Cosmic Eclipse

From the first time humans have looked up to the skies, we have been wondering what exactly is up there. At first, we thought it was the realm of spirits, then Heaven, before finally science gave us the answer – stars, black holes, meteors and various other celestial bodies that to this day we still don’t quite understand. This curiosity for what lies out there has always been there in the human mind, so it is no surprise that we seem to really enjoy sci-fi themes in our games, movies, and yes, even slots. Cosmic Eclipse is a NetEnt journey into outer space, offering gamblers a 5×3 playing field with 10 paylines. Forgoing traditional bonuses like free spins, instead, this game has a black hole that can only appear on the fifth reel. It picks a symbol at random, and makes it active, which allows it, along with any other Wilds, to be collected, which gives a re-spin while paying for all the collected icons. This continues until there are no more re-spins to be given out, or if there are 15 symbols collected in total. If the latter option happens, it gives a guaranteed winning combination with those 15 collected icons.

It is no surprise that the NetEnt title looks good, but it’s not their best work. The visuals do look great. The constant spinning of the black hole on the right side of the screen is an interesting detail, and the fact the reel is pushed to the left to make that detail prominent is a very obvious design choice. The animations are well done, although they are not particularly unique. When it comes to graphics, we would put this slot as above average. Nothing that really stands out, but there’s a clear effort put in to make it look nice.

On the gameplay end, Cosmic Eclipse is a low to medium volatility title with a 96.52% RTP. It offers a single special feature and the gameplay revolves around hitting it to get a solid win. However, the maximum win isn’t particularly amazing, and there isn’t as much of a risk as there is in high volatility games, as here you will get small wins from time to time to balance things out. As such, if you enjoy lower variance slots, you’ll have your fun with this NetEnt release.

You can play Cosmic Eclipse for as little as $0.10 up to $100 per spin, if you feel so inclined, so NetEnt is covering all their bases, from the more casual gamblers to high rollers. The maximum payout of 600x bet may not be quite what the high rollers are after, as it certainly doesn’t seem as enticing when you have so many more juicy games by the same developer to consider! That said, despite not quite reaching the levels of high volatility, it does seem like the NetEnt release copies that version of gameplay, as outside of the black hole special feature, there’s no really big wins you might score.

If you like outer space, then this slot has you covered. Various planets of different colours and spinning discs around them, alongside meteors that suspiciously look like poker card symbols, with just enough plausible deniability. They’re well drawn, but don’t really sell that proper outer space feeling. A bit more diversity in what kind of planets you can see could have done a good job at remedying that.

The single special feature that Cosmic Eclipse has is well done, although it can be oddly rare to trigger, despite the low volatility nature of the NetEnt release. It is activated by a dark hole appearing on the fifth reel, which randomly picks a symbol to become active. Active symbols are collected, alongside any Wilds, and reward a re-spin. On that re-spin, any more active icons or Wilds continue to be collected and reward re-spins until there are no more symbols to collect, or 15 have been collected in total. At the end of the bonus, the icons are put on the reel again, which grants you a guaranteed win.