Bill & Teds

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure was the film that launched the career of Keanu Reeves, who has since gone on to make the greatest anti-technology film ever created, The Matrix. However, it wasn't so long ago he was acting dumb (and maybe it didn't require too much acting) as a member of the Rock-band Wyld Stallyns in the Bill and Ted films. The films centre on the teenage music related struggles of the named protagonists in the titles of the film and to be honest (not because we lie to you all the time, mind) we find these films some of the most frivolous fun to come out of the 1990s. Knowing that we can't be the only ones who enjoy these hilarious films, and in a shocking piece of proof that great minds really do think alike, Bill and Ted have now been further immortalised in the fantastic Microgaming fruit machine named after the first film featuring the long haired loveable layabouts.

Bill and Ted's excellent adventure is a fruit machine which comes packaged in a 3 reel, 5 pay line set up, which is now becoming the dominant set up of actual pub based fruit machines as the multi win line format that's always been enjoyed in Vegas slowly trickles down into the Basingstoke backwaters. The reels are superbly littered with photo-real images from the film of the main men, Rufus, Abraham Lincoln, and Napoleon to name but a few making up the reel symbols. As you'd expect with any fruit machine even vaguely associated with music the audio here is first class and really adds to the experience. We have to make the slight note here that this is a set 5 pay line machine where players can bet 1 – 5 coins on the pay lines but cannot chose to select or deselect pay lines from the spin bet. The maximum win available from this fruity is a whopping 2000x your initial bet for three logos stopping on a pay line meaning a full bet of 5 coins will maximise your jackpot win to 10000 coins. Excellent!

The fruit machine features wild symbols in the form of Wyld Stallyns logos which can substitute for any other symbol other than the special phone box symbol (remember that Bill and Ted used a phone box to travel through time in the film – wonder where they got that idea? Better ask a doctor!) that allows access to the bonus game, Circuits of Time. This bonus game sees you travelling through space in a star-ship shooting at planet. Hit any planet to reveal a number of win-spins, then at the end of your inter stellar journey you receive the total of all the win-spins from the planets you've shot successfully. Don't worry however if you haven't got your space-legs yet as the game features an auto-pilot function where the two teenage protagonists of the film will do the shooting for you.

One bonus game not enough for you? Well just like the film has two stars, there is another bonus Bill to the Circuits of Time Ted. The second bonus game, the Guitar bonus, gives you another chance to accumulate the free-spin ‘win-spins' this fruit machines offers as prizes in both bonuses. This game is activated at random times during your play. To achieve success in this sub game you simply have to stop a lighting bolt travelling around a guitar fret-board in a pre-ordained ‘sweet spot' in a homage to the guitar freak rhythm beat mania games that are so damn popular with the kids at the moment. Stop the spark in the sweet spot to receive a number of win spins and when the game is over you're returned to the main screen where your free spins activate.

Anyone who loved the film will love this fantastic Microgaming fruit machine and those unfamiliar with the big screen presentation will love getting to know the characters through this great gambling game. Whilst the slot appears deceptively simple, this fruit machine's double bonus offering will tempt even the most non-heinous of gamblers back time and time again to play. You might even find you get so into this excellent fruity that you need a time machine to play as much as you'd like.