Ze Zeus

Ze Zeus: Slot Overview

Hey, we know who Zeus is, right? This is an online slot review, and the king of the Olympian Gods is a regular on the scene, but 'Ze'? That was a new one. An internet search turned up this definition of 'ze' from the Cambridge Dictionary - 'a personal pronoun sometimes used instead of "he" or "she" because it does not show a particular gender', which was, unexpected. Whatever your thoughts on gender politics might be, what say we leave them to the side for a moment and take in Ze Zeus, an online slot from developer Hacksaw Gaming and a reskin of the criminal raccoon game Le Bandit.

Swapping a raccoon for a Greek God is quite a dramatic shift, and so is the change of scenery. For Ze Zeus, players move away from the streets of Le Bandit to a more divine setting of broken yet floating columns, a floating Zeus, and lashings of forked lightning. Don't want to use the word generic here, so how about we say Ze Zeus is the more traditional-looking slot compared to Le Bandit, on account of the popularity of Ancient Greek slots in general. Ze Zeus did ring a faint Gates of Olympus bell, visually, for example. The clouds and their sliding effect between game phases are quite cool, too.

Ze Zeus is a 6x5 gridded, cluster paying slot, which means to get a win, you need at least 5 identical pay symbols to land connected to each other in horizontal and/or vertical directions. Wins trigger not just a cascade feature but a Super Cascade feature, as seen before in Dark Summoning and Eye of the Panda, as well as Le Bandit: Any time a winning combination occurs, all regular paying symbols of the winning symbol type on the grid are removed, and new symbols drop down to fill the empty gaps. As for the bet selection, the options vary from 10 c to $/€100 per spin with four bonus buys being available too. However, like Le Bandit, you cannot buy the most potent bonus round. With volatility noted as medium-high, Ze Zeus' maximum RTP clocks in at 96.34%.

The 5 low pay symbols are spades, diamonds, clubs, hearts, and stars, while the high pays are a piece of a column, a shield, grapes, a helmet, and Zeus. Hitting the smallest possible 5 OAK clusters is worth 0.1 to 1 times the bet, upping to 15-100 times the bet when landing winning clusters of 13+ matching symbols. Glowing W symbols are wild, so they're able to substitute for any regular symbols on the paytable.

Ze Zeus: Slot Features

Super Cascades, Win To Win, 3 bonus rounds, and bonus buys make up Ze Zeus' collection of features.

Win To Win

After a winning combination occurs, the squares behind the winning symbols are highlighted as Divine Squares. If a Hand of Zeus symbol lands on the grid, it activates any Divine Squares after wins have been completed. Activated Divine Squares reveal Bronze, Silver, or Gold Coins and have a chance of displaying Vessel of Wealth or Zap of Zeus symbols. Coins are cash prizes that pay as multipliers of the bet. Bronze Coins have values of 0.2x to 4x, Silver Coins have values of 5x to 20x, and Gold Coins have values of 25x to 500x.

After all symbols are revealed, any Zap of Zeus symbols activate and multiply all Coins or existing Vessel of Wealth symbols on adjacent squares by x2, x3, x4, x5, or x10. Vessel of Wealth symbols activate after Coins have been revealed and all Zap of Zeus symbols have activated. Vessel of Wealth symbols collect the values of all Coins and all other Vessel of Wealth symbols and store their total value. After the last Vessel of Wealth on the current grid activates, all other Divine Squares activate again to reveal new symbols, and the process repeats.

What If Zeus Was One Of Us? Bonus Feature

Landing 3 FS scatters awards this feature with 8 free spins. For this bonus round, all Divine Squares remain highlighted between spins until they are activated by a Hand of Zeus symbol. Landing 2 or 3 FS scatters awards +2 or +4 free spins, respectively. Should 4 FS symbols hit, +4 free spins are awarded, and the round upgrades to Ze Zeus Take The Wheel.

Ze Zeus Take The Wheel Bonus Feature

Landing 4 FS scatter symbols in the base game also triggers this round, awarding 12 free spins. In this round, all Divine Squares remain highlighted throughout the bonus, even after being activated. Landing 2 or 3 FS scatters awards +2 or +4 free spins, respectively.

Ze Zeus Might Superstar Bonus Feature

This bonus is activated by landing 5 FS scatters in the base game, awarding 12 free spins. In this round, all Divine Squares remain highlighted throughout the bonus, even after being activated. A Hand of Zeus symbol is guaranteed to land on every free spin. Also, Bronze Coins do not exist in this bonus.

Bonus Buy

Ze Zeus provides these bonus buying opportunities:

• BonusHunt FeatureSpins - 3x the bet where each spin is 5 times more likely to trigger a bonus game. Highly volatile, RTP 96.28%.
• Mighty FeatureSpins - 50x the bet where each spin guarantees a Hand of Zeus lands. Highly volatile, RTP 96.36%.
• What If Zeus Was One Of Us? - 100x the bet. Highly volatile, RTP 96.3%.
• Ze Zeus Take The Wheel - 250x the bet. Highly volatile, 96.4%.

Ze Zeus: Slot Verdict

Hacksaw Gaming isn't super renowned for popping out clones and reskins much even if many of the games revolve around similar mechanics, so it was a slight surprise to see them do so for Ze Zeus. If you're not into the clone thing, the good news, at least, is the studio has picked a solid package of features to reuse. The Win To Win setup is quite a clever one that provides a chance for various individual elements to play into each other, build off each other, repeat, and soak up rewards. Little examples of this are drip-fed here and there in the base game; maybe a low number of Divine Squares are activated by a Hand of Zeus symbol to cough up a few coins, for example. However, when all the parts come together - Divine Squares revealing Coins, boosted by Zap of Zeus multipliers, enhanced by Vessel of Wealth collections, you can really see the potential, and a solid Win To Win run is quite the rush.

You're kind of relying on a number of separate pieces to fall together to trigger a really good Win To Win run, though, so good luck with that. A whole lot more luck is likely needed to gain access to Ze Zeus' best bit, the Ze Zeus Might Superstar Bonus Game, though. Technically, Ze Zeus' 10,000x the bet max win is reachable in the base game and all three bonus rounds, but the Might Superstar round would appear to arm players with the best firepower to do so. Interesting, or a tantalising tease, that you can't buy the Ze Zeus Might Superstar Bonus. What would be the price tag on it, one wonders?

If the goal was to sling Hacksaw's Win To Win system at a wider audience, then changing the skin from a crowbar-wielding criminal raccoon to the Greek God Zeus, one of the most recognisable characters in online gambling was probably a wise move, as thematically, Ze Zeus is the more mainstream release. In this case, will Ze Zeus garner more affection? Maybe, but like its predecessor, much rides on getting the features to fire, which are great when they do, less great when they don't.