Hockey Fever Penny Roller: Slot Overview

Players, ‘Are you ready to experience the adrenaline-pumping excitement of the coolest slot game in town?‘ If you are, then Games Global’s marketing would like you to think that loading up the studio’s slot Hockey Fever Penny Roller is the answer. There’s a catch though — and it’s a big one — because this is a textbook case of overly enthusiastic promo talk. Some would even label it pure BS. Hockey Fever Penny Roller is essentially a reskin of Football Penny Roller, which was neither “adrenaline-pumping” nor the “coolest slot game in town.” If anything, it was the complete opposite.

That may not bother players who prefer slots that are almost entirely stripped of features and fun. There’s not much variety in the presentation either. With no bonus rounds to change the pace, Hockey Fever Penny Roller sticks a tiny 3-reel game window on the centre-left of the screen, styled as if it’s bursting through ice, while the pay symbols and values sit on the right. And that’s the whole setup. Hopefully, bargain-basement visuals are your thing.

The reel set uses one single payline, so players can choose stakes from 1 c up to $/€100 per spin. That range applies when 1 coin is selected, but you can switch to 2 or even 3 coins, which pushes the top stake to $/€300 per game round. Staying true to the “less is more” mindset, expect plenty of non-winning spins too, as Hockey Fever Penny Roller delivers a painfully low hit rate of 8.53% on the default 95.94% RTP model, and it’s roughly the same on the lower RTP setups as well. Volatility remains fixed at a medium level.

Hockey Fever Penny Roller features only standard paying symbols — so there are no wilds, scatters, bonus icons, or anything similar appearing at any point. There are 8 regular pays: skates, helmets/masks, rinks, two players squaring off, refs, goalies, a white-shirted player, and a red-shirted player. Landing 3 skates returns 20x the bet, while 3 red-shirted players pay 1,000x the bet, or 1,111x the bet when wagering 3 coins per spin. On top of that, getting 1 red shirt symbol in any position awards 10x the bet, and hitting 2 of them in any position pays 15x.

Hockey Fever Penny Roller: Slot Features

Just like the football version, Hockey Fever Penny Roller offers absolutely nothing in the way of features to discuss.

Hockey Fever Penny Roller: Slot Verdict

Years ago, around 2014, Games Global — known as Microgaming at the time — released fairly well-liked titles such as Football Star, Cricket Star, Rugby Star, and Basketball Star. They largely shared the same core gameplay, with the sport theme swapped out from game to game. A decade later, it looks like the studio is repeating that formula by creating one engine and then layering different sports skins on top. The odd part is that the Penny Roller games feel far weaker than the sports slots Microgaming was producing ten years back. Rather than moving forward, Hockey Fever Penny Roller comes across as a huge step in reverse, and it was just as painful to sit through as its Football counterpart.

Hopefully this doesn’t come off too harsh, but after trying yet another Penny Roller release, it’s hard not to wonder if Games Global is running out of ideas. Sure, in certain respects, the penny slot, ultra-basic, no-frills, as-simple-as-it-gets “action” of Hockey Fever Penny Roller isn’t quite like what most other studios were putting out at the time of this review. From one angle, these Penny Roller titles are Games Global attempting to stand apart by pushing against the trend of higher volatility, more features, and bigger potential. It’s like car makers racing toward electric self-driving vehicles while Game Global straps a horse to a wagon. There may be a quaint charm to that, but it doesn’t stop Hockey Fever Penny Roller from being outclassed by the huge range of better-performing slots players can reach in just a click or two.