What's this, you say? A Cliffjumper toy that hearkens back to his G1 version, but is NOT a repaint or remold of Bumblebee? Well, how 'bout that! Anyways, in vehicle mode Cliffjumper is a Mustang-ish muscle car, with pretty straight lines for a car, which definitely gives him a tougher "look" than Bumblebee. The proportions are pretty much right-on for this kind of muscle car, and other than the tiniest bits of the lower arms poking down below the back end, and some parts barely visible inside his transparent light blue windows, Cliffjumper has no robot extras to speak of in this mode, which is always good. His front grill, tailpipes, wheel hubs, and back bumper (but not his taillights) are all painted silver, but other than these bits and his windows Cliffjumper has no other colors in this mode, and little mold detailing either-- due to the show's and the car's style-- so that means that this mode is more or less a sea of red. It's not a bad color, to be sure, but it leaves this mode with little personality. I know it's a bit cliche, but speed lines or flames would've helped a bit, here. What DOES give Cliffjumper a bit of extra personality in this mode are the "bull horns" above the front, which is a nice-- though little-- extra touch. It fits in with his robot mode head, and deals with what became a bit of a catchphrase for the character (well, as much as one can develop a catchphrase in about an episode of a show)-- "Mess with Cliffjumper, you get the horns".
    Cliffjumper's robot mode is straightforward in a few bits like the arms, but his legs come together rather ingeniously from the sides of his car modes, and the way parts of his car mode fold up to become his shoulders also looks quite good, giving that "compacted vehicle parts" look a lot Transformers models seem to have nowadays, though on the toys it's mostly fake kibble-- Cliffjumper's not tolerating any of that, that's for sure. The windshield on his chest is his actual windshield from car mode (with a small notch in his stomach piece providing the slight separation between the chest halves you see above), and in a rather neat little twist, the parts of his front fender actually fold around to become the headlights above his waist, so no "fake lights" there, either. This is pretty impressive, but in the latter case, I'm not so sure it was worth the cost-- this mold has a quite widespread issue with the piece that the front grille is on breaking off around a pivot bar behind his lower back, where the plastic is particularly thin due to the transformation. On mine, it was a clean break, and there's enough force provided by the surrounding parts to keep this little piece on Cliffjumper's back end well enough-- but it does always come off during transformation, and I'm sure many individuals weren't so lucky when it came to this issue. The other bits I'd considerable "kibble" are very minor-- namely, the wheels and parts of the back end of his car mode on the side of his lower arms, and his front section on his back, the latter of which stays out of the way of movement entirely. All that said, this mold has a ton of personality in this mode, with relatively short legs, long, beefy arms (almost gorilla-like in their proportions), and a wide chest. It definitely gives Cliffjumper the "tough guy" look he has going for him in the cartoon, and his headsculpt is ace-- making him look both fairly serious while his face sculpt still gives you the impression that he could break into a smirk at any minute, again fitting his limited characterization in the show. His color scheme is broken up a bit more in this mode, with considerably more black visible, but it's still a fairly simplistic color scheme with not a whole lot of mold detailing outside of a few areas like his lower chest/waist and arms. It fits the show aesthetic, though, so I can't complain much there. For articulation, Cliffjumper can move at the neck, shoulders (at three points), elbows (at two points), rotation at the wrists, and movement at the hips (at two points), knees (at two points), and ankles. His waist is unable to turn because of his transformation, but other than that this all means this guy's well-balanced and well-articulated, so he can take on some pretty mean poses. One last feature worthy of note is that both of Cliffjumper's hands can flip around to form the guns he converts them into in the show-- a nice and appreciated touch that gives him some firepower, since he has no melee weapon.
    Prime First Edition Cliffjumper may not have the most eye-popping color scheme in the world, but for the most part he's a darn solid toy, with an intuitive transformation, a lot of personality in robot mode, good articulation and proportions, and a refusal to "cheat" in terms of where his vehicle parts go. If it weren't for his issue with part of his front fender breaking off, I would whole-heartedly recommend him with a 9.0+ rating-- as it is, he falls ever-so-slightly short because of that. Still, if you want a more complex Prime Cliffjumper toy-- and the only one that has his gun-hand option-- I'd still recommend it. Just be careful around that fender.

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Review by Beastbot

(Images from Hasbro.)

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