Starburst Vs Gonzos Quest

We Put Two of the Best Netent Slots Head to Head

Starburst Introduction

Starburst is recognised as one of the most famous online slots of all time. This NetEnt produced video slot has become an instant hit and regularly features at many top UK casino sites in some form of casino deposit bonus offering Starburst free spins. Starburst is a simple slot that costs very little to play, which is arguably why it has become such a big hit amongst players.

Gonzo’s Quest Introduction

Netent’s Gonzo’s Quest is one of a handful of games that essentially made the avalanche/cascading reels slot genre what it is today. Themed on the Spanish Conquistadors invasion of the Americas, the story revolves around Gonzalo Pizarro and his search for El Dorado, the fabled city of gold. This is a game that uses 3D imagery, imaginative features and colourful symbols to add gloss to its theme.

Stakes & Ways to Win

Starburst

This gemstone-themed game features 5 reels like most video slots, and upon those reels are just 10 paylines. Part of the reason why this slot is so cheap is that players can play with anything from 1 to 10 of those paylines. Bets stretch from 1p per line per spin, up to £100 a game, making Starburst affordable for all. What players will find even more impressive is the fact that the slot dishes out a sizeable non-progressive jackpot and has a favourable RTP (return to player) rate of 96.1%.

Gonzos Quest

Gonzo’s Quest is a 20-line slot that is played over 5 reels, and it is cheap enough to play. Although the paylines are fixed, the betting levels and coin values are not, and can be adjusted to see stakes rise from a floor of 20p a spin, up to a ceiling of £40 a game. Gonzo’s Quest has a top prize worth 2,500 coins to be won. The slot was also one of the first video slots to offer an RTP (return to player) rate of 96%. The game is a low variance/risk non-progressive video slot.

Special Features

Starburst

Bonuses are one of the things that the Starburst slot somewhat lacks. There are wild symbols, and these appear as Starburst symbols (multi-coloured gemstones). These symbols can act in the place of other symbols you may need to win a payline. As there are no other special icons in this slot, this means that wild symbols can replace all other icons without exception. Wilds only pop up on the second, third and fourth reels. Starburst does have one additional special feature, and it is a re-spin bonus.

That is triggered by the wild symbols mentioned above. Players only need one wild symbol to appear on one of the central reels to activate this feature. On a separate note, players can win in both directions in this NetEnt slot. This means to say that winning combinations can run from the right to leftmost reels, as well as the leftmost to rightmost, as is more common in top online slots.

Gonzos Quest

This slot uses a cascading reels engine. This means that whenever a win occurs on the reels, the winning symbols are removed and new blocks (symbols) drop down from above to replace the missing symbols. In this manner, it is possible for players to bag multiple wins on a single spin. Moreover, an increasing multiplier will be offered for each consecutive win that a player manages to acquire. This can rise as high as 5x the standard rate of pay in all.

The question mark blocks are of great importance, this is a wild symbol, and it can be used to replace all standard paying icons which appear in the game. Those symbols aren’t the only special icons to pop up, though. There are also gold symbols, known as Free Fall icons which can trigger the slot’s primary feature.

Free Spins & Bonus Features

Starburst

Once a wild symbol does appear, the re-spin feature is activated. The reel which contained the wild will become an expanding wild. All the other reels will re-spin. Provided that players land another wild during that re-spin, they will be granted with another one while the previous wild becomes sticky for that second re-spin. This can also happen one more time. In total, no more than three re-spins can be granted, but by the time the bonus ends, players are guaranteed to have won something, given that the three inner reels will have been wild.

Gonzos Quest

If players acquire 3 or more of the Free Fall gold symbols on the reels, they will trigger the Free Fall Bonus. This is essentially a free spin bonus round. Players will start with a total of 10 free falls (free spins). The same cascading reels feature is in play during this bonus, although the multipliers that players can snap up are worth considering more than in the base game. This time, they start at 3x the standard rate of pay and can rise as high as 15x the amount won. Players can also snap up additional free falls by landing three or more scatters on the reels.

Starburst Overview

It is not by accident that Starburst has become such a popular slot in the online casino world. Casino sites offer their chosen slot for their free spin offers, primarily because it is cheap to play. Casino players love to spin its reels for the same reason. Nobody is ever going to walk away a multi-millionaire by playing Starburst, but if you happen to be new to online slots, or prefer to play low-variance/risk games on shoestring budgets, you do get a decent return for your bets with this NetEnt game.

Gonzo’s Quest Overview

Gonzo’s Quest may be simple by the standards seen in today’s slots, but this NetEnt developed release has lost none of its spark or excitement since its launch. The game is not only commonly found at most major casinos on the net, but it regularly features in free spins promos to boot. Gonzo’s Quest remains one of the best Netent slots releases, not just in the conquistador-themed slot genre, but of NetEnt’s vast library of games, too.

Our Verdict

So which one of these two goliaths of the online slots world stakes claim to the best Netent slot? They are both fantastic slots but the winner for us had to be Starburst, the pure simplicity of the game combined with a hypnotizing soundtrack has us going back to play more time and time again.