Englishharbour.com is the main online casino produced by the English Harbour group. It is their poster-child, if you will. The site recently received a visual update, and with it came a few new online slots for those of us with the proclivity towards the Vegas Mainstay to digest. In today’s spotlight, I will, of course, be doing just that.

EnglishHarbour.com is powered by software by the online gaming mastodon Vegas Technology. I mean this as a form of flattery, and I also use the term in order to take a bit of a dig at the renowned software developer. For you see they have been around forever, much like the mighty mastodon. Sadly, the games in their library are so dated… well, they probably were the same games early man played after returning home from slaying the aforementioned “Wooly Mammoths”.

Alas, Vegas Technology is a company that is more well known for providing quantity before quality. As such players will find a great many games in order to occupy his/her time, though how different one game is from another is not an observation one is likely to make while frittering away one’s day. It should surprise no one, then, that EnglishHarbour.com provides fans of online slot games with a well-balanced variety of 3-reel, 5-reel, and 6-reel slots games. All of the slots I played were penny slots, and allowed for a maximum wager of $10. Here follow three highlights from the offerings:

Crazy Cherry (3-Reel)

I almost never bother with 3-Reel slot machines, if only because I feel as though the odds are less in my favor than they would be were I to play a machine with more pay lines. As such I was no great fan of this particular 3-Reel, which offers only one pay line.

The design is rather simplistic, meant to mimic an old-school slot machine one might have once found in a Las Vegas casino. A smaller, less impressive Las Vegas casino, but that is neither here nor there. The effect at which Vegas Tech had aimed was hit as surely as a target fired at by Robin Hood himself.

I played this game for a few spins, maybe seven (betting the max each time) and I only won once. I’m not a mathematician, but I know those odds aren’t too favorable. Needless to say, I will not be playing Crazy Cherry again.

Dragon Master (5-Reel)

Dragon Master was more my speed. I much prefer the 5-Reel machines, as they tend to be more visually interesting, as well as provide more pay lines. This was, indeed, the case as Dragon Master offers 25 pay lines. The odds of winning at this machine seemed rather like 50/50 to me, and that is respectable. Had I played longer those odds might have witnessed a flux (for good or for ill, I do not know), but I played eleven spins and won five times. Alright, so not 50/50 exactly, but close enough.

Visually, aside from one or two special symbols, the game is as to eye candy as road tar is to actual candy. That is to say: There is not a lot going on. If one has played a slot made my Vegas Technology, one has seen the symbols before (colourful letters, mostly static drawings pertaining to the themes — in this case Dragons). This is disappointing given the fact that Dragon Master is a “new” game, yet it is mostly doing anything but.

Lucky 7s (7-Reel)

One of the only two 7-Reel machines at EnglishHarbour.com, Lucky 7s is easily the lesser of visual evils. It combines the visual style of Crazy Cherry with the added pay lines (though they are fewer) of Dragon Master. The result is, as one might expect, mixed. I won with this slot machine the most, though the pay-outs tended to be the lower than those I won whilst playing Dragon Master.

I would like to see more 7-Reel slots at EnglishHarbour.com, though I suspect they are few for good reason. Perhaps players don’t prefer them, or perhaps something else is to blame. At any rate it is what it is, and there are only two to choose from. Players would to wise, I assume, to pick it over Farming Futures. I didn’t play that one, but it looked obnoxious.

Overall

If you cannot tell, I am not exactly endorsing the slots at EnglishHarbour.com. Nor am I completely condemning them. Taken as they are, within the context of knowing nothing about slots, the games are great. They play like slots, and they pay like slots. However, knowing what other sites are doing with their games, both visually and in terms of play mechanics like bonus rounds… the games made by Vegas Technology don’t come close to comparison.

I would hope that the next time EnglishHarbour.com updates,  a new game package would be included as well. I would rather like to see something like cutting-edge video slots — something, anything remotely modern. As of now, despite the makeover, EnglishHarbour.com feels ancient and antiquated.