Slot Review: Whale Song

It's been a long time since I've been excited about a new reel-spinning slot machine that didn't have some sort of bonus round or gimmick, but I am excited about IGT's Whale Song. And the reason that I'm excited about it is not because of what it has, but because of what it doesn't have.

What this machine lacks is a cacophony of annoying sounds. Instead of playing tootley circus music while the reels spins, this machine plays soothing New Age-like music that incorporates the songs of whales. I found myself drawn back to it to relax after playing other machines frenetic music.

Symbols on this machine include the jackpot Whale Song symbol; purple, yellow, and blue sevens; a turtle; and single, double, and triple bars. The turtle acts like a cherry on other machines--one or two turtles anywhere on the payline is a winning combination.

In addition to being wild, the Whale Song symbol is also a 12x multiplier. That means that landing a Whale Song symbol on the payline is a rare event, indeed. Even rarer is landing it as part of a winning combination. Three Whale Song symbols pay the jackpot of 10,000 coins when one coin is played, and 25,000 with a max-coin bet of two coins.

Two other features about this machine that I like are the backlit reels that light up the symbols when they're part of a winning combination (I think WMS Gaming pioneered this feature) and the splash that sounds at the end of crediting wins to the credit meter.

All in all, Whale Song presents a refreshing change of pace to the frantic nature of the typical slot machine.