The Champions is a video slot created by Pragmatic Play, which allows you to pick your favourite team and support them all the way. The developers go out of their way to immerse you in this: even altering symbol colours to make them fit. The game is mechanically simple, offering just two special features. The Momentum progressive bonus with increasing multipliers and a penalty shots pick-and-click.
What it lacks in spectacular animation or mind-blowing visuals it makes up in effort. You get slight alteration for each country you play, which we quite like. Furthermore, the Momentum progressive bonus was very exciting! Watching the multiplier climb higher and higher, up to a maximum of 800x on each spin? How could we not fall in love!
The Pragmatic Play release is themed after football and its icons reflect that. Sure, you have a few playing card royals, but they offer little more than filler. Players also get a whistle, goalkeeper gloves, running shoes, a team jersey, and the football. All of the unique symbols except for the football will have their colour swap to the team you choose. To earn the best prize, you’ll have to land a five-of-a-kind Wild win.
The Champions is played on a 5x3 board with 25 fixed paylines which cannot be turned on or off. The slot uses the same Pragmatic Play layout seasoned gamblers are familiar with. It works well for both versions of the game, which is always a nice plus.
The Spin button captures your attention in two ways. First, it’s shaped like a bomb, which is Pragmatic’s logo. And second, the two arrows will shift back and forth to draw your attention to it. The Autoplay function is right beneath, and gives you an awesome list of things to configure when you press it. Players can bet between $0.25 and $125 on every spin, which is a good betting spread for this reel setup.
To win, collect three or more identical icons in adjacent positions, starting with the leftmost reel. All prizes must follow one of 25 active paylines or their cash prize won’t be awarded.
You’ll notice there’s a yellow arrow pointed in the middle of the reels. You can move this arrow by clicking on any position on the board, which will move it. When you land the football into that position, the Momentum Progressive special feature triggers. Each time you score a goal this way, the multiplier increases by two, capping at 20x at eleven activations. You have 10 spins between each goal to score another one. If you fail to do so, the multiplier resets back to one.
Land three bonus symbols to activate the Penalty Shots special feature. Gamblers are asked to shoot five penalty shots at the reels. Depending on how many you score, you win a cash prize between 5x to 100x your total stake.
There are virtually no differences between the two versions of this release. That means that you can play Champions on mobile and PC alike, with no worries about version differences.The two are absolutely identical!