The Paco and the Popping Peppers slot may not have as many extra features as many other BetSoft online casino slot titles, but the popping peppers function and the frequently occurring bonus round help to make up for this, as does the presence of a permanent Wild.
So this five-reel title does offer some worthwhile prizes, and it is hands-down one of the most upbeat and fun games in the BetSoft selection.
This whimsical atmosphere is largely due to Paco, who wanders into a sleepy Mexican seaside town with his burro and a collection of spicy ingredients.
Cheerful mariachi music accompanies all the Paco and the Popping Peppers slot action, and the reels are housed on a cantina wall, the backdrop a riot of hats, flags, drums, guitars and other Mexican artefacts. Paco comments on the action on one side, occasionally adding bursts of guitar.
The game controls offer the usual BetSoft mix of 30 paylines, bets of 1 to 5 credits per payline, and coin denominations ranging from 0.02 to 0.50. Prizes mentioned here refer to the maximum 5-cedits-per-payline bet.
Popping Peppers Mount up the Wins
Not all of the payline symbols in Paco and the Popping Peppers slot are in fact peppers, but whenever they form winning combos, all symbols pop and disappear, to be replaced by new ones. Each time a new winning combo is formed, the player gets another free pop. A multiplier ladder to the right of the reels also increases by X1 with every successive pop, up to a maximum of X10. This multiplier is then applied to the prizes won on each pop.
This feature of the Paco and the Popping Peppers slot is useful with regards to the bonus icon. The player needs three to trigger a bonus game, but if there are one or two on the reels already, repeated pepper pops could add more bonus icons and trigger the special feature.
Simple Bonus Round of High or Low
Paco’s beach cantina is the Paco and the Popping Peppers slot’s Bonus Scatter. Three of a kind trigger the bonus round on a new screen. The player is shown a frame on the beach, supporting a playing card. Players must choose Higher or Lower, and if they are correct about the next card out of the pack, they win a coin prize.
Each wrong guess loses them a life. The round continues until the player has won the maximum, or lost three lives.
Paco and various happy-faced vegetables stand alongside to observe the Paco and the Popping Peppers slot’s Bonus Round, with Paco either swigging tequila to toast wins, or complaining when a life is lost. Like most wins in the Paco and the Popping Peppers Canadian Gambling game, this round concludes with an energetic dancing animation, celebrating the prizes won.
Lucrative Wild and Eight Other Icons
Unlike many BetSoft titles, the Paco and the Popping Peppers slot has a Wild in base play: a rainbow-coloured donkey piñata. Apart from replacing other payline symbols to complete wins, five Wilds on one payline also win the title’s top prize: 2,500X the coin value.
Eight bright, shiny vegetables make up the remainder of the Paco and the Popping Peppers slot symbols: a yellow onion, a pink onion, a green pepper, a red pepper, a chilli pepper, a coconut, a tomato and a pineapple. All require three matches or better to win, and five pineapples score the second-highest payline prize of 1,000X the coin denomination.