In early 2014, International Game Technology (IGT), through its IGT Interactive division, launched the saucy Western Belles online slot machine. This renowned slot machine manufacturer is behind this 5-reel, 20-payline game that carries a wild west theme.
Western Belles is playable only online, through an online casino platform that utilizes IGT Interactive software. Fortunately for fans of this unique Old West slot, with a Playboy Mansion-style theme, IGT Interactive products like Western Belles can be found at over a hundred online casino networks, including some of the biggest names in the business: Bet365, BetVictor, Paddy Power, Party Casino, and William Hill.
This game's theme comes directly from the cowgirl pinup artwork of Gil Elvgren (1914–1980). Elvgren was an American artist who specialized in painting whimsical, yet stunningly beautiful depictions of women in the kind of themed costumes that barely qualify as clothing. One of Elvgren's most popular genres of pinup art involved his beloved "Western Belles", who seem to have no trouble heading out on the range or riding right past you.
Elvgren's girls, of course, are usually seen dressed in funny, revealing outfits—skirts that don't seem to have enough fabric to stay on, blouses that are only one button away from a fashion emergency. But if you look past all that—not very easy to do—what you see is the artist's progressive reimagining of the fille fatale. Among the well-known models of the 1940s and 1950s who posed for Elvgren were Arlene Dahl, Barbara Hale, Myrna Hansen, Kim Novak, and Donna Reed.
From 1945 to 1972, Elvgren was employed by Brown & Bigelow, a St. Paul, Minnesota, publishing firm that was also his hometown. This company had a pretty tight grip on the pin-up business, and through an exclusive licensing agreement between it and the folks at International Game Technology (IGT), IGT was able to use real, live Elvgren paintings in its online slot machine, Western Belles.
The title screen of Western Belles instantly establishes the adult tone of this game. The title hogs a whole part of the screen and is rendered as if it were painted on a piece of old wooden fencing. Beyond the fencing—an authentic rickety-looking fence—you see a cowgirl. And not just any cowgirl. This is a weirdly proportioned figure of a woman; her legs are so long they must defy the laws of physics (not to mention the natural laws of both woman and cow), both in their length and their silence. Despite her statue-like quality, this figure has somehow achieved the essence of a smiling, pinup cowgirl. (Thanks, I’m sure, to some virtual artist, for that digital rendering.) But she’s not just a figure of any kind of cowgirl. She’s a figure of the cowgirl kind of Americana.
The main game screen is overtaken by the reel array. But in the background, you might find a basic desert landscape with brushy bushes, red rock spires, and a clear blue sky.
In terms of reel symbols, Western Belles sticks to its theme with remarkable precision, even going so far as to style the most basic card rank symbols—9, 10, J, Q, K, and A—in an Old West manner. As for the themed symbols, they include a cowgirl boot, a cowgirl hat, the woman in the white blouse, the woman in the blue vest, a lipstick kiss, and the Bonus symbol.
Also, Western Belles has an intriguing element called Wild Reels. When this feature is activated, it doesn't just fill the reel with a single symbol. Instead, it fills the entire reel with a series of symbols that, when considered as a group, can be thought of as a single winning combination. Wild Reels come in two versions. The one that appears in the base game includes a Pin-Up Cowgirl decked out in Christmas attire. The one that appears on free spins features a Pin-Up Cowgirl that's armed with guns and is sporting quite a few more than the decked-out Cowgirl.
In most respects, Western Belles blends Elvgren's artwork seamlessly into the game. When it comes to the main reels, players get a portrait representation of the piece, while they await the full-body reveal during Wild Reels. The overall design is full of wintry wildness: you can almost hear the coyotes howling and see the snow-laden branches swaying. If Elvgren had one significant flaw as an artist, it was that he didn't pay much regard to the clothes his subjects wore. On the positive side, that makes for some highly imaginative character costumes here.
And even if the visual motif may not appeal to you, aficionados of old-school Western movies are sure to hold Western Belles in high regard because of the game's adventurous selection of songs. Its backend is practically tied to the still-living icon of bastardized Americana and shapes the game's unintended but nonetheless significant sounds and aesthetics even as they are rendered primarily in 2-D. Complete with the sounds of cracking whips, horses neighing and galloping, and even the original songs by famed Spaghetti Western composer Ennio Morricone.
