Do you like to play party games that involve a lot of drinking and betting? We hope you do, because that is the only thing our friend Paco does in this 3D casino slot game. Paco is a Mexican party animal all dressed up in a Mexican poncho, a disordered black beard, a Mexican hat, and an old-style long mustache. He is pretty much a stereotypical Pancho Villa (The Mexican Character). Always drunk, Paco throws away his shot glass when empty (I am guessing tequila) and fetches another one. He drinks while playing the guitar, so we hope you like mariachi music and those “aaayayaaaay!” shouts that can only indicate a Mexican is partying somewhere.
And what about the popping peppers? They fall in a cascade manner shouting and yelling on the slots. As it is a 3D game, the casino slot begins with a short video trailer. A small desolated Mexican town, south of the border, “overrun with despair and depression”, suddenly turns into a beach party thanks to Paco and his pepper friends.
This is a very cheerful slot game that is better played drunk than not (not encouraging it, just a personal opinion), here are the details.
Pay Lines
Play up to a maximum of 30 pay lines in a 5 reel 3D video slot.
Slot Symbols and Bonus Game
The Piñata Donkey Wild Card – The wild card symbol will always appear in the center of the slots, and it is wild because it acts as a joker replacing every other card. This way it is easier to win, and it always comes with the additional plus of giving out higher payouts. The wild card donkey also gives you the chance of winning the jackpot!
Bonus Hut Scatter Symbol, The Card Game – Among the pepper buddies there is a hut or kiosk; this will be your scatter symbol. It will not pay you anything… at least not immediately. When you get around 3 of these you will activate the bonus round. The bonus round is a High – Low type game, very common in casino slot machines in which you will be given a deck card. You need to determine if the next card will be higher or lower than the one given to you. This is a little easy to guess; what would you pick if you get a 3 card, high or low? High, right? Most times you will get this correct. In my experience, when you get a middle number card like 7, it is always better go low. You get three chances if guessed wrongly and then you collect your total winnings from the bonus round, or play up to 10 rounds and the bonus game ends. Paco will cheer you all the time drinking and playing the guitar.
Jackpot Piñata Donkey – As mentioned, the piñata donkey will not only act as a wild card, it will also give you the chance to win the slot´s jackpot. The Paco´s jackpot is not progressive, which means no million or thousands of dollars jackpot. It pays 500 coins per coin per line that you wager. To trigger it, you need to make a line of five Piñata Donkeys. You can still make hundreds of dollars and even thousands depending of your bet, and the chances of triggering it are higher than a progressive jackpot.
Additional Bonuses
Lucky and risky people are always rewarded handsomely on the slots. Paco will activate a Pop Multiplier Bonus every time you trigger pay lines in a row; 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 6x, 7x, 8x, 9x, 10x. The maximum we have gotten is 4x. What is really cool about this feature is the peppers will Pop (now you know why it is called the Popping Peppers) when the pay lines are triggered, and they leave big gaps that are filled by those above them and new ones that fall in creating new possible combinations. This is where you will get most of the “AyAyaaaaayaaaay!!” from the peppers. To get to the 10x, you most probably need to play all the 30 lines.
Wager Max and Minimum
The minimum wagering amount is 1 coin and the maximum is 150 coins. The BPL or maximum wager per line is off 1-5 coins. The coin denominations are 0.02, 0.05, 0.10, 0.25, 0.50 and 1.00. The default wager is 0.10 and 1 bet per line, so be sure to check this field before getting to exited with the lever button.
Do we recommend it?
When we played Paco and Popping Peppers for the first time we triggered the bonus round and got up to 8 rounds winning handsomely. You always write a cheerful review after winning, but in general here are our ratings:
• Graphics and theme – If you are not a mariachi lover or are not playing this game drunk, we recommend to shut the speakers off and maybe think of getting the bottle out. The constant pepper yelling and the “FIESTA!” gets pretty annoying. We quite do not get were this fascination with peppers in slot games comes from because this is not the first slot to feature peppers on the reel. 6/10 thanks to its annoying music.
• Bonuses – This seemed to be a payable slot with lots of bonus opportunities. The High Low card game seemed easy to win, which gives you some leverage. We would have given them a 9 but the big jackpot missing takes an additional point off. After all, we play slots in the hopes we can quit our day jobs for ever, don’t we? – kidding, they are entertaining too just for the heck of it. 8/10
So a 7/10 overall seems like a fair score, the thematic music is the only thing that brings the ratings down. In an online world full of slot games of similar fashion theme and graphics really make the difference. Still, we made money out of it, so give it a try online!
