Cliff Calo is a survivor in Escape Dead Island and the only playable character in that game. The son of a wealthy media mogul, to earn back his father's respect and faith in him, he set sail for an island to find the origins of the virus, although this also made him mentally insane.
Background[]
Cliff Calo has been to college in America, but it's unknown which one he attended but he did study art or something along those lines as he wants to be a comic artist. It was here that he met his best friend Devan Mavropani, as well as another close friend, Linda Waterson. He's the son of a media mogul, Tom Calo, though due to his preference for drinking and partying with his friends and lack of interest in the family business, his father quickly lost faith in him and decided to name his daughter as the successor CEO when he retires. Disheartened and insulted, Cliff steals his father's boat to sail to Banoi and get a big story about the events happening there. He takes along his two friends and together they hope to build a big report that will make them famous, reveal everything happening on Banoi as well as restore Tom's faith in his son.
Character bio[]
"Cliff Calo, son of wealthy media mogul Tom Calo, led a care-free life with little regard for the family business. However, when his father decides to hand over the company to his younger sister Heather, Cliff feels insulted and excluded. Knowing that his father desperately seeks an insight on the unexplained events on Banoi for his broadcasting channels, Cliff and his friends set sail to land the story that will prove his worth."
"Rumors spread about a zombie outbreak on a small tropical island called Banoi. Cliff Calo, son of a media mogul, is excited by the idea of being the first one to show the world that zombies are real, and convinces his friends Devan and Linda go on their journey of a lifetime. They steal Cliff’s father’s boat and set sail to the Banoi Archipelago to unveil the truth about the Royal Palms disaster."
Appearance[]
Clif is a young man with short brown hair and a small beard and moustache. He wears a white t-shirt, a red unzipped jacket, dark grey shorts held by a dark grey belt, and red and white sneakers. He also wears a small necklace, a brown single strap backpack, and a silver watch on his right wrist. He has a tattoo reading "Strength, Respect" on his left upper arm.
Strategy[]
Cliff is not really a fighter, so he requires a more stealth oriented playstyle quite unlike anything the other Dead Island games have to offer. Thanks to the stealth mechanic featured in Escape Dead Island, it's quite possible to sneak around zombies and stealth kill them using either a screwdriver or army knife, the two stealth weapons featured in the game.
Cliff does not have a lot of health as he starts out with 2 health. Collecting Medkits will increase his maximum health by one point each time, with large MedKits being rarely found that give 3 points per large MedKit. Health does not display as a bar, however, but rather by a heartbeat sound and red blood splatters around the edges of the screen. Should Cliff need to get into an open fight, however, it's best to play it far more defensively than any of the other games. Thanks to his low health and stamina, dodging is key to surviving an open fight. There's two defensive moves you can do, either a push or sideways dodge. Pushing stuns the zombie for a moment, as well as knocking them back, while dodging does not affect the zombie but does get Cliff out of harm's way. Main melee weapons (such as a trusty axe) have two types of attacks, either a quick but less damaging light attack or a heavy and powerful yet slow heavy attack. Both are useful, but heavy attacks cost a lot of stamina and leave Cliff vulnerable to attacks from other zombies, so they should only be used if Cliff has an opening to escape or if it will guarantee the death of a zombie.
This is made more important due to the fact that Cliff has very little stamina. Unlike his health, there is no way to increase the amount of stamina Cliff has. As such, getting into prolonged fights with multiple zombies without getting a chance to disengage and rest will likely result in death and a setback to the last checkpoint. Due to your reliance on dodging, which costs a lot of stamina, getting into long fights is not advised. If possible, it's advised to kill the fast zombies in the pack, then back off to regenerate health and stamina before diving in again. While Cliff can still attack with no stamina, he can't dodge, push or run. Also his attack speed decrease with ~30% while out of stamina. The exact attack speed decrease is weapon type and attack type specific.
Cliff can use a variety of firearms and ammunition is relatively plentiful, or at least more plentiful than the other main Dead Island games. As such, firearms are more viable to Cliff, thanks to his relatively low maximum heath and the more abundant ammunition scattered around. Even so, firearms should be a secondary or third line weapon after melee and stealth.
Notes[]
- Cliff's kick deals 2.5 or 3.5 damage with both values being equally probable.
Trivia[]
- It's hinted by Devan during a flashback at the end of Mission 6 - Stories of the Dead, that Linda had a crush on Cliff, but he didn't feel the same way.
- Cliff failed biology in school/college, or at least got an incomplete, as told by Linda during Mission 7 - Beauty and the Beast.
- Cliff once appeared on the front of the school paper, though whether he was the one who was the focus of the front page or took the picture for it is unclear.
- Devan states during a cutscene that the only reason Cliff and they came to the island was for him to save face in front of his father.
- Cliff was planning on making a business with Devan, where Cliff does the photography while Devan does the graphic design, but after not being named the successor to Tom, he gives up this idea, believing it to be a fantasy that they would be able to pull it off. It's not known what business they were planning to start, but it would have likely been something to do with journalism or magazines.
- He once chased someone for two blocks after ripping off Devan in a deal.
- Over the course of the game, Cliff slowly goes insane due to the virus. He sees containers fall from the sky, shadow zombies and even hear people talking to him over radio.
- Cliff and Max are the only Dead Island protagonists who are not immune to the virus.
- Cliff is never mentioned again after Escape Dead Island.
- Nine years after Escape Dead Island, Cliff's voice actor Joseph May returned to the series again and voiced Michael Anders in Dead Island 2.
Gallery[]
|