Microgaming are one of the biggest software providers in the online casino industry. Their brand has become synonymous with developing some of the most exciting and enthralling games on the market.
They’ve been around since 1994, but over the years the company has dabbled in many different online gaming platforms. Online poker used to be their biggest feature, but now they are definitely more targeted towards the online casino industry and have often set the benchmark for their competitors.
One of the ways in which Microgaming have continued to stay ahead of their competitors is by offering their punters a chance to play licensed products. These included franchised games such as The Dark Knight Rises, Playboy and Lara Croft, to name but a few.
The company are predominantly an online resource, but they have created video slots that are available in many land-based casinos around the world. Even though these sorts of products are on offer, it’s hard to overlook their online portfolio, of which we will be mainly concentrating on for this review.
Microgaming Casino Games
The first thing that we want to point out is that Microgaming offer both download and flash variant of their products. This means that you can either get the games direct to your computer or play through your browser, if its more convenient. Having said that, whilst this option is available for the products that Microgaming offer, it will be dependent on the casino platform that is using the company’s software to what’s on offer.
We should probably mention at this point that Microgaming don’t offer any sort of standalone casino. The software they provide is offered up to dedicated online casinos to use on their own software. Whilst this isn’t really an issue for us, it sometimes makes it tricky to know which software you are using due to many online casinos incorporating more than one software provider.
Graphically the software is one of the best! Once you’ve tested as many casino games from multiple manufactures, like we have, then you will soon get an eye for what’s standout in the industry. Microgaming offer one of the better options when it comes to graphics, but what really draws us towards their games is that each seem to tell their own story. This is probably due to the fact that each game comes with its own storyline and features, making every one unique.
The speed of the games on offer is also pretty good as well. They aren’t lightening quick, but we did see that some have the ability to tone down the graphics such as prolonger spins of the reels in the slots and a reduced spin time on the roulette table. This means you can get more spins/hands in per hour, resulting in the speed of play massively increasing.
One thing Microgaming has going for it over their rivals is the depth of the products on offer. We’re going to talk more about each game in the next section of the review, but a few key facts state that they have over 750 casino games, 1,200+ variants, 41 progressives, 31 multi player games, 25 multi player tournament games and all this in over 45 different languages. Their progressive jackpot, according to their website, has also paid out over £425 million, which we’re sure you will agree, is impressive to say the least!
SLOTS
Slots are definitely where Microgaming excel and it’s arguably the companies ‘bread and butter’ for their online casino. They have too many to count in all honesty and well into the hundreds of both 3 and 5 reel games to choose from.
We mentioned earlier about the fact that Microgaming offer up licensed slots and we think that is probably their biggest selling point. Jurassic Park, Terminator 2, Lara Croft and so many more really keep the slots section feeling fresh and the inclusion of these licensed title just gives them that bit of authority over their competitions, in our opinion.
Having said that, the backbone to their slots is titles that have been conjured up by Microgaming themselves. The likes of Avalon, Break Away, Max Damage, Immortal Romance and Thunderstruck have now become brands of their own, thanks to Microgaming. These are often the ones who include the huge progressive jackpots as well, and just so you get an idea of what usually gets paid out, the current jackpot at the time of writing is will in excess of £4 million, so it’s life changing sums of money we are talking about.
BLACKJACK
Blackjack also comes in as popular outlet with Microgaming and they currently supply 8 forms of the game. They range from classic, premier, multi hand, single deck, double deck, American and more. What we did find with this area of the software is that the designs lacked a little when compared with some of the extremely polished slots that were on offer.
ROULETTE
There are 5 choices of roulette on offer from Microgaming and these include classic, American, Multi Wheel, French and Premier. The games provide a wide range of options for roulette users and whilst the rules differed somewhat from each, they all offer an exciting environment to play different formats of the much loved game. The multi-wheel game was a new concept for us, but provide great fun. It’s literally a case of placing your bets on a normal roulette table, but it spins on 8 different wheels, so your bets carry across 8 times. It can be as expensive as it is rewarding!
VIDEO POKER
There are multiple options for Video Poker players from Microgaming, including both single hand and multi-hand formats. Game varieties include Jacks or Better, Double Bonus, Joker Poker, Deuces Wild, Aces & Eights and a whole host of others. The games are pretty straight forward in that you need to make the best hand out of the 5 cards you are dealt, with one draw. What we will say, again, is that the graphics are as crisp as you would come to expect from Microgaming. We understand that video poker is a simple concept and there is very little need for fancy graphics, but the game really does feel as though its an original from when they started out in 1994.
MOBILE CASINO GAMES
A feature that Microgaming have worked hard on is that of providing games that can be accessed via mobile devices. The games are available as a mobile specific product, meaning they are designed to fit the reduced screen size of your everyday smartphone. At the minute, games can be played on both Android and iOS devices, but Microgaming do state that a lot of their products are designed using HTML5, so may be available on other devices as well.
At the minute they provide 225 dedicated games to their mobile sector. Android users can actually download games direct to their mobiles and they get choose from a competitive list of over 75 titles. Alternatively, there are over 65 HTML5 games currently in production, which will be available to devices supporting that design process. The games that have been converted are generally the bigger titles, so the likes of Tomb Raider, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Thunderstruck, Lara Croft, Hellboy and Jurassic Park.
About Microgaming
Microgaming started life as one of the world’s first online casinos. In 1994 they were a brand with little background, but a keen eye on developing a market that was yet to really get started. The company went on the offence providing their users with a safe environment to paly online casino games that were exclusively designed and run by Microgaming.
Over time, Microgaming eventually started to push more into the world of online poker and it was probably here where the company started to really make a name for themselves. However, it would turn out that it was the casino software sector that really propelled the company into the gambling powerhouse they are today.
Over the years, the Isle of Man based company have won dozens of accolades for their efforts in both the online casino industry and online poker industry; none more so than Best iGaming Casino Software for four years straight between 2007 and 2010. On top of that, Microgaming have paid out millions of dollars in progressive prize funds (over £400 million) making them one of the most potentially lucrative software providers in the world.