Pyramids of Giza: Overview

Imagine getting home after a draining day, slipping off your boots, pouring yourself a beer, and settling in for some classic Book of Ra. Now picture a Kafkaesque twist: you trigger the bonus, but instead of receiving the familiar special expanding symbol, you get…nothing. In a nutshell, that’s the Pyramids of Giza experience. Calling Barcrest a studio whose best years are behind it would be putting it mildly. Still, you’d expect the company’s approval process to stop rubbish like this before it ever hits the digital shelves.

One glance at Pyramid of Giza tells you exactly what it’s aiming for: a Novomatic inspired title, signposted by the ancient Egyptian setting, old-school presentation, and the standard 5-reel, 3-row and 10-payline layout.

Barcrest also isn’t known for being especially generous with RTP, and here it gets even more absurd. If you bet under 2€ per spin, you’re capped at a theoretical return to player of no more than 94%. To reach the more palatable 96% RTP, you’ll need to wager 2€ or more. Either way, players can spin Pyramid of Giza from 10 cents up to a staggering 500€ per spin on all devices, including mobile devices and tablets.

From a visual standpoint, Barcrest is clearly trying to piggyback on Book of Ra’s popularity. With the Nile and a deep red sunset in the background, the reels feature A to 10 card ranks, lotus flowers, scarab beetles, and the eye of horus. The top-paying symbol is the sphinx, awarding 250 times your stake for 5 on a payline. Strangely, there’s no wild symbol in the base game.

Pyramids of Giza: Features

Pyramids of Giza is about as bare-bones as it gets, with no base game features at all. To trigger the only feature available, you must land 3 pyramid bonus scatter symbols on reels 1, 3 and 5 respectively.

That’s where the confusion begins. Unless you’ve read this review or checked the paytable, you’ll likely wonder what you’re even meant to be watching for during the bonus—at least we did when we first tried it. Once it finally clicked, we were stunned to discover the only “upgrade” is that the scatter also functions as a wild. Amazeballs. Not that it improved the experience much, since all we wanted was for the painfully dull bonus to end, but you can also retrigger the feature to receive 10 extra free spins each time you land another 3 bonus scatter symbols on reels 1, 3 and 5.

Pyramids of Giza: Final Verdict

Pyramids of Giza has no saving grace. It’s genuinely difficult to find even one solid reason to spend money on it—especially if you’re a low-roller, since you’re effectively penalized with a huge RTP drop for playing responsibly. The game is so uninspired, bland, and flat-out boring that even Microgaming would likely hesitate before letting it through quality control, and that says plenty.

Playing Pyramids of Giza feels like firing up a Chinese counterfeit of Book of Ra, except the counterfeiters have never actually played the real thing. What’s most insulting is the apparent belief that there’s a crowd of idiots out there, ready to hand over their hard-earned cash just to see something that resembles a Novomatic slot. But if this bloodcurdling audience does exist, and if there are people genuinely drooling over Pyramids of Giza’s concept, they should take this advice: stick with Book of Ra and don’t even give this game a second glance. You’ll be grateful, and we’ll rest easier knowing there won’t ever be a Pyramids of Giza 2.