Added: April 16, 2015
A little over 10 years ago Microgaming introduced branded pokie games to online casinos. It launched Tomb Raider based on the sexy adventuress Lara Croft. The pokie was released under licence from Eidos, which produced video games on the same theme. The Microgaming pokie carried visual and audio content from the Eidos games. Later Microgaming released a sequel to Tomb Raider titled Secret of the Sword. This article revisits both these branded pokies that have not lost that attraction despite a decade of new online titles.
Tomb Raider is a 15 paylines video pokie. The Tomb Raider logo is the wild symbol. It also awards the highest line payouts. The idol is the bonus symbol and a close up of Lara Croft is the scatter symbol. All three symbols get animated during payouts or when they trigger features. These animations are not great compared to what you have in contemporary pokies, but were a novelty ten years ago. The other symbols include map of the tomb, Lara Croft, tiger and the usual high value card symbols. There are two bonus features. The Tomb Bonus is triggered by the idol symbols. You are taken to a second screen where there are a number of idols in a cavern. You have to select from them and are awarded bonus credits. The free spins feature is triggered by the scatter symbol. You are awarded 10 free spins with all payouts tripled. The free spins can be retriggered.
Secret of the Sword is a 30 paylines video pokie. The graphics are sharper and more realistic. But it is the animations that are really awesome. They are taken from the Eidos video game. You will also see plenty of Lara Croft on the reels. The Lara Croft close up is the wild symbol and awards the highest line payouts. The other high paying symbols are graphics of Lara Croft in action. The sword symbol triggers a fantastic free spins round. Wining symbols dissolve and are replaced by others, thus creating a potential for multiple wins. The payout multiplier increases with each consecutive win till it reaches a maximum of 5x. Another exciting feature in this pokie is Super Mode. This is randomly triggered and awards five free spins with fixed wild symbols. The highlight of this Lara Croft pokie is the Global Adventure bonus. It contains two rewarding features, Hidden Treasure and Shootout Bonus.
Both these games can be played at Australian online casinos such as Casino Mate and Royal Vegas.
