Here at last – Thunderstruck II creates a stir

Players around the Internet have been discussing the advent of Thunderstruck II – the latest version of a popular feature-rich slot first launched back in 2003 – ever since developer Microgaming showed off some marketing teasers at the ICEi show in January this year.
The wait is over this week, with the new game launching on a number of Microgaming licensee sites to a market that is well and truly prepared by publicity leaks.
Thunderstruck II is based on an innovative 5 reel, 243 ways to win concept, and hosts a range of benefits that include, Wilds and Expanding Wilds, Scatter action, four different Free Spins Bonuses, Multipliers ranging from 2x to 6x, and entertaining free games .
The game’s epic theme centres around mystical Norse gods and contains a visual feast of high quality graphics depicting Thor’s hammer, longships, some very colourful characters and Asgard, a rainbow city from the great Nordic sagas.
The road to riches hopefully begins in the Great Hall of Spins where the chambers of the four great gods, Valkyrie, Loki, Odin and Thor, can be unlocked, one by one, when three or more of Thor’s hammer symbols land anywhere on the reels.
Each entry to this feature brings the player closer to unlocking the chambers of the other gods, who wield greater features and rewards. The first is inhabited by Valkyrie, the maiden of Valhalla, who delivers 10 retriggering Free Spins laced with a generous 5x Multiplier.
Next up is Loki, god of mischief, offering 15 Free Spins, with an animated burst of lightning energy if the Wild Magic feature triggers, transforming random symbols into additional Wilds.
Odin, ruler of Asgard, dwells in the next chamber, granting 20 Free Spins by sending out his ravens Huginn and Muninn, to fly into random symbols, converting these to 2x and 3x Wild Multipliers, and, 6x if both ravens land together.
The fourth and final type of major reward is bestowed by Thor, the mighty god of thunder himself. Thor brings 25 Free Spins to the player, accompanied by a massively entertaining, and rewarding, Rolling Reels feature at up to a 5x Multiplier.
Microgaming has embedded a completely unique feature for online slots into the gameplay in the form of a player achievements structure, which remembers returning players’ past wins, allowing for the cumulative pursuit of rewards.
The achievements based concept empowers players to achieve “gold status”, by winning the range of payouts of each symbol. This is reflected in the paytable; as players unlock each symbol their paytables will begin to turn gold, keeping track of winnings and striving for a full Gold paytable. The grand achievement is the unlocking of all the God’s Features and reaching the 20th trigger of the bonus, where players will obtain Gold Status in the Great Hall of Spins.
Mike Hebden, head of casino games at Microgaming says: “Everyone knows the secret to a great sequel is to do things bigger and better, and that’s just the approach we have adopted with Thunderstruck II.  Thunderstruck is widely acknowledged as one of the most successful and entertaining video slots in the Microgaming stable, and we are thrilled to deliver an updated version of this iconic game to our operator network.
“The new game both retains and builds on the essential themes and graphic-quality of its predecessor, but we are also introducing some genuinely never-seen-before features that take the game to a new level of ‘epic’.”

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