Transformers War for Cybertron Earthrise Cliffjumper review

Cliffjumper was one of those Autobots who could care less about his stature. I’m starting to think Brawn was a bad influence on most of the minibots as most of them thought they could trash Decepticons with the same sense of recklessness.

Cliffjumper was arguably the bigger offender, which made him one of the more fun of the height deficient Autobots. And maybe part of the reason he managed to survive the great Transformers: The Movie purge of the original era Autobots?

After getting hooked by the Studio Series 86 line, I’ve been playing a ridiculous game of catch up trying to track down some of my favorites without spending stupid aftermarket prices. Fortunately, I was able to stumble onto a rerelease of Cliffjumper through Dorkside Toys. Let’s see if this guy is up to the challenge of meeting my childhood expectations with this take on Cliffjumper.

Packaging: Cliffjumper  is part of the Earthrise branding, which features green instead of the Siege red. The artwork of Cliffjumper charging into battle looks very cool. The other side features an epic drawing of many of the main Autobots and Decepticons.

I wish the rear was a bit more exciting as it just shows Cliffjumper in his robot and alt mode and the various ways you can incorporate his mega blaster gun.

Likeness:  Cliffjumper isn’t an exact reproduction of how he appeared in the cartoon like some of the later figures. He has the basics down though as his headsculpt is straight out of the cartoon right down to the horns, the line in the middle of his head and the grooved lines along the sides.

The figure captures Cliffjumper’s compact frame, but he still looks good with a solid amount detail.

Alt Mode: Cliffjumper is based off a Porsche 924, if I pieced that together properly. I’m a toy guy, not a car fanatic.

 

There’s also some thought from some reviewers that this is closer to a Mitsubishi Starion, which is also perfectly reasonable too. Either way, Cliffjumper’s vehicle mode looks fine and fits in nicely with the other Autobots.

Transformation: Despite his size, Cliffjumper actually takes a decent amount of steps to transform as it’ll take 18 steps to switch him to his vehicle mode. Either I’m getting back into transforming mode or the conversion is easier. His transformation was very simple and felt like it took less than 18 steps.

Scale:  As most of the Minibots, Cliffjumper is smaller than the rest of the Autobots. I like that even in this smaller scale, the Minibots are shorter in stature than the others.

He’s smaller than fellow Minibot Huffer. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get Bumblebee so I can have another Autobot his size.

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Paint: My Cliffjumper has a speck of silver right at the helmet section above his eyes. It’s a little distracting since I know it shouldn’t be there, but its placement is centered just so that it could be mistaken for being intentional. Even though I know it’s a mistake.

Beyond that, the paintwork is nice and solid. Cliffjumper’s blue eyes aren’t as dull as many of his fellow Autobots, which is a nice bonus. I do wish there were some application of his Autobot sigil even if it was an outline in black.

Again, he’s not in cartoon colors, which has more black and grey throughout and less emphasis on red specifically on the arms. It’s interesting as the original G1 figure’s arms were also mostly black so I’m not sure what the inspiration was here beyond not being able to make the vehicle mode look right with black and grey arms.

Articulation: Cliffjumper moves very well. His shoulder joints help with posing and the range of movement in his elbows and knees is better than I expected.

Since most of his joints have a 180 swivel he’s very easy to maneuver and create some fun poses.

Cliffjumper has:

• neck
• bicep
• ball-jointed shoulders
• elbows
• wrists
• wrist hinge
• torso
• waist
• hips
• thighs
• knees (double-jointed)
• ankles

Accessories:  Cliffjumper comes with his glass gun, which has several components from the massive cannon you get when you first start out.

The long cannon version is actually a shout out to the cartoon where Cliffjumper is observing Deceptions with Hound.

You can break these down to smaller blasters, which you also can use for Cliffjumper’s waterskiing mode per another episode of the cartoon, Dinobot Island: Part 2.

 

It’s kind of interesting how many nods we got for the cartoon without making him an exact representation of the animated look.

Additionally, you can take off the backpack and use as a shield.

Worth it?  I got Cliffjumper for $25 with shipping from Dorkside Toys. That’s not the same great value deal compared to some other figures at the same price. Sure he’s got solid engineering and fun accessories, but compared to Jazz, Kup or Blurr it feels like he’s missing a little something price wise.

At $15, he’d be a better deal. Of course the catch now is getting Cliffjumper for $25 sounds like a great deal.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

The price is about the only issue here as Cliffjumper is yet another exceptional figure. Price wise he doesn’t match up with the other deluxe figures, but Cliffjumper makes up for it with fun accessories.

Where to get it?  Cliffjumper is essentially an online secondary market figure now, but if you can find him in stores don’t hesitate and snatch him up quickly for retail price. Dorkside Toys had him at regular price and quickly sold out, but it looks like they have him back up for pre-order. If not, give Amazon a try.