Feature Category: Article

Slot developers are constantly looking for new themes for their games. Themes are an important part of ensuring there’s an in-built audience for new games, essential for hitting the ground running whenever a new title launches. One of the most effective ways of reaching a guaranteed audience is for developers to license titles and themes from popular culture, of which TV series’ and films are amongst some of the most instantly recognisable.

If there’s a hugely popular TV show, for example, you can bet that there will be an existing market for a slot based around that show. At the same time, giving a slots game a recognisable theme provides an extra reason for avid slots fans to give it a whirl, and commercially, this makes good sense for slots developers and the casinos they work with.

With that in mind, there are a number of amazing games that draw their inspiration from TV and movie classics. We’ve put together a run-down of our top 5, to give you a flavour of some of the TV and film-themed slots currently making waves amongst slots fans.

Game of Thrones Slot – Microgaming

Game of Thrones is arguably the biggest TV show of all time. Cult-status doesn’t do justice to the sheer level of engagement, excitement and interest that follows each new season. As the show draws to its conclusion, fans from across the world simply can’t get enough of all-things GoT. So it’s perhaps not surprising, then, that the Game of Thrones slot from Microgaming is one of the most popular slots based around a TV series’ theme, and for good reason.

The slots game has 15 or 243 paylines, with symbols spun across a standard five reels. The in-game jackpot stands at 1,500x, and with coins ranging from £0.15 to £6 and up to 25 in play at any one time, there’s plenty of money to be won if you strike it lucky. The coolest feature of this game is the free bonus round, where players choose from the four houses, depending on their bonus preference. These free spins and multipliers are responsible for some of the most profitable spins available in this slot, and alongside a multitude of other elements you’ll recognise from the show, give this game a feel GoT fans will love.

The Terminator franchise is another that has stood the test of time. When we left Arnie in the original Terminator, he famously pledged ‘I’ll be back’. In the second installment, he returned to the big screen as promised – kind of in the same way as Microgaming has rolled out this second installment of their hugely successful Terminator slot, packed with a ton of features you’ll recognise from the big screen. Expect the likes of T-800 vision, and the powerful T-1000 symbol, which can make for some interesting wins in the bonus feature.

There are 1024 ways to win in this game, through forming combinations of like slots on your reels, in addition to the usual collection of feature symbols that keep things spicy. Even better, you can play from just £0.30 per spin, with a jackpot that stands at up to £88,000. You don’t even have to be a Terminator fan to find that appetising – and when you consider that this game is actually great fun too, it’s hardly a surprise it’s a perennial fan favourite.

When Family Guy burst onto our screens back in 1998, it was an almost instant hit. Picking up from other popular animated series’ like The Simpsons and South Park, Family Guy quickly found mainstream popularity, before worldwide syndication took it to the next level. Today, it stands as one of the longest-running scripted shows of all time and still continues to attract guaranteed audiences with every episode broadcast.

Fortunately, the Family Guy slot from IGT does excellent justice by this hilarious series, and sets the slots game in amongst the characters and thematic elements that make the show the success it is today. Expect Peter, Lois, Meg, Brian, Stewie, Chris and the whole supporting cast, appearing across the reels, plus a whole lot of bonus features that can seriously boost your bankroll. Watch out for the walk on bonus features too, awarded at random intervals which can mean seriously good news for your spinning fortunes.

If there’s something strange in your neighbourhood, don’t freak out – just take Ghostbusters from IGT for a spin. The successful Ghostbusters franchise was a smash hit first time around, and its more recent reboot invited a whole new generation to get behind the ghoul-fighting gang. Aside from its authentic theme, this game stands out for the sheer range of different bonus features – some 6 in total, including wild reels, multiple free spins, and locked wilds.

The slots are packed with characters from the film, as well as a few notable props based on the various ghost-busting technologies depicted in the movie. Across the reels, there are 30 paylines playable, plus a jackpot of up to 500x. If you enjoyed Ghostbusters, you’ll find it hard to dislike this slot. But even if you’re not looking for an authentic Ghostbusters slot experience, you’ll still enjoy the unique quirks of this slot that make it a must-spin.

There’s something inspiring about the Rocky story, the perfect inspiration for putting in a shift down the gym or downing some raw eggs of a morning (don’t tell your doctor). Playtech have captured the essence of the Rocky film in their themed slot by the same name, which offers an impressive 95.02% RTP amongst characters you’ll recognise from the classic film franchise.

Behind the scenes, this is a game that operates 25 paylines across the 5 reels. There’s also a neat gamble function, which gives you the chance to double up on your winnings, if you pick correctly on a 50/50 red or black draw of a card. The theme, sound effects and animations all speak to the classic film, and the Knockout Bonus and Rocky Scatter help keep things fresh with added features. A must-play game for anyone who enjoyed the Rocky films!

From the get-go, Ian Fleming made James Bond an expert and complete cards player. You’d expect a secret agent to excel at some things he does, and gambling and card games are pretty much his forte throughout. It’s not just one particular card game he does well at either, 007 seems to be able to turn his hand to most games, including Texas Hold ‘Em and his favoured Chemin-de-fer. So is he really the complete cards player and when has he showed his skills to great effect?

One thing that has become a regular occurrence with James Bond and not just in terms of gambling is the fact that he regularly defies the odds. Whether he’s out in the field or gambling, even when the odds are completely stacked against him, he finds a way of coming up trumps, no matter what. So this is a sign that he 007 is indeed an accomplished cards player. Nobody gets lucky as many times as Bond so it must be down to skill more than anything.

In the first-ever movie adaptation of Ian Fleming’s novels, we see Bond playing Chemin-de-fer in Jamaica. The game is believed to be the original form of the more commonly known Baccarat. In a way it sort of sets the scene for how Bond the character is meant to be seen. A confident and successful cards player who also has a way with the ladies and possesses that suave sort of nature.

Diamonds Are Forever is another movie where Bond once again shows off his gambling prowess, especially as he’s out in Las Vegas chasing up a lead. During his time in the infamous Sin City, he experiences great success on the craps table. Not only does he bag himself the girl, he also managed to walk away with $65,000 too. With the secret agent continually winning big when gambling you can see why many suggest he’s the real deal when it comes to card and casino games.

Casino Royale is probably the best example of 007 showing off his card skills. The film revolves heavily around a poker game, just like the ones you can play in online casinos such as Unibet, where the stakes are extremely high. For James Bond it is literally a matter of life or death. Le Chiffre, a terrorist banker, has lost a lot of his clients’ money and needs to win it back, with the game of poker against Bond being the way out for him. If Le Chiffre loses, he’ll be in grave danger. During the game momentum shifts, mistakes are made but Bond comes out on top as you’d expect.

Over the course of both the novels and films, fans get to see and hear how good Bond is when it comes to card and casino games. Winning against the odds seems to come naturally to the secret agent on many occasions but is it down to luck or is he really the complete cards player?

Ever since 1962, when Dr No hit the screens James Bond movies have been captivating audiences worldwide. Over the years we’ve seen some very different interpretations of the spy by Sean Connery, Roger Moore and even the one-film-wonder George Lazenby but for many Daniel Craig has been the quintessential Bond.

So it was with some disappointment that the world heard that after Spectre he announced that he’d “rather slit his wrists” than play the character again. The filmmakers weren’t going to take this lying down, though. After all he had starred in the most successful Bond movie ever, Skyfall, which took a reported $943 million at the box office. As a result, rumours have been circulating that he’s been offered $150 million in a two-film deal and he is definitely signed up for at least one more outing.

So what do we know about the next film? Well there’s lots of speculation and the project is shrouded in MI6-style secrecy but here’s what what’s circulating so far.

The title

It’s thought that the working title of the film at the moment is Shatterhand. This would certainly be in line with the last two films, Skyfall and Spectre, and would create a neat trilogy of single-word titles beginning with ‘S’. It’s also thought that the writers will be Neil Purvis and Robert Wade who have been involved in the scripts for all of the Bonds since The World Is Not Enough.

The plot

Again, there are rumours circulating that a key element of the plot will be that Bond marries Madeleine Swann, the female lead character in Spectre. It’s thought she will be tragically murdered and Bond will spend much of the film trying to avenge her death. Whether bigger global issues will intrude no-one knows but the actual state of geopolitics today means the filmmakers should find it all but impossible to ignore them.

The cast

So it’s certain that Craig will be back, and almost certain that Léa Seydoux will be back as Swann. The franchise has also featured a regular trio of supporting characters including Ben Whishaw as Q, Ralph Fiennes as the post-Judi Dench M and Naomie Harris as Moneypenny so we can probably expect them to make an appearance as well.

As to who the villain will be, there have been reports that we haven’t seen the last of Blofeld played by Christoph Waltz.

Locations

The glamorous backdrops to all of the films are almost like another character in each movie and for this one Dubrovnik in Croatia is said to be a key location. Whether it will be somewhere Bond can show off his casino strategies and skills or tear around its streets in a super-charged Aston Martin we’ll only know when the film is released.

The director

One thing that’s for certain is that Sam Mendes won’t be back. There are currently three directors in the frame, Christopher Nolan, David Mackenzie and Yann Demange. All have great track records and are qualified for the job so again we’ll just have to wait and see.

Of course, we’ll find out all this and more long before the film’s projected release in November 2019 – but it won’t be until then that we discover whether the 27th film in the franchise is going to leave us both shaken and stirred  – and the world just can’t wait to find out!

Telefantasy by its very nature tends to be strange and original. The TV show Medium did something remarkable, even for a genre show. It made the unusual normal and the unnatural something seemed almost comforting by turning the ability to see the dead into a key part of a procedural crime drama. Part family drama, part cop show, part supernatural thriller, it’s something a bit different.

Medium details the adventures of Allison DuBois, a psychic who can walk into dreams and talk to the dead. The show’s history is a bit of a rocky one. It was always on the verge of cancellation, despite making it to seven seasons. The main character is based on a real person of the same name. In the real world, this psychic was firmly debunked and the assistance they offered the police was proven to be worthless. The TV show imagines a world in which Allison’s powers are real, and the inevitable consequences of being able to talk to the dead. Its appeal is helped enormously with Patricia Arquette as the charismatic lead.

Let’s take a quick look at some key episodes.

Pilot
Where it all began. We meet Allison DuBois, who has a fairly normal life. She is married to an aeronautical engineer, she has two children and is interning with the Phoenix District Attorney’s office with a view to going to law school. In addition to all of this, she can see and talk to the dead.  Her husband, convinced of her power, contacts various law enforcement agencies with details of her visions. The Texas Rangers respond and Allison finds herself as an asset against the fight against crime, when she’s not juggling it with her home life, that is. Just as the police start to trust her, the evidence is lost and the tone is set for the show.

Twice Upon a Time
The second season is perhaps too early for an alternate reality episode, but Medium is that sort of show. Allison’s grandmother (long dead) comes to see her in her dreams. Her actual world is in pieces, as using her powers to fight crime has come at the cost of her career aspirations. Her vision is one of her as an unhindered career woman. A top-flight lawyer who doesn’t take no for an answer.

Of course, Medium’s folksy charm won’t stand for Allison to be happy. In this world, she has no kids and a husband who doesn’t really love her. But she has plenty of power and money. It’s fun to see Arquette in a clichéd business woman outfit and the tale is a nice counterpoint to the messy and difficult (but fulfilling) life of the regular version of Allison.

Four Dreams
Season Three opened with a two-parter considered by the fans to be a bit special. The police are clueless, again. This time a band of people are breaking into homes and murdering families.  Meanwhile, none of the main cast are having a good time of it, as all of Allison’s allies have a plethora of family drama to deal with.

The pace picks up when Allison, prompted by the accounts of the only surviving witness, starts to have dreams. The witness was a child, and the only accounts available are via children’s drawings.  The result is a series of weird and vivid cartoon dreams of Monkey Bandits, who commit horrific acts of violence.

Not only does this allow the show to go to places it wouldn’t normally do so, the two-parter allows for stronger character development.

And Then
Season Four opens with a child dead in a toy store and a massive manhunt for the murderer. Allison is at her wits end, and it seems nothing can be done. That is until we meet bounty hunter/detective Cynthia Keener played by the irrepressible Anjelica Huston. She adds some acerbic energy to the show and turns out to be on the Season Four’s biggest characters. Plenty of scenery chewing in this one, and yet again the tone gets darker.

Burn Baby Burn
Another two-parter, though much less daring. Still, we have creepy dentists, spouse murderers, death by immolation, and three women bickering over the innocence of one dead dude. The closest thing we get to comedy episode in Medium.

Be Kind, Rewind
What do you get if you cross Groundhog Day with Medium’s usual trick of psychic prediction and dire warnings? Be Kind, Rewind is another example of how Medium takes a normal TV trope and uses its unique, home-spun angle to make it something much more interesting and surprisingly far-fetched.

Drowned World
One of the problems with being able to see visions and talk to the dead is that it makes the incoherent and improbable seem all the more likely. Drowned World is the story of serial child murderer and Allison’s attempt to bring them to justice. The clues, however, are layered with layered affairs and as the various B-plots of series begin to tie together, something more involved is revealed.

The Devil Inside
A religious fanatic targets Allison and her family, breaking in and causing both Allison and the police to go on high alert. The fanatic’s actions meet with inevitable and tragic consequences. Unfortunately for Allison, this causes angry spirits to mess up her powers. The result is that our heroine is stuck with a warped version of her abilities, which imperils every further. It’s a nice take on the show’s mythos and a surprisingly gripping watch.

Bite Me
Allison’s powers go a bit wonky after watching Night of The Living Dead. No, really. This episode has an Elvira cameo and is mostly shot in black and white. The episode actually sticks to Medium’s formula but in such a fun way.

How to Beat a Bad Guy
This is the episode that begins the arc in which Allison finally becomes a bit of a bad ass. Following a mugging, our protagonist meets Kira, a self-defence instructor. Of course, the local police force happens to be investigating Detective Scanlon’s brother, who is out of prison. This is a key show as it sets up a change of tone for the remaining series making things pacier.

How to Kill a Good Guy
The flip side of How to Beat a Bad Guy, and follows the consequences of the good detective Scanlon’s actions to the bitter end. It’s got some guest stars from The Dukes of Hazzard, some great misdirection and concludes the bickering between Scanlon and Allison. It’s a great example of how the various cogs and wheels in the show work.

Me Without You
No list of notable episodes would be complete without mentioning the final episode of the entire show. Rather than trying to tie everything together, the last episode throws it all up into the air instead. It takes the consequences of Allison’s powers to the ultimate limit and creates a powerful, bittersweet ending that is rather hard to forget. The supporting cast do get complete story endings and the entire show feels concluded and yet Me Without You is done in such a haunting way that the story stays with you. A perfect conclusion, even though it’s not the conclusion you may have wanted.

You can watch MEDIUM, starting with Season One on CBS Action in June.

The emergence in recent years of a number of important women working in the horror genre – Julia Ducournau (Raw); Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night); the Soska Sisters (American Mary); Karyn Kusama (The Invitation); Jennifer Kent (The Babadook) to name but a few – proves that women are taking increasingly influential roles in horror films, both behind the camera and in front of it. There have been notable female horror directors in the past (such as Stephanie Rothman and Mary Lambert) but never before have women been as strong a presence in the genre as they are today. This goes against the traditional glass ceiling in the film industry generally, and as women become more established as a force within horror the range of subject matter that they tackle continues to expand.

Jennifer Lynch’s Chained shows us that horror films made by women don’t necessarily have to be about women; on the other hand, the perspective that, as a woman, Lynch brings to the serial killer subgenre is unique.

Shot in just fourteen days on a budget of $700,000, Chained tells the story of Bob, a middle-aged taxi driver (played by Vincent D’Onofrio) who kidnaps and keeps as a prisoner in his farmhouse a nine-year-old boy, Tim (Evan Bird), whose mother he has murdered. Bob attempts to take the boy under his wing and teach him to become a serial killer like himself. As Tim grows to be a teenager (the older Tim is played by Australian actor Eamon Farron), he tries to resist the malign influence of his adoptive ‘father’ who regularly abducts women to rape and kill them. But when Bob brings home a pretty college student called Angie (Conor Leslie) as Tim’s ‘first time’, things start to change.

As her fourth psychological thriller/horror movie, Lynch made Chained in 2012 after Boxing Helena (1993), Surveillance (2008), and Hisss (2010). Since Chained, Lynch has directed episodes of The Walking Dead (2015) and the forthcoming mystery-thriller, A Fall from Grace (2016), which stars her father, David. On its first release, Boxing Helena was critically reviled, but its central premise of a person held captive by a ‘loved one’ is intriguingly reflected in the plot of Chained. Love in Chained isn’t the romantic kind but familial love: it is very much about fathers and sons, and how fathers try to mould their sons in their own image – it’s the ultimate ‘bad dad’ movie!

Chained started out as a screenplay by Damian O’Donnell (not the one who directed East is East) rooted firmly in the torture porn style. Lynch freely admits that she signed on for Chained just so she could work again after the disastrous Hisss, a film taken out of her control during editing (Lynch’s traumatic experience making Hisss was captured in the documentary Despite the Gods). However, she took O’Donnell’s script and rewrote it herself to reduce its gratuitous violence in favour of a sharper focus on the psychology of the characters: her ambition was to direct a film about ‘how monsters are made’. In this, Lynch succeeds brilliantly: Chained is arguably the most intense study of male psychopathy since Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986).

Chained opens with the nine-year-old Tim alone in the isolated farmhouse, looking through a tin of drivers’ licenses. We know immediately that something’s afoot: the photos on the licenses are all of different women. The front door smashes open, and Bob enters, dragging with him a girl who is bloody and dishevelled. He throws her to the floor, and there the scene fades. Lynch frames the action in a distancing long shot, to alienate us. She uses this strategy throughout the film.

Much of the action of Chained takes place in this farmhouse, in the kitchen area of this pre-title prologue. Chained is very much an interior film; but it never feels less than cinematic, although it is as claustrophobic a chamber piece as you are likely to see.

A title card tells us it is eight weeks earlier, and we start the story proper as Tim and his mum (played by Julia Ormond) take a trip to the movies. Dad Brad (Jake Weber) has told them to get a taxi home; but tragically for Tim, the taxi they get into happens to be driven by a monster. Pulling off the highway, Bob takes them to his own house and makes short work of Ormond in front of her son. Lynch leaves us with the image of Tim trapped inside the taxi, hysterically smacking the window with his hands as his mother is dragged away through the garage, through a door and out of sight. It is the last time he will ever see her. When Bob returns sometime later, still spattered with the woman’s blood, it is with the news that Mum is dead, and that Tim had better get used to the fact.

Bob lays down the rules. Tim’s job from now on is to clean the house: “you will serve me breakfast every morning for the rest of your life”. Tim also has to assist in the crimes by cutting out news stories of missing people, store cash from the victims, and keep the driving licences safe. From now on, the farmhouse is Tim’s world. Bob renames him ‘Rabbit’ (also Lynch’s working title for the film), and when Tim tries to escape one day through the attic window, Bob is ready for him. He attaches a long chain to Tim/Rabbit that allows him to move around the house but not flee it.

We cut to nine years later. Tim is now almost fully grown up, and a strange uneasy bond has developed between them. In his own twisted way, Bob can’t help but take a paternal interest in the boy: “You are not going to be ignorant”, he tells him, “you are going to study and you are going to learn.” What Bob gives him to learn, though, is an anatomy textbook so that Tim/Rabbit can find out all about the human body, to be an efficient killer just like Bob.

Lynch cast Vincent D’Onofrio because of his ability to play characters who are essentially damaged children, and D’Onofrio gives an astonishing performance as the lumbering, stuttering, semi-literate taxi driver-cum-serial killer. D’Onofrio’s Bob is an amalgam of numerous true-life cab driver murderers – David Berkowitz (the Son of Sam), Glen Edward Rogers (the Casanova Killer), Russell Elwood – all of whom used their taxis for finding victims. This lends the character a chilling believability on the surface. On the inside, Bob is not that far away from Private Pyle in Full Metal Jacket (and there are even shades of Men in Black’s Edgar ‘The Bug’ in his performance). He is not a natural born killer; he’s made into one through the cycle of violence perpetuated in his family.

Although much of Chained is from Tim’s point of view, Lynch also takes us into the mind of Bob. In an early scene, Bob picks up a father and son in his cab. The pair has an argument, and the domineering father strikes the son. A flashback shows us that Bob had a tyrant for a father who kept the family in a constant state of terror. As the oldest son, Bob bore the brunt of the abuse. When he reached his teenage years, Bob’s father regarded Bob as a threat to his own position as head of the family. So Father forced Bob to have sex with his mother to stop him becoming a ‘man’. It is Bob’s psychosexual problems caused by his father and his family that made him into a sociopath.

Lynch and D’Onofrio invite us to see Bob as a pathetic character rather than as a monster because even Bob wants to be loved and understood. But what’s horrifying is the way that Bob tries to force Tim/Rabbit into the same way of being as himself; he knows only relationships based on pain, damage, and abuse.

For the most part, Chained is a two-hander between D’Onofrio and Farron. The on-screen chemistry between the two actors is electric. Farron plays Tim/Rabbit as an observer, someone who has learned not to put a foot wrong, because upsetting Bob means risking a beating, possibly far worse. But they are also very much the odd couple; they bicker like a father and son who don’t like each other but are forced together because they simply have no-one else. And having somebody – anybody – is better than having nobody. So the sense of identification between them grows, and we start to wonder if Tim/Rabbit may eventually buckle under Bob’s will. Stockholm syndrome is a psychological condition that can develop in people who are held hostage for long periods of time. They start to form psychological alliances with their captors as a means to survival; we begin to think that this might be happening to Tim/Rabbit in his relationship with his captor, Bob.

When Bob brings Angie home to be Tim’s ‘graduation present’ so comes the crunch. Lynch keeps us guessing as to which way Tim/Rabbit will jump. And later, when Bob allows Tim out of the house to accompany him on a hunt, there is a moment that mirrors the earlier image of the nine-year-old Tim trapped in the taxi as his mother is taken away to be murdered. It’s a bookend of sorts for Tim – one that marks the end of childhood, the loss of innocence; and the moment where Tim has to decide upon his own identity.

Lynch suffered problems with the American censor board – the MPAA – with Chained. The film was originally rated as an NC-17, which can cause problems for a movie because, in the States, the NC-17 is still associated with the old X certificate, which was reserved for sexually explicit films: some advertisers and cinemas refuse to show NC-17 films. Boxing Helena had been rated NC-17, but changed to an R after appeal. Lynch attempted to appeal for the rating of Chained to be changed in the same way, but the decision was upheld. Ultimately, Lynch had to cut the film in order to secure an R. However, the cuts were minimal: reductions were made to a throat slashing scene (the uncut version of the scene is included as an extra ‘alternate scene’ in the DVD release). But anyone who has seen the documentary This Film is Not Yet Rated (2006) knows that these things are often political: explicit or ‘disturbing’ sex and violence in independent films are often treated differently to the casual violence of big Hollywood studio pictures. As Lynch protests: “Apparently, it’s okay for teenagers to see girls getting their breasts chopped off and their heads lopped off if it’s funny and slick and sexy, but it’s not okay for them to see what real violence is and how hideously quiet and clumsy and haphazard it can be”. The delays to Chained caused by these censorship problems ultimately delayed the film’s release, and Anchor Bay Entertainment ended up putting it out straight to DVD.

Chained was only screened theatrically at film festivals, where it has occasionally been programmed in a double-bill with her father’s Eraserhead. It’s tempting to see Chained as some kind of riposte to the elder Lynch (critics speculate that Eraserhead was influenced by David’s terror of fathering Jennifer); especially when you consider Chained’s controversial twist ending, which undermines our assumption that it was pure fate that brought Tim to be Bob’s captive. The film seems to be saying that even good ‘normal’ families can be tainted by abuse. It’s the kind of ending that seems to tie things up a little too neatly on first viewing, but becomes perfectly logical when you later come to review all the events that preceded it.

But Chained is about much more than just the relationship between a father and child: it’s rumination on the way people can come to identify with the aggressor rather than the victim; how the cycle of violence is perpetuated by society’s patriarchs. Not a popular message, for sure, especially amongst those newspaper critics who hold ‘traditional’ values (The Daily Telegraph called it ‘a lurid disgrace’) – but one that makes for powerful, disturbing, viewing nonetheless.

Lynch has promised a special director’s cut of Chained, restoring some scenes that were cut in order to satisfy her contract with Anchor Bay Entertainment that stipulated a film of no longer than 90 minutes. Let’s hope that Lynch secures the funding to make this happen. Chained deserves to be better known than it is. It’s Lynch’s best film to date, and one of the finest horror movies so far to make it past the Hollywood glass ceiling.

CHAINED will be holding viewers captive when it screens on Horror Channel on August 22nd. Sky 319, Virgin 149, Freeview 70, Freesat 138.

If you’re looking to play on a bingo site, then you may wish to deposit to add money to your account. There are quite a few ways that you can do so on the average site, with various pros and cons attached to each one. In this article, we’ll be making sure you’re totally informed on how to use these and when.

Credit/Debit Cards

You’ve probably got at least one of these in your wallet at home and most bingo sites will accept the major card providers out there. These have the massive advantage in that you’ve already got a card you can use and you don’t really need to do anything else to do so. You also don’t need to check if a site accepts the payment method, as most of them will do.

On the disadvantage side of things, there are a few things to watch out for. Using your card won’t be as safe and secure as some of the other payment methods listed here, as you’re giving your details out to the site directly without a middle man.

PayPal

This payment method handles millions of payments each and every day. It enjoys a brilliant reputation with users, often providing payments much faster and cheaper than any other method out there. Bingo sites that allow you to use this as a withdrawal method can pay you out much faster with PayPal than with any other method.

If we look at the downsides, although this method is popular it’s not available on every site on the market. This means that you will have to check this out in advance so as to not be disappointed. When you do find a site that you can use it on, you can enjoy faster and more flexible payments.

Phone Bill Payments

Gaming sites love this payment method, as it’s one of the most convenient for their players to use. The sites that offer mobile bingo pay with phone bill give a better experience to their players as they can deposit simply by adding in their phone number and then authorising the payment with a text.

Unfortunately, this is a deposit only payment methods and there are limits as to what you can deposit on a daily basis. This can be advantageous for those that want to make sure they’re not overspending, as the secure payment method itself will make sure you can’t go too far over your budget.

Paysafecard

If you want to remain anonymous and even use cash to find your account then you can opt to use a Paysafecard. This handy payment method can be purchased from your local store, then you just use the PIN to transfer the funds from your voucher onto the site. This is ideal for people that don’t have a credit card that they want to use online or just want to keep their identity private.

On the flip side, there’s not a lot of protection for users that opt to deposit with this method. For example, if you lose your voucher then there’s no way to claim your money back, as there’s nothing to register the voucher to you. Just be careful with your voucher and you should be alright.

Playing bingo can be a whole load of fun, if you keep your wits about you when you deposit then you’ll have a great time.

It is always intriguing to see what direction professional sport stars take as they reach the end of their careers. The possibilities are numerous: Some go into media, others take up coaching, while for many, it is a role in football management that appeals. A foray into the world of online gaming might sound a slightly more unusual move, but that is the route Zlatan Ibrahimović is looking to carve out, and it could be a shrewd one.

The Swedish international joined Manchester United from Paris Saint Germain on a free agency basis at the start of last year, an after some debate about whether he would stay or go, has ultimately signed for a further season with The Reds. However, given that he will soon be celebrating his 36th birthday, nobody is under any illusions that his time in the middle will soon be coming to an end.

The announcement of his new video game “Zlatan Legends” initially had critics sharpening their pens ready to give it the pasting that celebrity endorsed games often deserve, but this one could be a little different.

A passion for online gaming and apps

As a Premiership footballer, Ibrahimović is well aware of the major role that gaming apps, online betting sites and casinos play in modern society. Most of his fans on a Saturday afternoon at Old Trafford will have a smartphone in one hand as they mix watching the live action with checking the latest odds or visiting sites like https://www.toplivecasino.co.uk/live-casino-apps/ to download the most recent casino apps. However, where Ibrahimović differs from many of his contemporaries is that he is a huge fan of gaming apps himself.

One of the first rules of any kind of selling or endorsement is that you have to understand it and believe in it yourself if you expect to be taken seriously. Ibrahimović doesn’t just understand the importance of gaming apps as a crucial part of 21st century leisure, he is an active participant.

He told reporters: “It’s something I love, I want to be involved and I want to make a difference in the video game world because it’s part of my life.”

Stumping up the cash

Ibrahimović has also demonstrated that he is not all talk. The game has been developed by Swedish studio Isbithttp Games – and Ibrahimović is not just a figurehead, he also co owns the company.

As well as providing the financial backing, Ibrahimović has been involved with every step of the game’s development, consulting with the team throughout the game’s two-year gestation.

What’s it all about?

So what is Zlatan Legends? The game essentially blends sport and fantasy. Players compete in a driftball type tournament, contested by players from different realities. The catch? Every player is a different version of Zlatan himself.

The game has received generally positive reviews, with praise for both the storyline and the arcade type features. Best of all, it is available to download for free, so there is nothing to lose in giving it a go.

Modern slot machines come in all shapes and sizes, unlike one-armed bandits of the past. Even though we should consider ourselves lucky to be able to enjoy so much variety in our favourite casino games, somehow we still manage to get bored once in a while. Fun as they are, slots are the simplest of gambling categories. Limited by their own purpose, when it comes to design styles, types of mechanics, and winning patterns, there is only so much novelty developers can infuse into a game to make it feel new. Faced with the growing appetites of a contemporary audience, major software providers turn to blockbuster movies when all out of ideas for the next great theme.

WMS Gaming Lord of the Rings

Peter Jackson’s epic trilogy is the highest-grossing series of all times, a visual and storytelling masterpiece that has yet to meet its cinematic match. Released in 2001, the franchise left a lasting impact on popular culture, spawning numerous multi-media products inspired by the adventures of the Fellowship and their quest to save Middle Earth.

Among the most popular slot versions is the July 2010 WMS Gaming release, a branded game featuring Frodo, Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas and other main protagonists. The developers did a great job converting such a long and complicated plot into elaborate mechanics of the slot, truly giving the story justice and making the gameplay all the more interesting.

The game is envisioned as a journey to Mordor, during which players can unlock a total of 8 bonus rounds, all based on significant events from the movie and corresponding to one of the leading characters. An emphasis is placed on interactive features so that gamblers can experience deeper immersion through a sense of personal accomplishment.

IGT The Dark Knight

This industry giant was among the first to start the trend of licensed slots, and snatching the rights to develop a title inspired by the greatest Batman movie was a decisive business move for the provider. Christopher Nolan, the director of The Dark Knight blockbuster, is considered a leading talent on the global cinematic scene, and his view on the hero of Gotham is the exemplary image for younger generations today.

As is always the case with IGT, this game too has amazing graphics and breathtaking scenery. The gloomy atmosphere of the film is perfectly translated onto the reels, which should give every true fan one more reason to try the game’s many features. With four progressive jackpots, 243 ways to win, and a whole variety of bonuses, free spins and cash prizes, the slot has an enormous winning potential to offer to just about any type of player.

NetEnt Aliens

It’s been over 30 years since the first Alien film hit the theatres, and Xenomorphs can still strike fear into our hearts. Directed by James Cameron, the 1986 sequel served as an inspiration for the Net Entertainment slot of the same name. Known for their many licensed games, this famous software studio stayed true to the movie, creating a quick-paced, goal driven gameplay in which players must track down and kill the menacing Alien Queen.

Fighting your way through hordes of enemies, you will travel through three main levels, The Search, The Encounter and The Hive, collecting multipliers, collecting multiplier symbols and boosting Alien Activity Meter to earn your right of passage. If you manage to destroy the Queen and her hive, the game will award you a worthy prize of 240 times the bet.

Microgaming Jurassic Park

T-Rex strikes again in this elaborate Microgaming release, featuring 5 reels and 243 ways to win. Bringing dinosaurs to life with expert direction, CGI and animatronic effects, Jurassic Park is loved by kids and adults alike. Microgaming made a great choice to adapt this particular movie to slot play, as its exciting story and visual delights lend qualities desired by gambling audiences.

Dinosaur eggs fittingly trigger the free spins feature, in which you can get one of five possible variants, each with a different setting, characters and rewards. Whichever you manage to activate, there will be lots of multipliers, wilds and mystery symbols to explore, but the ones with the highest balance boosting ability are Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops bonus rounds.

This game is all about wilds – you’ll find lots of different types like split and running wilds, as well as combinations of these for increased winning potential. The best thing about the mechanics is the fact that the highest paying combo can land in the base game, any of the free spins rounds, and in the special T-Rex Alert mode feature.

The sixth series of BIG FINISH’s SURVIVORS audio dramas offers four parallel standalone stories and heralds the return of a much-loved medical practitioner…

“We’re trying something a little different this time,” explains Survivors’ producer David Richardson. Over the course of five well-received series, Big Finish has delivered twenty original stories that intertwine with, and extend, the established canon of Terry Nation’s acclaimed 1970s post-apocalyptic TV drama. “We had made five successful box sets with big story arcs, and I loved them all,” he says. “But it excited us creatively to take a different path this time, and follow the kind of episodic storytelling that they had done on TV.”

The fifth series explored the seemingly unstoppable spread of a mutation of the Death plague but ended with that new outbreak being contained. Scriptwriter Andrew Smith, who penned that series’ thrilling finale Come the Horsemen, says that the story arc needed to conclude with a renewed sense of optimism, despite the calamity’s death toll. “I think we almost have to end on a note of hope, just to give our survivors some respite,” he suggests. “We had to draw a line under this second outbreak of the Death… and it’s nicely uplifting for them all that this particularly devastating period is behind them.”

The original leading trio of characters (Abby Grant, Greg Preston, and Jenny Richards) have once again scattered. “Greg has gone off to Norway and Abby hasn’t been seen for a long time… except in our audio series,” Richardson explains. This meant that Big Finish could craft stories that would “follow Greg’s exploits in Norway, and catch up with Abby, while keeping up to date with Jenny, too.” Tracking these characters through parallel adventures was a way of having “all three leads in the series at once without having them all meet again,” he confirms. “Well, not all of them anyway…” he adds, intriguingly. The absence of a single overarching plot has allowed the production team room for “more tonal variety within a single box set”.

Series Six sees the second alumni from the BBC’s 2008-2010 Survivors remake join the original audios’ cast. Julie Graham, who played Abby Grant in the ‘reimagined’ version makes her Big Finish début; while Zoë Tapper (Doctor Anya in the Survivors revival) returns in the role of Evelyn Piper, now leading the Foundation settlement. The writing team for Series Six also sees the welcome return of some experienced Survivors storytellers. Smith has worked on the audio series since the first box set; Simon Clark joined the scriptwriters’ group with Series Three, and Christopher Hatherall (who first appeared as a cast member in the third series) came on board with Series Four.

First-time Survivors writer on the sixth series is the established Big Finish wordsmith Ian Potter, who has written scripts for Counter Measures, Vienna, and The Avengers, as well as for the Doctor Who audio range. “Ian knows classic British TV inside out. I knew he’d get the tone of Survivors right,” Richardson enthuses.

After Abby’s preoccupation with the new pandemic in the last series, Potter’s opener Beating the Bounds sees her return to the quest that has motivated her since the Death first struck: the hunt for her missing son Peter. Compound disappointment with dead end leads has pushed Abby to venture far from the beaten track, where she cannot guarantee a warm welcome from isolated communities no longer used to the contact of strangers. “Ian’s delivered a wonderfully simmering, dark drama that feels like it could have been lifted from the TV series,” says Richardson. “I think it is completely captivating.”

Hatherall’s The Trapping Pit heralds the return of medical student Ruth Anderson, a character last seen in the second Whitecross-based TV series’ finale New World. Played by Annie Irving for one episode in Series One, the part was recast, with Celia Gregory taking over the role in the next series. Gregory’s untimely passing in 2008 (at the age of 58) meant that the part has had to be cast once again, for audio. “When we were recasting, I wanted to honour both the character and the lovely work that Celia had done,” Richardson explains.

The search led to Big Finish regular Helen Goldwyn, who has worked with the company since the earliest days and recently directed Carolyn Seymour’s audiobook reading of Jack Gerson’s The Fetch. “I knew we were in the right hands with Helen. She’s so experienced and confident. I did say to Helen that she could dip into the TV series, and I think it was ‘Lights of London’ that she watched. She voices Ruth brilliantly and gives a fantastic performance,” he adds.

Hatherall found inspiration for his setting in some old ‘country ways’. “I discovered that there’s this old, old method of hunting, which is called a ‘trapping pit’. The idea is that you attract animals to it and, if they fall in, there would be no way for them to escape,” he explains. When a highway holdup goes wrong, Ruth and Jenny come to the aid of a young robber who is seriously hurt when he falls into one such pit. “We try to play out the story almost in real time,” says Hatherall “to keep the intensity going, and have Ruth tested to her absolute limits in trying to save this character.”

Episode Three, Revenge of Heaven, gives Clark the opportunity to revisit Greg’s exploits in Norway. Back in 1977, TV viewers learnt little about the gruff civil engineer’s endeavours to reconnect the country’s hydroelectric plants and encourage the Norwegians to embrace the plan for federation and trade devised by their countryman Carlsson. “The brief gave me the scope to dream big about dangerous adventures in the wilds of Norway that the survivors wouldn’t normally face in Britain,” says Clark. “It allowed me to attempt something different from my other episodes: a relentless thriller with characters striving to achieve what, initially, appears to be an impossible goal.”

Greg is joined in his quest by adventurer Katherine Tanner, played by Graham. “Needless to say, Julie was fantastic in the part,” says Richardson, “and it was lovely to sit and chat with her about playing Abby Grant in the re-imagined BBC TV series of Survivors. It’s clear that the show is still very close to her heart.”

The series concludes with Smith’s electrifying Lockup, in which Abby discovers a settlement named ‘Peacetown’, based in an old prison complex, is holding an inmate she knows well. When the jail’s leader is unmoved by Abby’s pleas to have the prisoner released, she must do what is required to try to free her compatriot. Smith is convinced that these kinds of stark challenges are what continues to make the drama of Survivors so compelling: its lead characters are ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. “These aren’t action heroes,” he says. “They’re a housewife, a secretary and an engineer.  They’re you and me. We can relate to them as we ask ourselves, how would we cope if all the trappings of comfortable, safe, modern life were swept away?”

With a firm commitment to produce nine series of Survivors audios before the end of 2018 already in place, series might will be the last to unfold within the established television timeline. Future series could see Big Finish move beyond the endpoint marker of TV finale Power and into new and untold post-apocalyptic territory, unconstrained by the existing canon. An enticing prospect! Which survivors’ paths might we see crossing then, and with what results?

Series Six of SURVIVORS audio adventures is out now from Big Finish.