Burning Desire

Burning Desire Slot Overview

Passion, love and lust – not the sort of themes that spring to mind when thinking of online video slots, are they? Well, someone at Microgaming would certainly disagree, seeing that they built an entire video slot based on these elements. Burning Desire is, well, quite a strange creation. The slot mixes retro symbols and structure with a smoking love theme which results in quite a bizarre setting.

Originally released in 2009, this is very much a retro game, complete with (purposefully) dated visuals and a minimal set of features. Despite the graphics age, the slot’s functionality is still surprisingly good and it comes complete with both an autoplay and turbo spin functions.

Back when it first came out, the game was quite innovative in pushing for 243 paylines. So, how does that system hold up after all these years? Well, I’ll tell you all about that, as well as the wilds, scatters, free spins and win multipliers that await you in the Burning Desire review below!

⚡ RTP	96.19%
🎲 Volatility	Medium
💰 Paylines	243
🔼 Maximum Bet	250
🔻 Minimum Bet	0.25
⭐ Bonus Features	Scatters, Free Spins, Win Multipliers

Burning Desire Slot Game Free Demo

You may be ready to jump straight into playing Burning Desire for real money, but I’d push the brakes on that and try the game out for free, first. The slot’s free demo is the perfect place to explore all of its special features and get a better understanding of just how often wins and free spins trigger. This can be crucial in helping you set adequate bet levels that suit your gambling budget.

Pro Tips:

Burning Desire might be a medium volatility slot, but in my case, it proved to be quite a stubborn beast. Sure, I managed to land quite a few wins during my playthrough, but I always had my eye on the free spins’ 3x multiplier. It took me more than 300 base game spins until I finally managed to get there, and I finally managed to take advantage of that sweet boost.

So, my advice is still to set relatively low wagers that can get you through as many spins as possible using your budget. There’s no telling how long the free spins bonus will take to trigger and you’ll want to be there when it finally does.

Burning Desire Slot Bonus Features

As with most retro-themed slots, Burning Desire goes for a pretty minimal set of features. You get your staple video slot functions like wilds, scatters and free spins. But don’t let the simple set of mechanics fool you. There are plenty of big wins to be won here.

You play across 5 reels and 3 rows with 243 ways to win. 243 paylines may be quite common nowadays, but back when the game was released, it was still quite a novelty and a step up from the traditionally limited ways to win. Bet levels are quite wide too, fitting all kinds of gambling budgets.

Your wagers can be as low as 0.25 or as high as 250 and they can lead to some great payouts through the slot’s base game pays. Low symbols are shown as nine to ace royal numbers and pay up to 8x your stake for five of a kind. Over on the high-paying side of the pay table, you get roses, bars, bells, burning sevens and burning gems which payout 20x, 30x, 60x, 80x and 120x your stake, respectively for five of a kind.

But that’s not all. Wilds, scatters and free spins all help in putting together more winning combinations and boosting their rewards, as you’ll find out below.

Wilds

Wild symbols are crucial in turning near misses into huge wins. They’re represented by the Burning Desire logo and can step in for any missing pay symbols on a payline. The only symbol they can’t substitute is the scatter symbol. Wilds only drop on reels two and four, so they’re not all that common on the grid.

Scatter symbol

Gold coins serve as scatter symbols in Burning Desire and these fire hot tokens are your key to the free spin bonus. A minimum of three scatter symbols are needed to activate 15 free spins. Scatter symbol combinations will also pay and landing three, four or five scatter symbols award you with 2x, 10x or 100x your stake, respectively.

Free Spins

Gameplay during the free spins bonus remains identical to the base game, except for the addition of the bonus win multiplier. All wins made in free spins get a 3x win multiplier which can significantly boost your rewards. You can also add more free spins to your tally by making more scatter symbol combinations.

RTP & Volatility of Burning Desire Slot

Burning Desire’s volatility is clocked to a medium setting and is paired with an RTP of 96.19%. It makes for a pretty balanced game, where wins and special features don’t trigger all that often but aren’t necessarily a rare sight. Wins aren’t small, but they are capped at 360x your stake. It’s not the largest max win cap we’ve ever seen, but you can still walk away with wins of up to £90,000.

The game is developed by Microgaming, one of the largest providers in the industry with an excellent track record of producing fair casino games. So, you can rest assured knowing that Burning Desire is a safe game to play. I still recommend playing the game at a safe online casino, ideally with trusted licenses such as the MGA and UKGC to make sure you get the safest experience possible.

Burning Desire Slot on Mobile

Although Burning Desire was released before smartphones took over the world, it’s still highly compatible with mobile devices, including both Android and iOS systems. The game comes with all the same graphics, gameplay features and win potential as the desktop version, so it’s pretty seamless on all platforms. You can also play the game in both landscape and portrait mode, although I’d say that the portrait mode works better, as the landscape version doesn’t manage to adequately fit everything on your screen.

Conclusion

Although video slots have expanded into the huge platform they are today, they’ve had quite humble beginnings and Burning Desire is a reminder of that simpler time.

You’ll have to do away with all the fancy features you’re used to today and settle for a smaller set of functionalities. I enjoyed the easiness of it all. There are no complex bonuses to understand and no complex mechanics to wrap your head around. And although you’re not going to be scoring massive wins, you can still score some decent wins thanks to the 360x maximum win cap.

But after a few spins, I have to admit, it began to feel pretty tedious. The base game is quite empty, and, in my case, it took me well over 300 spins until I finally triggered the free spins bonus. This may have been all well and good back in 2009, but with all the fantastic base game features that developers have come up with for games since then, it’s hard not to get bored. Suffering through those spins felt like watching paint dry and when the free spins finally hit it wasn’t enough to shift my enthusiasm back into gear.

Burning Desire was a brilliant slot back when it launched with increased paylines and great features, but age has done its thing and what was once an innovative slot has turned into a somewhat lifeless slog of a game. Unless you’re looking for a retro slot that’s still stuck back in time, then I’d suggest you sit this one out.