Hoot Shot the Sheriff

Hoot Shot the Sheriff by Backseat Gaming Overview

The Hoot Shot the Sheriff slot is the latest offering from Backseat Gaming. The game was created on Hacksaw Gaming’s game development platform, Hacksaw OpenRGS. I’ve played several online slots that initially proved to be fun, but don’t offer much in the way of bonus features.

Luckily, this isn’t the case with Hoot Shot the Sheriff. It has a lot of positives, such as a comparatively high maximum win, a global multiplier feature, and free spin bonus games to raise the bar on how much of a payout you can enjoy. However, it does have a few issues, which I’ll thoroughly discuss in the rest of this slot review.  

Pros

• High max win potential
• Cumulative multiplier
• Great graphics and music
• Easy to navigate

Cons

• Buy Bonus features are costly
• RTP can vary
• Dry base game

Hoot Shot the Sheriff Video Review

Since this is a high volatility slot, I’d suggest that you take a look at our comprehensive video review.

Hoot Shot the Sheriff Slot Review

This Backseat Gaming slot features enticing multimedia elements, vibrant symbols, and an overall engaging gameplay experience. Hoot Shot the Sheriff offers many game features, but it relies too much on them, leaving the base game feeling a bit too dry. I’ll discuss everything that I liked about this video slot from Backseat Gaming in detail, and what can use some improvements.

Theme

Hoot Shot the Sheriff has a Western theme. While this theme is usually depicted in a serious light (Dead, Dead, or Deader, Deadwood R.I.P.) Hoot Shot the Sheriff delivers an adorable spin on it.

The sheriff in town is the honorable yet blunt owl named Hoot. This isn’t the kind of feature that is commonly seen every day in a slot, and yet, the collaboration between Backseat and Hacksaw has yielded something interesting. The central role of Hoot the Owl, the sheriff, is keeping the bad guys in check, and this Western slot is pretty successful in conveying that. It’s pretty much tailor-made to fit in the Wild West sections of top online casinos out there.

Graphics, Sounds, and Animation

The multimedia emphasis in this game is relatively strong. Whether it’s the color scheme or the presentation of the cartoon characters in the artwork, everything is well-balanced. It’s not overpowering or jarring, and it doesn’t detract from the experience at all. The music is pleasant and complements the overall theme well.

I thought the animations were the best part of the mix, where they clearly conveyed changes in a clear light. Whether I was landing 3 bonus scatter symbols for a bonus round, received higher badge multipliers through the badge symbols, or landed in the Hootout bonus game, everything was both clear and enticing.

The symbols, with their cheerfully amateurish charm, danced across the reels, rekindling the same feel-good factor that makes the original game so appealing.

RTP, Payout, and Volatility

If you have played some of the best casino games online and are relatively well-versed in them, you’d know that slot games have an average RTP of 96%. Hoot Shot the Sheriff is slightly ahead of the curve with an average RTP of 96.32%.

However, it is a highly volatile game overall if you look at the multiplier mechanics and the relatively low payouts from the base game as opposed to the super high bonus potential. On that note, the game has a max win cap of up to 25,000x, which is pretty great, even though it’s extraordinarily rare. It has a decent-sized bet limit, ranging from 0.10 to 100 per spin.

Gameplay

If you check out the free demo of Hoot Shot the Sheriff, you’d find that the Wild West slot uses pay symbols such as the triangles, diamonds, clubs, hearts, and spades in the low-paying category. In high-paying symbols, there are cacti, money bags, boots, and owls.

Instead of using traditional paylines for payouts, the game employs the scatter pays mechanics, where wins cascade. These are made up of 8 or more matching symbols, which are worth 0.2 to 2x the bet, but can make up more than 19 winning combinations that can pay anywhere between 50x and 400x the bet.

The scatters alone can payout bigger wins through the multiplier that’s constantly rising at the end of a spin, which receives a boost whenever the Sheriff Badge symbols land, as they multiply the global multiplier value.

Overall, the gameplay is fun enough with plenty of character action with the Owl Sheriff at work. More often than not, I was left disappointed with scarce wins with each base game spin. No matter how many symbols landed anywhere on the reels, the wins just weren’t big enough.

Features

Luckily, though, the features compensate for a lot of the lack of excitement. There are a few of them, such as the Midnight Gun Fight and Sheriff’s Hootout, which are discussed in more detail below.

Free Spins Bonus

Whenever 3 scatters land on the reels, the Midnight Gun Fight bonus game is triggered with 10 free spins. The free spins rounds can result in 5 extra free spins if 3 more scatters land on the reels.

Sheriff’s Hootout

Once you land 4 scatters in the reels, you get 10 free spins that follow the standard gameplay, with the added benefit of Sheriff’s badge symbols being multiplied into the Global multiplier. These multiplications remain active until the round ceases.

Bonus Buys

The features in Hoot Shot the Sheriff are also available as buy-in bonuses. While you can get the standard free spins bonus for 2x the bet, the latter is available for 50x the bet, which is pretty feasible.