Football: 2022

As nations from across the globe prepare for the ultimate football competition – the 2022 World Cup - gambling organisations are also looking to capitalise on this historic sporting event. One of these companies is Endorphina, an online igaming provider that has produced just in time for the world cup - a themed game, Football: 2022. Unfortunately for the players, this new game doesn't have anything like the slick design and branding of the world cup and instead looks like a very poorly designed children's comic. Maybe this is due to image rights and intellectual property issues, but this is really no excuse for how tasteless and lazy this game looks and feels. Mechanically, this is a five-reel, three-row game with ten available pay lines. This game is available on mobile, tablet and desktop platforms.

Football: 2022Overview

The features of this game begin with the wild icon. The wild in this game- the trophy with a face, can substitute for other regular icons in the game to help score more wins. In addition, one or more wilds appearing in the same win will double the size of the resulting payout. However, this game's main feature is the penalty bonus feature. This feature is triggered when players simultaneously land a scatter icon on reels one and five. This bonus is effectively a penalty shootout between the country the player represents and the country the game represents. Score more goals than the game, and the cumulative prizes built up throughout the shootout will be awarded to you in one big payout. Lose the shootout, however, and this amount will be awarded to the game instead. All features will be explained in more detail later in the game.

Football: 2022 Theme and Symbols

The theme for this game is the football world cup in Qatar this year. The 2022 FIFA World Cup is scheduled to be the 22nd running of the FIFA World Cup competition, the quadrennial international men's football championship contested by the senior national teams of the member associations of FIFA. This will be the first World Cup ever to be held in the Arab world and the second World Cup held entirely in Asia after the 2002 tournament in South Korea and Japan. However, the game has chosen not to represent any of this detail in its construction of the theme, instead deciding to create a generic football theme that looks like a bad comic from the 80s.

The background for this game is without any interesting detail. All players get to see is a striped, green field that is supposed to represent a football pitch. Considering the many amazing characters, cultural icons, and visual inspirations associated with the 2022 world cup, this is a very sad-looking background for a game themed around one of the most popular sporting events. Indeed, the designers had so much to use but chose to do almost nothing with this valuable screen space. The playing board for this game is just a slightly darker version of its surroundings with a different pattern.

The symbols are split into low-paying, high-paying and special symbols. The low-paying icons are the J, Q, K and A in playing card royals. The A is the most valuable of these, worth 8x your stake for the top combination. The more valuable icons, however, are the yellow card, the red card, the stopwatch, the gloves and finally, the boot. The boot is the most valuable, worth 12.5x the stake for the top combination. The special icons in this game are the wild icon and the free spin scatters.

Game Play

Football: 2022 is played on a 5-reel, 3-row machine with ten fixed pay lines. To win combinations, players must land three or more matching symbols on pay lines moving from left to right, starting from the leftmost reel. The betting range for Football: 2022 is 10p to £200 per spin. To adjust their bet levels, players can toggle their stakes up and down using the tool located at the bottom left-hand side of the screen.

Further information, including a short tutorial and a display of the paytable, can be found via the menu button in the right-hand corner of the screen. The spin and auto spin buttons are located in the centre of the screen. The volatility for this slot is rated in the medium range. The return to player percentage for Football: 2022 is 96.06%, which is about average. The biggest payout players can win on one spin has not been revealed.

Football: 2022 Features

The features of this game begin with the wild icon. This icon can substitute for other regular icons in the game to help score more wins. In addition, one or more wilds appearing in the same win will double the size of the resulting payout.

The main feature here, though, is called the penalty bonus game. This feature is triggered when players land a scatter on reels one and five simultaneously. The flag that materialises on reel one will subsequently represent the country you are playing for in the bonus. The flag on the fifth reel will represent your opponent. This bonus game mimics the structure of a penalty shootout in that one team shoots, followed by the next. In the part where you are shooting, you must place where the ball should be hit into the net.

The other part of this game is choosing where your goalie will defend as the other team shoots. Five rounds of this will then occur, with each goal or miss being recorded in a traffic light fashion. Every time you score a successful goal, the game awards you a prize. If you have beaten the opposing team at the end of the shootout, all these prizes will be awarded to you in one big payout. If, however, you lose, this payout will go to your opponent. If you come to a draw, the game will continue until one of you emerges victorious.

Conclusion

Despite the woeful graphics and poorly thought-through visuals, this game does have some redeeming features. The main one, we think, is the novel and fairly complex penalty shootout bonus, which is not only thematically on point but fun and rewarding to play. From a potential win point of view, things could be better, but at least the RTP is decent, and the volatility isn't too crazy. The undisclosed top payout probably represents the most annoying factor here, though. Play also The Dog House Megaways one of our most famous demo slot game.