Jack Hammer 4 Chasing The Dragon

Jack Hammer 4 Chasing The Dragon Review

While Jack Hammer 3 saw NetEnt's hero retrieving Madam Venom's legendary blue diamond, Jack Hammer 4 Chasing The Dragon thrusts players into the dark underbelly of Chinatown, on a mission to secure a valuable dragon artifact. The iconic comic book visual style remains the same, but the 6x6 grid is bigger and bolder. Jack Hammer 4 Chasing The Dragon is a feature-rich game, but before we get to all that, let’s cover the basics.

You start by choosing your bet level between €0.20 to €40 per spin, a range that should satisfy most types of players. You win when 6 to 36 matching symbols form a cluster anywhere on the grid, and clusters connect vertically and/or horizontally. Jack Hammer himself is the top-tier symbol, followed by an old Chinese villain, a mysterious Asian woman, and the blonde femme fatale known as Pearl. These premium symbols award 17.5x to 40x your stake for 36 in a cluster, or 0.7x to 1x for 6 in a cluster.

Jack Hammer 4 Chasing The Dragon Slot - Reels Screen

The mid to low-level symbols, consisting of Chinese artifacts and signs, pay 7.5x to 17.5x for 36 in a cluster. As usual, winning symbols become sticky as the remaining positions respin, and this repeats as long as you keep improving the original win. Wild symbols cannot land organically in Jack Hammer 4 Chasing The Dragon slot, but are instead activated from the corner positions by adjacent wins. There are 4 unique wild features to trigger, in addition to Question Mark symbols that award enhanced wild features from the same corners.

As a first for this series, the bonus round is a hold and win-style feature. In this bonus, the corner positions deliver modifiers that add extra rows, extra prize symbols, double prize values, and collect prize values. Eligible players can check the Elevate feature and bonus buy menu, and the Jack Hammer 4 Chasing The Dragon max win is 10,000x your stake. The top-tier RTP of 96.01 % is a tad above average, and this is a highly volatile release from NetEnt.

Jack Hammer 4 Chasing The Dragon Features

Jack Hammer 4 Chasing The Dragon NetEnt boasts plenty of wild features thanks to the corner positions, and you can look forward to different corner position modifiers in the hold and win bonus round. Let’s check it all out!

Sticky Wins

The Sticky Wins feature activates after any cluster win, with the winning symbols frozen in place while the remaining positions respin. If the respin improves the win, another respin is awarded, and so it goes until you land a spin that does not improve the win. Your total win is then paid. Also, landing at least 3 scatters triggers the sticky wins feature for the scatters, potentially helping to trigger the bonus round.

Wild Features

The 4 corner positions are highlighted by being slightly tilted, and these positions land either Wilds or Question Mark symbols. Wilds substitute for any pay symbol to help complete or improve cluster wins, and they also boast one of the following features:

• Multiplier Wild - boosts your win by a random multiplier of x2 to x10.
• Upgrader Wild - upgrades the winning symbols to a higher symbol type.
• Cash Prize Wild - awards a prize between 0.5x and 2.5x your stake.
• Expander Wild - improves the winning cluster by adding up to 4 additional symbols.

The Question Mark symbol can reveal the following enhanced wild symbols:

• Multiplier Wild - boosts your win by x30 or x50.
• Upgrader Wild - does the same as the regular Upgrader Wild.
• Super Upgrader wild - turns the winning cluster into the top-tier Jack Hammer symbol.
• Super Cash Wild - awards a prize of 10x or 25x your stake.
• Super Expander Wild - improves the winning cluster with up to 16 additional symbols.

Jack Hammer 4 Chasing The Dragon Free Spins

You need at least 5 scatters in view to trigger the Bonus Round in Jack Hammer 4 Chasing The Dragon slot, awarding 3 starting free spins. This is a hold and win type of bonus, and you get 3 prize symbols sticky on the grid as the feature starts. Prize symbols land with values between 1x and 100x your stake, and each new prize symbol becomes sticky and resets the free spin counter to 3 again.

The corner positions deliver 4 unique bonus features, triggered when prize symbols appear in adjacent positions. Here’s an overview of the corner position features:

• Unlock (can be triggered twice at best) - first trigger adds a top row and the second trigger adds a bottom row, expanding the grid.
• Generate (can be triggered up to 3 times) - adds 3 prize symbols to random positions, or fills all remaining positions if there are fewer than 3 to fill.
• Double (can be triggered up to 3 times) - doubles the value of all triggering prize symbols and prize symbols adjacent to the triggering symbols.
• Collect - collects the value of all present prize symbols before the symbols are removed.

Jack Hammer 4 Chasing The Dragon Slot - Free Spins

Elevate Feature & Bonus Buy (not UK)

The Elevate Feature & Bonus Buy menu is found via the Elevate button down to the left, but only if you play from an eligible region. It offers the following options in Jack Hammer 4 Chasing The Dragon:

• Free Spins Hunt - pay 2x your stake to double your bonus round chances.
• Wild Activator - pay 10x your stake to trigger at least one of the corner wild features while also increasing your bonus round chances.
• Bonus Round - pay 100x your stake for 5 triggering scatters.
• Super Bonus Round - pay 300x your stake to activate 3 or 4 wild features on the triggering spin, before landing 5 triggering scatters.
• Lucky Draw - pay 150x your stake to get the bonus round or super bonus round.

Theme & Graphics

The Jack Hammer 4 Chasing The Dragon game takes you to the sinister underbelly of Chinatown, where crime ‘slithers like a dragon’ and only one detective has what it takes to get to the bottom of this dark mystery. Set against the nocturnal cityscape lit up by red lanterns and Chinese neon signs, this noir-inspired adventure boasts the characteristic comic book visuals that are a hallmark of this series. The grid is filled with Asian symbols, femme fatales, and other devious characters, and it’s safe to say that Jack Hammer has his hands full handling this case.

Pros and Cons of Jack Hammer 4 Chasing The Dragon

Our Verdict

Both the original Jack Hammer and Jack Hammer 2 were massive hits for NetEnt when they were released more than a decade ago. The sticky win feature was a big innovation at that time, but neither of the games has withstood the test of time all that well. In 2024, the franchise was revived with the release of Jack Hammer 3 Diamond Affair, boasting more polished visuals and a scatter pay win system. However, the max win potential was still stuck in the past, so to speak, and this sequel was only a moderate success story.

In Jack Hammer 4 Chasing The Dragon, the pay anywhere win system has been replaced by cluster pays, but it’s the Chinatown theme that makes this game stand out. This marks a bold deviation from the standard recipe. However, a longer intro sequence and even more storytelling elements would’ve made this experience more immersive. NetEnt has certainly tried to implement this with the big win story, but the potential doesn’t feel fully realized.

The Jack Hammer character and the comic book visual style hold nostalgic value, at least for veteran players who remember the original games, and Jack Hammer 4 Chasing The Dragon boasts plenty of modifiers and features. However, sticky wins have an uncanny ability to avoid the corner positions, making the wild features a somewhat rare but appreciated event. Also, most of the time, larger clusters form with the low-value Chinese sign symbols, so don’t expect massive things from the base game.

That’s the nature of a highly volatile game, and also the price you pay for the significantly improved max win. Needless to say, the enhanced question mark wild features are even rarer, and I’m unsure if a hold and win bonus is the best fit for this game. Perhaps regular free spins with only question mark corner symbols and more frequent triggers would’ve been a better idea, who knows. With prize symbols topping out at 100x and somewhat mediocre corner modifiers, the 10,000x win cap feels a bit out of reach. Overall, a decent follow-up and attempt at renewing the series, but not quite a home run.