Slots Little Green Men Cosmic Blaster

http://www.igt.com/us-en/games/game-page.aspx?type_id=9008&showtab=1

This was a machine I hadn't seen before and I played it quite a few times. It was interesting in that it had a bonus where you seemingly had a joystick and had to obliterate spaceships and a planet. It has two seats and when one person gets three cosmic blaster symbols you both play the bonus at whatever multiplier you have played towards. The first time my friend's joystick was set wrong and when the crosshairs should have gone up, it went down so she hit practically nothing. Funny thing was we both had the same multiplier and got exactly the same result on the credit overall winnings. Thinking that was a bit weird we thought no more of it until I played it again at Aliante Casino. This time the joystick didn't work at all and I even called a couple of slot people over to watch who, in turn, called the technical guy. I hit nothing at all but still it said I got $41 in the bonus and congratulated me on obliterating the planet that never even appeared. As I said to the technical guy it must be purely a graphic with no direct input from the player. He was surprised and had no idea it worked like that, no skill, nothing.

Just thought I'd post it because it was interesting to me and I wondered how many more bonus rounds work like that and it doesn't matter what you do you will still end up with what the software is set to give you.

 

Something similar came up when the "Pong" slot machine came out a few years ago: it had a bonus round where part of the bonus was playing a short game of Pong.

The issue was what if somebody elderly (RE: slow reflexes), visually impaired or with no hand/eye coordination got the bonus? Then the game wasn't truly random or an anybody can win sort of thing so it had a problem with some gaming regulators.

In the end it was OKed because hitting the bonus was the majority of the credit winning component of the bonus round and the actual game of Pong that the player played only resulted in a very minor amount of additional credits winnable.

I suspect thats the same thing with this Cosmic Blaster game: you make it to the bonus and you get a certain amount of credits irregardless of how you play and actual mini game either doesn't really award anything extra or if it does its just a small token amount.

 

Most games like this, your skill in the bonus game does nothing to increase your award. It's for amusement only.

 

Lmfao, I remember I was at morongo this older guy was playing this slot machine bonus where you were a turtle and you are suppose to grab all the coins, he was literally missing them all. I guess he didn tknow what he was doing. I felt bad, wish I could of told him he had to hit the coins.

 

I vaguely recall reading in the slot magazine (Strictly Slots) about a restriction placed on these "skilled" based bonus rounds.
It was something to the affect that the skilled based couldn't be more or less than x% of what the person would have received in the non-skilled based round.
Although I don't recall the percentage, it was a single digit value.
So, could it affect the bonus amount? Yes, but not a significant amount.

 

I had this machine stop working during the bonus round in my trip last April. My bonus win was extremely low compared to what I had won on this machine in the past. I complained and the tech guy said the machine was closed earlier in the day and couldn't believe it was re-opened. A slot boss gave me $20 and basically told me to get lost. Mlife later gave me $20 more in slot play on my card.