These days, I hear the notion of people being sick of superhero movies quite a lot (even if most of them still rake in hundreds of millions at the box office), but the thing is, that’s not how it always was. Superhero movies were rare in the 2000s, and good superhero movies were even rarer. This changed in 2008, when Christopher Nolan released his revolutionary movie “The Dark Knight”, which proved once and for all that comic book movies didn’t necessarily have to be just for kids. Interestingly enough, it was the other superhero movie that came out that year, which people didn’t pay as much attention to at the time, that eventually flourished. At that point, Marvel finally realized that they had enough money to make their own movie, and boom, out popped “Iron Man”, which kick-started the Marvel Cinematic Universe that we know and love today.

But the thing is, the MCU didn’t TRULY start off until 2012’s “The Avengers”. Sure, before that there were a couple of different connections (like Tony Stark popping in at the end of “The Incredible Hulk”), but it wasn’t until the Avengers assembled on-screen to fight Loki that the MCU truly began feeling like an interconnected place where anyone could meet anyone. It was, without a doubt, one of the biggest superhero movies – no, one of the biggest movies in general, raking in over $1.5 billion at the box office. With that many tickets sold, it’s no wornder that Playtech would immediately jump at the opportunity to make a cool slot adaptation, especially since, at the time, they were running on their last legs as far as their license to produce Marvel slots went (when Disney bought Marvel, they refused to renew the license and let it expire just a few years later). Given the pressure from all of those factors, PlayTech had two choices – churn out whatever slot they could, knowing that the name alone would be more than enough to carry it, or actually create something worthy of the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Fortunately, they chose the latter, and I couldn’t be more grateful.

Fair warning, I played this slot quite a lot, so I might be a little bit biased, but then again, why wouldn’t I be? It’s a genuinely good and entertaining slot, and more importantly as far as we’re concerned, it’s a fantastic adaptation. The slot, as well as the movie in general, can be compressed down to one very simple idea: Four completely different heroes come together to form a team in order to save the world. Yes, it’s technically six, but let’s face it, Black Widow and Hawkeye don’t count. It’s an idea that the slot runs with perfectly, and it’s all in the bonus game. That’s not to say that the visuals aren’t really great as well, but I’d like to focus on the bonus round for a bit in particular, since I really feel like that’s where the slot shines the most. Once you trigger it, you get a grid of symbols that you’re able to select from. Getting 3 of the same Avenger triggers his own, individual bonus game, and getting the Loki symbol ends the bonus round. This, alone, already represents that the four heroes are united together against a common foe, since while searching for the symbols you’ll undoubtedly get different heroes popping up. And the fact that you can keep the bonus round going by selecting new symbols after each game also works to the narrative’s favor – it feels like the characters are tagging in and out of combat.