Eagle Shadow Fist Slots is the Jackie Chan themed slot game you never knew you needed. Drawing on the golden era of Hong Kong action films, Eagle Shadow Fist Slots has high production values and a real sense of action to it that comes in part from the lead actor’s charisma. Whether you are a fan of martial arts films, money, or simply think that sounds interesting, you should probably give this game a try. There are not that many officially licensed slot games on the market, making this a rare treat that anyone should experience at least once.
Premise
Jackie Chan started in many wonderful movies that are all reasonably the same. Not that they are bad, but he is known for off the wall kung fu antics that make playful use of his surroundings to fell large numbers of foes he likely has no reason beating. The same is true of Eagle Shadow Fist Slots, which is a Hong Kong action film in all ways but being on screen itself. It is a novel and welcome premise in a realm of games that all largely look the same.
Presentation
This is the best and worst part of the game, depending on your tastes. While it is all officially licensed work that features photos and captures of the star himself taking on many a foe, everything else about this game admittedly looks a little cheap. The playing cards and suits all like fittingly Kanji like—though we wonder why they did not use real Kanji at that point. The live action shots look good too.
What is odd about this game is how cheap everything outside of the reels looks, however. Not just bad, but really, really cheap, like a programmer put some floating text in while he worked on the real UI graphics. This is an odd move considering this is technically a high budget game. Maybe they blew all their budget on Chan himself? We are not sure, but it feels somewhat odd given the circumstances.
Mechanics
Eagle Shadow Fist Slots is fairly standard in this respect, which also makes things feel a little odd. Despite a thrilling storyline going on behind the scenes, the game itself is a 5 reel 25 play line slot with a random jackpot. That is certainly nothing to sneeze at, and the basis for most games, but there really is not anything going on here that you have not seen before. Given how much money they put into licensing, and saved on the UI, we would have expected a little more going on here to keep things interesting. It still manages to be engrossing enough if you are a fan of Chan, but otherwise it feels a little low budget in this respect too.
Likes
+ Good licensed theme
+ Jackie Chan always looks and makes us feel great
+ Real story behind it
+ Reel animations and symbols are solid
Dislikes
- UI is just play ugly
- Gameplay is boringly standard at times
- It all makes for a weird juxtapostion
Conclusion
Eagle Shadow Fist Slots is what happens when you combine a big Hollywood level license with seemingly low budget attempts at everything else. Maybe they did that because Chan and the footage of him certainly is enough to keep things interesting. Still makes us wonder what could have been if they put a little more love into the game, however, on par with what the film makers managed to create. For being a big licensed game alone, we recommend everyone at least giving this game a try. You can decide for yourself whether it lives up to the license or not, and will at least enjoy your time with it.
