Starship Troopers Walked So Fire My Laser Slot Could Run
Starship Troopers is the gloriously unhinged fever dream of military propaganda, where bug-squashing meets soap-opera-level drama, and the uniforms are just as tight as the plot holes. It’s a universe where high school jocks graduate straight into intergalactic warfare, trading footballs for flamethrowers, because critical thinking is optional when you’re fighting space roaches the size of minivans.
With the Starship Troopers movie having come out 28 years ago, there’s definitely a nostalgia factor when you release a game like the Fire My Laser slot. Hacksaw certainly appears to have borrowed heavily from the genre that Starship Troopers helped shape, but does it do it justice?
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Fire My Laser features Bombs and Lasers as the primary tools for generating wins. These symbols activate randomly, moving from bottom to top or right to left. When triggered, they strike paying symbols and add their values to the Total Win Bar, which is awarded at the end of the spin. Bombs and Lasers can also chain-react, activating when hit by another Bomb or Laser.
- The Small Bomb affects a 3×3 area, while the Big Bomb impacts a 5×5 area.
- The X-Laser fires single-symbol-wide beams in all four diagonal directions.
- The Super Laser fires three-symbol-wide beams and destroys any Shields it hits.
Symbols removed by these effects trigger cascades, filling gaps with new symbols. After cascades, Orbital Bombardment may occur, targeting 3–7 grid positions with 2×2 impacts and activating any Bombs or Lasers they strike.
Some symbols feature Shields, requiring multiple hits to activate. These Shields display the number of hits needed. Shielded Multipliers range from x2 to x500, with their total applied to the Total Win Bar once activated. FS scatter symbols also have Shields, needing three hits to trigger the bonus game, but only one active scatter is required to start the feature.
- The Alien Mind FS scatter awards 8 Alien Attack free spins. During this mode, activated Multipliers are stored in a Progressive Multiplier, which is applied to all wins whenever a new Multiplier is added. Each additional Alien Mind FS scatter awards +2 spins.
- The Power Core FS scatter awards 12 Extermination free spins, where the Progressive Multiplier applies to all wins. Extra Power Core FS scatters also award +2 spins.
Both free spin modes retain the mechanics of the base game, enhanced by the Progressive Multipliers for even bigger wins.
If you’re not keen on waiting around on a bug-infested planet for a bonus feature to trigger, you can choose to purchase either of the slot’s rounds of free spins.
Does the Fire My Laser slot do Starship Troopers justice?
Hacksaw’s Fire My Laser slot offers betting from $0.10 per spin. If you’re betting at the $20 per spin maximum, you have a shot at up to $300,000 in winnings thanks to the slot’s 15,000x max multiplier. The slot’s medium volatility gives the gameplay a balance between small consistent wins and the rare large wins. The RTP is 96.31%.
I was a little young for Starship Troopers when it came out. Unfortunately, I had older brothers. Consequently, the movie has always carried some mixed feelings for me. That being said, I loved the book it was based on. With all that in my head, the Fire My Laser slot had a lot to live up to when my mind immediately made the connection. And I don’t think it lived up to those expectations. The world Hacksaw has created just doesn’t feel as lived-in as I would have liked. That’s not to say the Fire My Laser slot isn’t good. The features are interesting, and the gameplay is entertaining. But I’d personally likely give another Hacksaw slot a try over this one. I give the Fire My Laser slot a seven out of ten.
If you’re looking for a few Hacksaw slots that I do recommend, try out Ronin Stackways or Klowns.