Honey Hive XL Slot Review

The slot has a 3-reel configuration of symbols it arranges neatly in a 3-4-3 grid which resembles a hive. More importantly, the online slot machine has 36 paylines and it pays from left to right!

Features and Gameplay

Without sounding “cheesy” take a dip in the honey for your share of the riches. Those are Rival Gaming’s words, not ours. The theme of Honey Hive XL, the game engine, and the visual representation will put anyone in a good mood.

Rival lays down the marker with Honey Pot Free Spins Scatters and the Bees Wild that serves as Expanding Wilds. What grabs our attention is that you can hit a triggering swarm once you initiate the free spins feature.

Moreover, there is a Honey Pot Prize Wheel which triggers when two Wheel Scatters pitch. The wheel offers you an instant cash prize or 15 Bee Rich Free Spins.

Another way to launch the free spins feature is when 3 scatters land in the base game. US players also benefit when the expanding wilds appear during the free spins feature.

They also create a swarm thus increasing the bonus game’s payout potential substantially. Needless to say, the Honey Hive XL slot buzzes with excitement.

Bonus Buy

Honey Hive XL does not have a Bonus Buy Option. An online slot you can play with real money that has one is Candy Factory from Dragon Gaming. The feature buy option is a risk, but it can be extremely rewarding.

Graphics, Sound, Symbols

The graphics and animations almost give the Honey Hive XL slot a life of its own. What makes the slot even more enjoyable is its soundtrack.

It’s a nice upbeat tempo that pulls you into the first spin before you even played it. The non-paying symbols on the reels are the Wild and the Scatter.

The Wild steps in for symbols adjacent to it for wins except for the scatter. When 3 scatters appear, you’ll bag a cool 15 Free Spins. Two of them award the Bonus Round.

Five regular symbols land on the grid of which the 7 is the premium symbol. If you are lucky enough to catch 3 of them you’ll pocket a payout of 240 coins.

The remainder of the symbols that pitch on the grid are Bars and watermelons.

What Are the Pros and Cons of Honey Hive XL Slot?

The pros of the Honey Hive XL slot far outweigh its cons. For once the RTP of a Rival slot did not hurt us after 80 spins. The Bonus Wheel round triggers easily for some big wins.

Unfortunately, we can’t say the same for the free spins feature. You’ll have to add glue to your seat if you plan on triggering it. For the most part, payouts are good when you play for high stakes.

Final Verdict: Rival’s Honey Hive XL Slot

Wow, this is an awesome slot to play just a pity it’s a copy of Betsoft’s The Hive. Instead of testing the slot for 50 spins, we ended up hitting the reels for 125 spins.

That’s how much fun we had and we played it for the max stake of $60 per spin. Though we pushed it a bit we’re all the wiser when it comes to the game engine and payouts.

The hit frequency is insane since we practically got a payout on every spin. To say that the hit rate is almost 80% is not a sales pitch. During the course of the 125 spins, we triggered the Bonus Wheel thrice.

We also triggered 15 Free Spins via the bonus wheel for a top win of $625. So, how did things pan out overall? For entertainment value, we’ll give it a 10’er.

After 125 spins the negative house expectation burned a hole in our demo mode budget. We started playing with $2,000 in free credits and ended up with $1,214. That’s a free credit loss of more than $800.

If not for that carbon copy mishap, we would have given Honey Hive XL the maximum points.

Otto Bergstrom

Otto Bergstrom is a veteran in the world of casinos and gambling with 20 years of extensive experience. Writing for Casino Whizz, he shares his deep understanding of game strategies and the latest casino trends.