back and forth. Funny, even with Walking Wilds, multiplier wilds, and up to 120 free spins, Invading Vegas Las Christmas packs a 'mere' 2,500x the bet max win. It is greater than the previous game could muster, but still.

On a superficial level, there's no faulting Invading Vegas Las Christmas' presentation. It looks great, is ram-packed with rib-tickling elements, and the animations could not be smoother. As far as alien takeover slots go, Invading Vegas Las Christmas has as good an appearance as practically any other, if not better. It might not have the sort of firepower required to conquer whole galaxies, but it should suffice for a few Christmas chuckles, provided big, chunky stats aren't a must.