Frankenstein Returns

This latest entry in L&W’s Monster series is a new version of the highly entertaining Frankenstein game released last year, and the inaugural game on Light & Wonder’s new Lightwave cabinet.

Lightwave is a 49-inch portrait cabinet with a high-definition “micro-surround” display attached to the back that creates a dynamic overhead canvas of light and animation synchronized to game events. Placed in a bank, the adjacent LCD displays appear like a movie connected to game events.

The base game is a five-reel format, with five, 15 or 30 paylines, depending on the denomination. The game features are all improvements on the original. There is a prize board at the top of the screen that displays ascending credit awards. Unlike the original, the awards include three progressive jackpots, including the top Grand, a wide-area progressive resetting at $200,000.

The prize board comes into play when “It’s Alive!” symbols land on the first or fifth reels, along with different-colored monster-head symbols. (When it triggers, you hear Colin Clive’s famous “It’s alive!” cry from when the monster first moves in the classic 1931 Universal film.) The monster heads all display credit awards—blue monsters carry prizes from the prize boards; yellow monsters, one of the progressive jackpots. Green monsters increment multipliers on the awarded prizes up to five times.

These awards are displayed with lightning zaps between the electrodes on the monsters’ ears and the prizes on the board in a compelling bit of animation. In the Lightwave version, the lightning zaps also travel from the electrodes of the giant monster depicted on the game’s signage package, a remarkable display of synchronized animation and light tied to a main game event.

Three scattered wheel symbols trigger a bonus wheel containing five “Power Up!” slices that increase the prizes on the board, the Grand jackpot, and slices awarding five, eight, 10 or 12 free games. The power-up levels remain on the prize board during the free games, and two scattered wheel symbols retrigger the wheel during the free-game feature for additional power-ups and more free games.

Manufacturer: Light & Wonder
Platform: Lightwave
Format: Five-reel, five-, 15- or 30-line video slot
Max Bet: 800
Denomination: .01, .02, .05, .10, 1.00, 2.00
Top Award: Progressive; $200,000 reset
Hit Frequency: 32.95%
RTP Range: 86.5%-89%