Fire in the Hole Slot Review, Demo Play, Payout, Free Spins & Bonuses

Fire in the Hole Review

“Fire in the Hole” indeed, as the uncompromising Nolimit City drops yet another extreme volatility bomb on the community (or should we say xBomb). Granted, they have compromised a little with this release, making it 78 times more likely to hit the 60,000x win cap from the base game compared to San Quentin. Complete with a hard-hitting Oompa Loompa soundtrack, mining slot fans will hardly be disappointed.

You have to be a bit suicidal to enter this volatile shaft though, just like the red-bearded, dynamite-strapped roughneck who’s the sole prospector. The Hold & Respins bonus round is clearly inspired by Money Train 2, but this is far from a being a copycat. Innovations like xBomb wilds, Collapsing Mine Cascading Wins and Wild Mining are sprinkled in to make the base game interesting, and you can literally feel that this compact beast is rigged to explode at any time.

Fire in the Hole Slot Reel Screen

Fire in the Hole xBomb Slot Features

The Collapsing Mine mechanic is at the core of everything, and you start out with a 6x3 grid with 486 win ways. Winning symbols are removed from the grid, and this process repeats as long as you keep winning. However, each winning cascade will move the bottom grid blocker one step down, revealing 1 extra row which again increases your win ways as follows:

• 3 Rows (default) = 486 win ways.
• 4 Rows = 4,096 win ways.
• 5 Rows = 15,625 win ways.
• 6 Rows = 46,656 win ways.

The xBomb Wild steps in for all regular pay symbols, and it also triggers the Multiplier feature whenever it lands.

The xBomb Wild explodes whether it’s part of a winning combo or not, destroying all adjacent symbols except bonus scatters. It also increases the progressive win multiplier by +1, while triggering a new cascade.

Whenever you line up 3, 4 or 5 matching symbols horizontally, but without creating a winning combo, you trigger the Wild Mining feature. The triggering symbols are then replaced by 1, 2 or 3 wilds, respectively. The wilds explode all adjacent symbols above except scatters, and this triggers a new cascade.

Landing, or accumulating, 3, 4 or 5 bonus scatters during the same cascading sequence triggers the Lucky Wagon Bonus Round. It happens around every 200 spins on average, and the enhanced Streak Respins feature plays out on a new grid.

You start with 2, 3 or 4 unlocked rows, depending on how many scatters you triggered the feature with.

As is usually the case with Hold & Respin features, you start with 3 spins. Only blanks and coins will land, and your free spins tally is reset to 3 again for each coin you land. 6 minecarts roll in on the top horizontal reel for each spin, carrying various coin values and modifiers. These will be awarded to the multiplier coins on the same reel, and they work as follows:

• Coin - add values between 1x and 100x to coins on the reels below.
• Multiplier - boost the value of all coins on the relevant reel.
• Dynamite - blow up position blockers (if any are present) or boost the coin values. It can also reveal a chest in the bottom row.
• Bag - collect all coins on the relevant reel, and add the values to the total.
• Chest - collect all coin values on the entire grid, and it also clears the whole grid to make more room for new coins to land. The Dwarf will not be removed, if present.
• Dwarf - collects all values on the relevant reel, and becomes sticky to do this on each following spin.

As always with NoLimit City, impatient players can take advantage of the Bonus Buy option. This feature is not available in the UK, and perhaps some other jurisdictions, but players from most countries can take their chances. Here’s how it works:

• Pay 60x for 3 scatters with 96.07% RTP and a max win chance of appr.

  

  1 in 133K.
• Pay 157x for 4 scatters with 96.2% RTP and a max win chance of appr. 1 in 41K.
• Pay 500x for 5 scatters with 96.96% RTP and a max win chance of appr. 1 in 16K.

The 200 Spins Fire in the Hole xBomb Slot Experience

NoLimit City has really been on a roll lately, and every new release goes off like an xBomb in the gambling world. It was a pure delight testing this game, and we will definitely be back for more. As usual, we’ve put together a brief and edited highlights video you can check out below.

Review Summary

NoLimit City seems to have cracked some kind of code, and it’s now impossible for them to release anything but headliner slots. Fire in the Hole xBomb is a mining-themed masterpiece, and the extreme volatility and 60,000x potential firmly establishes the crafty developer as the heaviest hitter around.

It also helps that the likelihood of hitting the win cap from the base game has increased significantly since San Quentin.

You should be aware that a trip down this mine shaft is no rosy walk in the park. Being buried alive by the volatility is certainly very possible, and you will many times find yourself dropping F-bombs instead of xBombs. The highly explosive Money Train 2-inspired bonus round can spiral out of control like a runaway minecart when things go your way, however, and all the hardcore gamblers out there will probably gobble this up like manna from heaven. On the flipside, low risk casual punters should probably stay far away.

Pros

• Cascading wins unlock up to 3 extra rows
• Exploding xBomb wilds increases multiplier
• 3+ non-winning matching symbols turn wild
• Streak Respins bonus round w/ 6 modifiers
• 60,000x potential in all phases of the game

Cons

• Extreme volatility is not for low-risk players
• Customizable RTP ranges

If you love Fire in the Hole xBomb Slot you should also try:

Money Train 2 - is Relax Gaming’s megahit, and it comes with a somewhat similar Hold & Respins bonus round. You get a whopping 11 modifier symbols in this game though, but the 50,000x potential is a bit lower. Still, the bonus buy option (not for UK players) offers insane theoretical returns of 98 %.

TNT Tumble - is an excellent mining slot from Relax Gaming, and it’s famous for its downward drilling stacked wilds. Dynamite symbols explode to prolong tumbling sequences, and you have 3 unique bonus round options for payouts hovering above 2,000x your stake.

Hot Gems Extreme - is a Playtech mining slot, and you start with 6 reels and 4,096 win ways.

The WaysBoost mechanic increases the number of rows and win ways per cascading win, up to 8 with 262,144 paylines. The grid does not reset in the bonus round, which also comes with wandering mystery symbols, mega symbols and exploding TNT wilds for payouts up to 10,000x your stake.

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