The sequel to Rudolph’s Revenge, in this game Santa is out to get the best of Rudolph. On the reels, Santa with a sword serves as the wild symbol. While Santa and Rudolph together serve as the scatter symbol, the other symbols show Rudolph tied up, Santa reading a book about how to get back at Rudolph, an elf performing voodoo, an elf in an ice block, and a package leaking a strange green liquid addressed to Rudolph. The high value cards are all suitably gift wrapped for the holiday.

In Santa Strikes Back, the scatter and wild symbols are both animated. These animations are accompanied by audio that is specific to these symbols. The wild symbol can be seen brandishing his sword; meanwhile the scatter symbol shows Santa and Rudolph in a fight featuring a dust cloud. The tied up Rudolph can also be seen struggling to get free from his bonds. There is no static background music but when free spins are triggered, the player is greeted with festive holiday music. The graphics and animations in this game are very well designed and executed overall.

This game can only be played with all twenty-five paylines enabled. When playing a fixed bet of one coin per line is your only option, players are able to change the coin denominations. The options vary from .01 to 5.00 with fifteen options in-between. This gives the player reasonable flexibility with the maximum bet reaching as high as 125.00

When Santa and Rudolph fight in the scatter symbols, one or the other will emerge victorious. If two or more winning Santa’s appear on the reels, the player receives a scatter payout. Three or more Santa’s results in the Santa Strikes Back bonus round. In this round, seven free spins are awarded. In the free spin rounds, if a candy cane appears, it will light up a star above the reel. This continues until all the stars are lit or you run out of free spins. If you light up all five stars above the reels, you get seven more free spins and the payout is doubled. This process can repeat up to nineteen times.

Three or more winning Rudolph symbols offer scatter payouts as well. This will also trigger Rudolph’s Revenge. In this feature, seven free spins are awarded with a multiplier of 2x. On each free spin, the multiplier increases by the number of Santa symbols that appear. Within this feature of the game, Rudolph will always be victorious against Santa when the scatter symbol appears. If three more scatter symbols appear, this feature will be retriggered.

This game offers a progressive jackpot that pays when five wilds appear on any one payline. Also offered is a second fixed jackpot that pays out 2000 coins.

Pros:

  • Excellent theme and animations
  • The Rudolph’s Revenge feature
  • The Santa Strikes Back feature
  • Slot offers a progressive jackpot

 

Cons:

  • No flexibility in choosing number of paylines and coins
  • No background music in normal spins