Slot Review: Diamond Destiny

Name: Diamond Destiny
Manufacturer: Aristocrat

Symbols

Symbols on this video slot from Aristocrat, the slot manufacturer from down under, include eight symbols reminiscent of playing cards (7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, and A), a ring, a watch, flowers, a car, and a bottle of Champagne with two glasses. In keeping with the romance theme, the scatter pay symbol is a couple in silhouette. Finally, the diamond symbols on the middle reels are wild.

Bonus Screen

Three diamond symbols activate what the Aussies call the "feature" (it must be the British art of understatement), i.e., the bonus screen. The bonus screen consists of a grid of 14 diamonds hiding values of 2, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 30 times your total bet, a Win x2 symbol, and a Win x3 symbol. You pick diamonds to reveal amounts until you get two of the same. The value of the matching pair is your bonus.

If you pick the Win x2 or the Win x3 symbol, your next pick is your base bonus amount and it gets multiplied by the multiplier on the Win x symbol. If you should pick another Win x symbol, your next pick will determine your bonus amount and it will get multipled by 6.

If you don't feel like making the picks yourself, the center of the grid is an "auto pick" button. You can touch there and let the machine do the choosing for you.

Gamble Feature

Many Aristocrat machines have a Gamble Feature. After a win, you can go double or nothing by guessing whether the next color chosen will be red or black. If you want to gamble, press the Gamble button after a win. The screen will display the last five colors chosen. You then press either the Red button or the Black button. If you're right, your winnings will be doubled and you can try to double up again up to a maximum of five times. If you don't want to gamble (I rarely use a Double Up option on any machine), you can press the Take Win button or you can just press one of the Bet Per Line buttons to collect your winnings and start another game with one button press.

Plusses

One feature I really liked on this machine is the randomly chosen message it displays after you hit a winning combination. The messages I saw were:

Luck's on your side!
Double That!
What a top spin! (must be an Australian saying)
I'm impressed!
Now that's a reel win!
I'd like to see that again!

These messages add a little extra variety to playing this machine. They also give another incentive to keep playing this machine. In addition to the incentives of hitting a big winning combination and getting to the bonus screen again, you have the additional incentive of maybe seeing a new message.

Another feature I really liked is the fact that the diamond symbol is wild. I like wild symbols because of the emotional trick that wild symbols play. A winning combination with a wild symbol seems more valuable than a win without one because the wild win is unexpected. The wild symbol seems to magically change a losing combination into a winning one.

Minusses

This machine does not have a short-circuit key, so if you hit a big win, you have no choice but to wait while the machine adds your win to your credit meter.

Another thing I didn't like was that there was no correlation between the playing card symbols and the minimum number needed to make a winning combination. Two 9s, for example, are a winning combination, but two Js are not.

The Bottom Line

I found this game to be a very enjoyable one to play because of the changing messages and the wild diamond symbol. In addition, I found that the hit frequency was high enough and the bonus rounds frequent enough to make me think that I got my money's worth from my buy-in.

Send your slot and video poker questions to John Robison, Slot Expert, at slotexpert@comcast.net.

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