Starburst is such a famous slot that you have probably heard of it even if you have never played it. For years, this was the game placed front and centre at online casinos everywhere. It was bundled up with welcome offers, existing customer bonuses and more.
The colourful star symbol is instantly recognisable, and since the game has been around since 2012 when NetEnt released it, thousands of players have enjoyed spinning its reels. So what do they enjoy so much about it?
Well, Starburst is unusual in that it doesn’t have a bonus round. Everything takes place in the base game, so it’s a different experience to most other online slots.
Starburst Free Play
Game Features: How To Play
Set against a space themed backdrop, Starburst takes place across five reels, three rows, and 10 paylines. It’s not a story based slot, it’s more designed to be visually appealing.
For symbols, you have five different coloured gems, red sevens, and a golden BAR, with the sevens and the BAR being the most valuable.
It’s a low volatility slot, which might help explain its attractiveness somewhat. People on smaller budgets might prefer smaller more frequent wins to something high volatility, although of course, losing runs are still very possible.
The RTP is almost bang on the industry average at 96.09%, with a maximum payout of 800x your stake. So a calmer game than many others out there in many respects.
Winning Both Ways
Something that makes Starburst stand out is that winning combinations can start at both ends of the reels. So paylines rune left to right and right to left.
That means symbols can be involved in many different winning paylines, although only the highest winning combination on each payline is paid out, so you won’t get paid twice just because you can see a winning payline in both directions.
Expanding Wilds and Respins
The colourful Starburst symbol is the wild, and it can land on reels two, three and four. The middle three.
When it lands, it expands to cover the entire reel, and substitutes for all other symbols. This can be a huge help when creating winning paylines, especially given they win both ways. Even better, it will then stay in place while the other reels spin again for free.
This is the respin feature, and it can re-trigger if another wild lands on the first respin, and again if a third wild lands on the second respin. That means you could get up to three respins for free, and each one will have greater potential for bigger payouts because of the increased number of wild symbols. If no new wild lands of course, the respin round is over.
If you end up with three wilds in the middle and high paying symbols on reels 1 and 5 you will be very happy indeed.
Verdict
A large part of Starburst’s appeal is that it is easy to understand and beautiful to look at. It’s a slot you can settle into, not spend a great deal of money on, but still get plenty of entertainment value.
There is no bonus round to hope for, so no disappointment when the scatters don’t land, because there aren’t any. Instead, the main features are built into the base game.
I suppose it can get a bit repetitive with nothing extra to aim for, but then, not everyone needs collection mechanics and growing multipliers to enjoy themselves.
I like the lack of fuss with Starburst. When the wilds land it gets extra exciting, and when they don’t there are usually enough small wins to keep you engaged and feel like you are getting value for money.
Other Starburst Games
If you like Starburst but want to try it from a different angle, one of these should catch your eye:
Starburst XXXtreme
A much more volatile take on the original. It includes random wilds and the ability to pay for the Starburst wilds feature – so you trigger it for a price, and hope you win more during the feature than you spent to trigger it. Same game, even higher volatility.
Starburst Galaxy
Starburst Galaxy changes the format considerably. Matching symbols can form horizontal or vertical lines, and winning symbols disappear to allow others to fall into their place, potentially creating further wins on the same spin. A feature generator offers effects like random wilds and symbol upgrades, while a Galaxy Star feature expands the grid to make it 7×7. Loads going on here.
Slingo Starburst
Totally different again, is Slingo Starburst. You mark numbers off a grid and complete lines to climb a prize ladder. If you complete at least three Slingos, you get access to a Starburst bonus game, which brings the reels from the slot into view for a win spin to determine your payout.