Taco Fury XXXtreme: Slot Overview

For some, one of life’s simple pleasures is approaching food with curiosity and sampling cuisines from around the world. The Bucket List Journey website even highlights a few potentially eyebrow-raising options, such as ants egg soup from Thailand, alpaca meat in South America, or Mongolian airag, an alcoholic milk drink. Even if it feels like there’s a McDonald’s or Burger King on every other corner, global food culture can still surprise you with its range. That said, even the toughest-stomached foodie might hesitate at what’s being served in NetEnt’s online slot Taco Fury XXXtreme. Here, a zombie chef is whipping up tacos featuring the not-so-appetising ingredient of “ground hoomin brainz”.

It’s pretty grim, but Taco Fury XXXtreme is actually a sharp-looking game, with a battered, skull-decorated, graffiti-splashed food truck set up outside an amusement ground. In terms of style and vibe, Taco Fury XXXtreme sits at the complete opposite end of the spectrum to NetEnt’s slot Fruit Shop Megaways. It’s well put together visually, even if the menu is a hard sell.

Bolted to the side of the truck is Taco Fury XXXtreme’s game grid, built with 5 reels, 3 rows, and 9 static bet lines. Above it sits a 3-position extra row, which is explained shortly in the features section. Somewhat unexpectedly considering the title, Taco Fury XXXtreme is a low volatile slot, offering three RTP configurations depending on the model, with 96.05% as the top value. Bets range from 10 p/c to $/€200 per spin, and there are also two bonus buys available, covered further down.

Across Taco Fury XXXtreme’s 9 paylines, wins start from the left and must connect across adjacent reels. You’ll need 3 or more matching symbols, which can be formed with 10-A card royals, shoes, toothy drinks, spiky rollers, eye-balled bottles, or chef symbols. Wilds show up in several different forms and mechanics, as outlined later, but they all share the same core role: substituting for any standard pay symbol. The regular wild is known as the Taco Wild.

Taco Fury XXXtreme: Slot Features

This taco comes loaded with features such as Wild Explosions, Re-Spins, and the XXXtreme Spins buy.

Wild Explosions

Positioned above reels 2, 3, and 4 is an additional row where the Chef Zombie’s Special Sauce Wild Explosion symbols can land on any spin. When Taco Wilds appear directly below one of these Wild Explosion symbols, the special symbol drops onto the Taco Wilds and activates the relevant modifier, as follows:

• Orange Wild – increases its win multiplier by 1 and adds a Taco Wild on each adjacent reel.
• Red Wild – increases its win multiplier by 1 and adds a Taco Wild above and below it.
• Purpler Wild – increases its win multiplier by 1 and adds 2 to 3 Taco Wilds to random positions on the grid.

Re-spins

After the Wild Explosion has finished creating or improving Taco Wilds, chains appear to lock them into place on the grid. A free respin is awarded next, which respins every position that isn’t occupied by a Taco Wild.

XXXtreme Spins

As the game sheet puts it, zombie fans who can’t stand waiting for the end of the world can activate two different XXXtreme Spins features. These are:

• 20x the bet guarantees 1 Wild Explosion.
• 60x the bet guarantees 2 Wild Explosions.

Taco Fury XXXtreme: Slot Verdict

From the spacey feel of Starburst XXXtreme to the sweet drinks of Milkshake XXXtreme and now brain-stuffed zombie tacos, the XXXtreme line has been anything but predictable so far. Where NetEnt takes it next is anyone’s guess. Maybe Decoupage XXXtreme? We’ll see. For the moment, we have Taco Fury XXXtreme, and despite the branding, it doesn’t really push things all that far. Sure, the XXXtreme angle is more about the bonus buy menu, but when a slot title leans that hard on the word “extreme,” expectations naturally rise—and Taco Fury XXXtreme doesn’t quite reach them.

On the plus side, Taco Fury XXXtreme looks great, and the idea of a zombie dishing out brain-filled tacos is certainly not something you see every day. NetEnt clearly poured plenty of imagination into the game’s concept and presentation. The features are decent too, although without a fully dedicated bonus round they can feel a bit light. Still, the respins mechanic ties in neatly with the XXXtreme Spins element, making the gameplay more coherent than the enjoyably bizarre storyline. The downside is that Taco Fury XXXtreme has a ceiling on what it can deliver, and compared with the previous two XXXtreme titles—or most online slots in general—its max win of 533x the bet isn’t exactly outlandish.

Taking into account the visuals, the theme, and the specific feature mix, Taco Fury XXXtreme sits in a fairly empty corner of the market. There really isn’t much else quite like it. The end result is a slot so niche that it will either really click with certain players or leave others flipping through the dictionary, wondering how their idea of “extreme” ended up so different from Taco Fury XXXtreme’s.