Hot Shots 2: Overview

No, it’s not the Charlie Sheen parody movie with the same title. Hot Shots 2 is the sequel to iSoftBet’s forest football-themed slot, and it brings back most of the familiar faces on the same sandy pitch. Many of the original foundations are still here, but there have also been some notable tweaks to the maths model and the feature set. The biggest change is the introduction of iSoftBet’s new Ultra Bet feature. If you’ve ever wanted to see what a kickabout in a leafy woodland looks like with the locals cheering, it’s time for kick-off.

Set in a bright woodland clearing, Hot Shots 2 runs on a clean, familiar layout of 5 reels, 3 rows with 243 win ways. The football pitch sits in a cleared patch of ground, with the grid planted right in the centre. This time the reels aren’t transparent, though they’re still framed by a crowd that celebrates wins and lets out a disappointed “ooh” when the scatters fall short. A light-hearted tune plays throughout, giving the whole game a fun, upbeat feel.

Choose your stake and you’re ready to play, with bets ranging from 25 p/c up to $/€25 per spin. On the stats side, RTP ranges from 96% in standard play up to 96.5% when Ultra Bet is switched on. The first Hot Shot used a medium variance model, while this sequel nudges things up into the medium/high bracket.

The paytable features many of the same animal characters, though with a few changes in the lineup. The top symbol is now the beer-drinking German Shephard, and landing 5 pays 10 times the stake. Next come the chicken, the bull, the bulldog, and the fox as the higher-paying symbols. Supporting them are 9-A royals styled in a big, bold Hollywood look, reminiscent of the font used for the movie The Mask. There aren’t many overt sports-themed tiles, although the football wild helps carry the theme. This wild can appear on reels 3, 4 and 5, substitutes for all regular pay symbols, and also expands vertically and horizontally to boost win potential.

Hot Shots 2: Features

Beyond the expanding wild, there are a couple of extra features designed to get the crowd going. First up is the Free Spins Bonus round, which includes a win multiplier that begins at x1. It triggers when 3, 4, or 5 Hot Shots logo scatter symbols land anywhere on the reels, awarding 10, 15 or 20 free spins respectively.

In free spins, the standard wild is swapped out for the Golden Wild symbol. It behaves like the regular wild by substituting and expanding both horizontally and vertically, but with an added boost: each Golden Wild visible also increases the win multiplier by +1. The logo scatter stays active during the bonus, so retriggers are possible.

The second new element, Ultra Bet, is the more interesting addition from a slot-evolution perspective. To enable it, players press the Ultra Bet button and pay 50 times the stake to receive a set of 50 spins. These spins run at a faster pace, and the gameplay rules match the base game, except stars can appear on symbols and be collected.

Once the 50 spins end, the total stars collected can convert into a prize. Rewards begin at 5 times the stake for 5 stars and scale up to a 1,000 times the stake jackpot if 15 stars are gathered. One last detail: if the free spins bonus triggers during this period, it plays only after the Ultra Bet spins are completed.

Hot Shots 2: Verdict

At a quick look, Hot Shots 2 doesn’t seem drastically different from Hot Shots 1, either in visuals or in its core feature set. The location is largely unchanged, and most of the characters return as well. On the plus side, that means the strongest parts of the original are still intact, including the expanding football wilds and the generous free spins awards. The key updates are the rising multiplier during free spins and, naturally, the new Ultra Bet feature. In the first game, the multiplier stayed fixed at x3 throughout the bonus, while the progressive version here can produce stronger results and increases volatility.

The standout, though, is the newly added Ultra Bet, which is put together in a fairly unusual way. It meaningfully lifts the RTP and introduces a chance at a jackpot reward, yet the 50x price is effectively what you’d spend on 50 standard spins anyway. It’s rare to see a feature buy that feels this favourable. In fact, it’s favourable enough that it can make regular spins feel unnecessary.

As a small caveat, even with Ultra Bet enabled, the RTP is still a touch lower than the original game’s, so that’s worth remembering if you’re after some animal-packed football fun. In terms of potential, Hot Shots 2 can deliver. Alongside the 1,000x available during Ultra Bets, a full screen of wilds and German Shepherds is technically worth 2,430 times the stake. Factor in free spins multipliers and the slot can put together some very sizeable wins.

Overall, Hot Shots 2 can be a solid time. Those expanding wilds can do a good job of pulling symbols together for a meaningful payout, for instance. Ultra Bet is the real selling point, though, as it appears to upgrade the experience without any added cost, which is oddly satisfying. It may not be a top-tier big win machine, but for lighter football-themed action, Hot Shots 2 is a decent pick.