Silent Samurai is a eastern themed video slot machine from Playtech under their newly termed Novel Slots brand. This together with Wild Spirit also released in June 2008, may herald the start of Playtech video slots attaining the same level as other game developers.

This is a Japanese based samurai theme with extremely richly drawn graphics and a fantastic sound track to accompany the game.

For their first trick there is a free spin round which is triggered when you hit the Samurai on reels 1 and 5. At this point you'll enter into a bonus screen where you throw shurikan at the ninjas on the screen. Each one will reveal either a number of free spins, a multiplier, a magic ninja or an evil ninja.

Hit the magic ninja and you'll automatically reveal 3 more prize ninjas. Hit the evil ninja and your choices are over and the free spins you've won begins. Here you can win some seriously big prizes.

If you hit the bonus samurai on reels 1 and 5 again, you'll get an additional 8 free spins.

Overall, even though this is only 9 paylines, I think this is the beginning of some excellent new games at Playtech. Unfortunately because of UIGEA, this game is only available to players outside the USA.