Vehicle mode is a dune buggy/sand rail. This mode is fairly cool, for the most part; the mold detailing and overall proportions are very nice, and he's got enough paint detailing to go around. A nice little "extra" decoration on Cliffjumper is the set of miniature wings he's got above his engine, but it tends to hover a bit away from the rest of the parts- maybe making the piece that is connecting it to the main body of the vehicle a little shorter would have alleviated this rather unique problem. Cliffjumper's got a big, honkin' engine on the rear of his vehicle mode, and it certainly looks impressive. Its silver coloration actually a spray-painted paint app rather than a solid one, giving it a bit of a "worn" look. If you press the small, gray button on top of the engine, you'll get Cliffjumper's lone sound effect- a rather loud, long "engine whirring" noise that sounds like Cliffjumper is speeding towards the listener and then zooming off. It's overall a nice sound effect for this mode, although it can be triggered accidentally during transformation. A few other paint apps I like are the silver bumper and the silver-bluish front headlights- they're really eye-catching against the dark brown. Next to the windows, Cliffjumper also has four more miniature headlights- if he needs to work in the dark, I suppose. Cliffjumper also has two standard missile launchers connected to the front of this mode (which become hand-held launchers in robot mode). The real problem I have with this mode, though, is the actual colors of the cockpit and its windows. The yellow used, although not bright, really doesn't fit in with Cliffjumper's otherwise military-esque color scheme, and looks completely out of place. The light red painted windows also look very ugly, and just make him look too toyish. If only those two coloration problems had been fixed, this would have been an awesome vehicle mode, but now it's just "good". No robot extras are visible in this mode at all, though, which is a plus.
    Cliffjumper's robot mode is also pretty good, and definitely has an original look to it. It also becomes apparent that he's huge for a Mega- in fact, Hasbro could easily pass him off as an Ultra if they really wanted to. His only real vehicle "extras" in this mode are his "backpack", which has his rear wheels on top of it, and the halves of his cockpit used as his shoulders, but these both complement the mode and give it some originality rather than detract from it. The miniature wings from the vehicle mode have become a very stylin' breastplate for Cliffjumper, and they aren't big enough to get in the way of any movement, so I like 'em. Cliffjumper's head sculpt is also great- it looks like he's got some goggles on for "eye protection" as he drives through all that sand. He also has the jutting "chin-mouthplate" that seems to have gotten more popular recently with such characters as Tidal Wave and Bulkhead. What I'm not too fond of, however, are Cliffjumper's legs- the upper legs are entirely too small when compared to the huuuge lower feet that he has. Granted, he has plenty of stability, but it looks a little silly. Not to mention that his Powerlinx mode hands are easily visible on the sides of his legs. His shoulder-cockpit halves are also at an angle that is slighty off from where they should be, due to the angle of the cockpit itself. As such, it always looks like you don't have his shoulders compltely unfolded, even though you do. Cliffjumper has pretty good articulation, though- he can move at the head, the shoulders (at three points), the elbows, the hips (at two points), and the knees (at two points). So you can get him into a pretty good number of poses. Cliffjumper's Autobot spark crystal is on the top of his left shoulder (his lone Powerlinx point is in the same place on the right shoulder), and his gold Powerlinx symbol is on his right arm.

    As the top half of a Powerlinx robot, Cliffjumper looks pretty odd, although at least he doesn't have many extras hanging off his back. His hands are just small parts on his otherwise huge regular robot mode legs, though, so they look really stupid, and his cockpit halfs actually sitting in their particular position on his chest looks kinda odd- almost like he has an overly large bowtie on. He still has good arm articulation, so I suppose that's a plus.
    Cliffjumper definitely works better as the bottom half of a Powerlinx robot, though. He only has a few more back-extras than he did as the upper half, but his main body doesn't look unwieldy at all, and his large feet now look more proportional on a larger robot. He also gives the Powerlinx robot good leg articulation and fairly good stability.

    Given that his wave-mate was a new version of the super-popular G1 character Shockwave, Cliffjumper has been largely ignored by a lot of the fandom, and that's too bad, because he really is one of the best deluxe- or mega-sized Powerlinking Autobots in the Energon line. Although he does have a few flaws, such as his odd-colored vehicle mode windows and large lower legs in robot mode, he's a pretty solid toy overall. And although his upper Powerlinx mode looks pretty odd, he makes a solid lower half. He's a pretty good Transformer, and I'd recommend him to any Autobot fan.

Review by Beastbot

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