Dead or Alive 2, which is a sequel to the Dead or Alive slot, is among the most successful releases by NetEnt. The slot takes gamers to an old town of the Wild West where they interact with some outlaws in a bid to raid the game’s five reels and nine paylines for winnings. NetEnt draws inspiration for its criminal characters from real-life felons, and some facts about their lives are explored below.
Apache Kid
The Apache Kid is among the most notorious outlaws of the 19th century that started out as an officer of the law before switching to a criminal career. The turn of events was inspired by his father’s killing by one of his scouts, which kicked off a string of events that set him on the wrong side of the law.
Over the years, the Apache Kid was accused of numerous crimes, especially the raiding of ranches and freight lines. His gang operated in New Mexico, Northern Mexico, and Arizona regions. Most of the ills he was accused of were primarily directed at avenging the way the army treated Apache scouts. The demise of the Apache Kid remains a mystery to date, but most theories state that he met his death while in one battle or the other.
Belle Starr
Belle Starr has come down in history as one of the most famous antiheroines of the old West. She was born Myra Maybelle Shirley, and her folks gave her the pet name Belle. Later on, western novels branded her Belle Starr, the Bandit Queen, who was quick with her fist and even quicker with her gun. However, Maybelle’s reality was far from that of a fairytale Robin Hood. Her life was more like that of a battler who made some bad choices in men but still played the cards that she was dealt with. Her bandit lifestyle is not as accurate as depicted in the Dead or Alive 2 slot game.
- Formative years: Myra Maybelle Shirley was born on February 5th 1848 to her father’s third wife. This fact and that her birthplace was Jasper County, Missouri are the only ones that can be established concretely of her formative years. A lot about her life has been distorted by dime novel fiction, which makes pointing out reality a significant challenge.
- Bad hands: Belle Starr enjoyed a life of privilege for much of her younger life. She was sent to a fine school and raised in what was considered the ways of a proper lady. However, the civil war disrupted her otherwise perfect life, and it was made even worse when she married a bandit, John Reed. Her husband would later be killed after a string of crimes including robbery and murder, all of which left a stain on her reputation. Her second and third husbands also walked the same path and were killed in shootouts.
Belle lived a relatively quiet life with her fourth husband with small bits of her past still coming to haunt her. She met her death while on her way home from a local store when she was shot off her horse. To date, Belle Starr’s murderer is still a mystery.
Billy Kid
Billy Kid is undeniably one of the most notorious western outlaws in American history. This information is made even more impressive by the fact that he died when he was just 21 years old. Very little is known about Billy’s early years since they did not have much to do with moulding him into the legendary bandit he is known as today. However, it is believed that his mother was an Irish immigrant, and she bore Henry McCartney (Billy) in 1859. If so, he likely spent his early years in the Irish slums of Manhattan, New York, where conditions were horrific, to say the least.
Billy’s life began taking a turn for the worse after a slight ray of hope when he lost his mom at age fourteen. Being on his own started with him trying to earn an honest living, but the harsh conditions of where he lived soon transformed him into a bandit. During the time, there were truly a million ways to die in the West, and most of his crimes were driven by survival. His death came in the hands of his friend turned sheriff after a string of murders and jail escapes that could not be ignored.
Jesse James
The legendary Jesse James appears in many works of art aside from the Dead or Alive 2 slot. His childhood was riddled with misfortune as it was rocked by his father’s death, his mother poverty, and her subsequent marriages to other men. James was pushed into a violent lifestyle during the Civil War when he joined his brother Frank James to fight for confederate guerillas.
After the war, the PTSD he suffered made it impossible for him to go back to life as an ordinary citizen. Therefore, he embarked on a career as a fearsome outlaw. His robberies were riddled with violence and murder of the worst kind with the killings of cashiers in banks and passengers aboard trains he robbed. Jesse changed gang members several times as he moved back and forth in his life of crime. Such a living racked up quite the number of enemies, and none of them was set on a mission for vengeance as the Ford family. Jesse James would later be killed by one of the family’s members with whom he had partnered who fired into the back of the head.
Della Rose – Laura Bullion
Laura Bullion is another outlaw of the Old West whose story has been novelised far and wide. She worked with Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch gang which was made up of outlaws like her. She partnered with other famous names like:
- The Sundance Kid
- Blackjack Catch’em
- Kid Curry
- Ben Kilpatrick
- News Carver
Her time with the gang earned her the pet name Della Rose, which she came by after meeting Kid Curry’s lover Della More. Della soon became romantically involved with the train and bank robber Ben Kilpatrick. She would later end up in jail for the Great Northern Train Robbery in 1901 and serve a sentence up to 1905. Ever since then, she lived a simple life posing as a war widow and supported herself as an interior designer, seamstress, and householder. Her wealth began to diminish in the 1940s, and she later died in 1961 of heart disease.
In Brief
None of these Dead or Alive 2 Slot criminals had a smooth sailing life in the least. However, players are only put through the adventurous side of their outlaw livelihoods in a well-structured 3D slot.