New slot adventures behind curtain at WMS

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Updated: November 11, 2011 3:59PM

A visit to WMS Gaming’s facilities on North California always has a touch of the fantastic about it, a little escape from the real world. That’s doubly true as the annual Global Gaming Expo approaches, when the innovative slotmaker is putting the finishing touches on the games it will showcase to casino executives.

The expo begins a three-day run at the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas on Tuesday, and WMS invited me to preview some of the new games it will be showcasing.

Executive director of game development Bradley Rose guided me through Super Team, where you can customize a superhero to help you through bonus events. There was Epic Monopoly, using the four-screens-in-one Super Multi-Pay system. Journey to Oz, the latest in the popular series of Wizard of Oz games, ramps up the excitement in a Community Gaming format.

In Clue, you get do find out whether Colonel Mustard really did it in the dining room with a candlestick. And as for the Sensory Immersion game Aladdin, you’ll believe carpets can fly.

Super Team, the first game on WMS’ new CPU3 platform, has “about 10 times the horsepower of CPU2,” Rose said. “Having it on CPU3 allows us to do more with animation, more with storing games and overall it just looks a lot better.”

There are two sets of seven superheroes, each with unique powers, to enhance your reels. You can choose which set to use. Then there’s your hero, whom you customize through the Hero Editor feature. Create an identity, pick your hero’s sex, hairdo, cape and colors, and next time you log in, your superhero will be there waiting for you.

Super Team also includes unlockable bonus features, something WMS began in Star Trek and continued in Lord of the Rings. When you reach a bonus event, you can unlock a second bonus event, and when you reach that one, unlock a third. The game stays fresh with new features as you play.

In Journey to Oz, WMS uses a bonus wheel for the first time. On an average of once per 60 seconds, a mini-wheel spins on one player’s screen. If it lands on Glinda, the good witch rises to the big screen overhead and spins a bonus wheel that could take you into one of four bonus events based on Oz characters.

Epic Monopoly uses the Multi-Pay format to put four sets of reels on the same screen. That means four chances to get to a bonus event. Wilds on the first set of reels transfer over to others, so good luck on the first reels can lead to some big pays. And the game features an around-the-board bonus, always a favorite among Monopoly players.

WMS also goes the board-game route with Clue. It’s not a true community game, but your decisions can affect others. In a bonus event played on big screens overhead, you choose a room to play, and at the end take a guess at solving the murderer, room and weapon mystery. Wrong guesses are X’d out — which narrows down the possibilities for the next player to reach the bonus.

As for Aladdin, wait till you get that Sensory Immersion chair rocking and rolling for soaring and dipping effects as you take the magic carpet ride toward a bonus payout. If you don’t want the motion, you can touch the screen to turn it off. Me? I’m there for the full ride.

John Grochowski is a local free-lance writer. His “Casino Answer Man” tips air at
5:18 p.m. Tuesday-Friday on WLS-AM (890).