Red Tiger Gaming asks you to go after 5 drug barons but does not arm you appropriately. The real hero fights on the enemy’s terms and still beats the heck out of them. So that’s your brief as you sit down to play the latest Mafia-themed 5 Families slot. And these are no ordinary drug dealers. On the reels, you are confronted by Al Capone, Junior Soprano, and Sollozo lookalikes, apart from 2 other mafia leaders, along with the paraphernalia of their debauched lifestyles consisting of casino chips, glasses of whiskey, guns, newspapers, and a suitcase full of cash.
Load the game and you’ll be very impressed with the elegant design of the grid, set against a dark, luxurious, candlelit salon. The main characters share striking resemblances to the real mafia bosses or the movie characters they represent. The reels overflow with the opulence of the lifestyles financed by drug and blood money, which come off with the chic sophistication that Red Tiger Gaming is known to pull off quite often. Adding to the completeness of the theme is that there are no irrelevant symbols like the ubiquitous, yet mystifying card royals.
If you haven’t been through the rules and paytable, the game starts well enough until you start wondering looking for the wilds and scatters. There aren’t any – the game not does give you any weapons or features to empower you. You’re on your own, except when you get into the VIP room where all wins have a multiplier of 5 times their original values. 5 Families is a two-dimensional game without any bonus features, but still packs enough punch for immersive sessions of Mafia-themed entertainment, while also giving you a lower volatility that can lead to some satisfying wins.
5 Families is a low to medium volatility slot, where you can be assured of modest, but significant wins even outside the VIP Room and its x5 multipliers. Don’t mind the slightly below average return to player rate of 95.69% because higher RTPs come with higher volatility and more uncertainty. Betting begins at 0.10 and can go as high as 100.00. Though the game caters to all play budgets, very high rollers may find the maximum pay potential of 1,000 a tad disappointing.
Win combos are made when 3 to 5 matching symbols land on adjacent reels beginning from the 1st reel on the left. The high value symbols are the 5 drug lords, which award from 6 to 20 times your bet for 5 of-a-kind appearances, while their pistols, liquor, cash suitcase, and casino chips pay out from 1 to 2.5 times your bet if they fill the reels horizontally. Of course, when you enter the VIP chamber, all these win values are multiplied by 5, which can realize the maximum potential of the game.
The VIP Room is your only empowering battle arena in your fight against the mafia dons. Every time you land a winning combination, a bullet is added to the revolver’s magazine above the reels. If you don’t get a win on the next spin, the bullet is removed. You gain access to the VIP Room if you get 5 consecutive winning combinations on 5 spins, and there are 5 bullets in the revolver above.
All wins in the VIP Room are multiplied by 5 times their base values in the paytable. This makes the premium mafia lords pay out 6 to 100 times your stake for 5 of a kind appearances. There are no fixed spins you get while playing in the VIP chamber. Every time there is a non-winning spin, a bullet disappears from revolver’s magazine until it is empty, and you return to the base game.
5 Families is programmed with HTML5, which creates a mobile interface compatible with the major cellular operating systems like Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and Blackberry, and the like. This means that the game can be seamlessly played on all smartphones and Apple devices, which run on these mobile platforms. You will be playing online through your mobile’s browser. Smartphones will need Chrome, MS Edge or Firefox, while iOS devices will need Safari.
You will also need a stable internet connection to enjoy uninterrupted gaming while on the move. HTML5 enables you to enjoy the game in original audio visual quality by restructuring the game’s software to the small screen. Just make sure to play in landscape mode to get the best out of the horizontal layout of the game.
Every design element of 5 Families reeks of the opulence and lifestyles that characterize mafia families. The game is meant to be a comparatively lower paying affair, which can give fans a continued interaction with their favorite mafia characters from films. That said, players are not expected to have prolonged gaming sessions. Since there are no other bonus features, the game can become repetitive and monotonous, unless one is really on a winning spree. .
5 Families is an ambitious slot in that Red Tiger thinks that the game can succeed without the standard wild card. Though the game’s payline mechanics do keep the base game interesting, a wild symbol would have only enabled more sustained interest in the game play, even without creating more win combos than it does without a wild.
On the whole, games without bonus features and low to medium volatility are not to be scoffed at. They have their own advantages and financial benefits to players who can see beyond the glamour and multi-feature attractions of slots with several bonus features. There is more action in the base game, which prevents the bankroll from whittling away, even if the wins are not substantial. On the positive side, base game-enriched slots without bonus features tend to be more rewarding than the promises that high-variance games hold out.