It looks like a mass of melted M.U.S.C.L.E. figurines. I was hoping it would be at least remote-controllable, so you could take it for a spin around the office.
I appreciate Nathan's directness and clear speaking tone. (This is not sarcasm.)
ETA: Ben's story reminds me of this book I used to read when I was a kid called 100 Pounds of Popcorn, about some kids who find a big bag of unpopped popcorn that fell off a truck. The popcorn ends up causing more trouble than it's worth, as it's too much for them to eat, so they try to get rid of it by going to various places where they can sell it (baseball stadium, movie theater). They still don't run through all their popcorn, though, so they end up having to put on their own events (plays etc.) in order to sell it all, where they try their audience's patience with constant snack intermissions. There are also Lemonade Stand-style arguments over pricing and Mom stopping giving them free sugar oil.
Anyhow, by giving his own popcorn away, Ben has proven that charity is more expedient than capitalism. He did not get a cool microscope at the end of his story, though, like one kid bought with his popcorn proceeds.
@bisonhero: I think it's natural to be intrigued by Dan's negative reaction, as it prompts questions: well, why does he think that? How is Death Stranding so different from Kojima's previous work, which Dan so loved? His reaction also touches on larger questions about the project, such as: much ado has been made about Kojima supposedly being free of editorial influence; was this detrimental? Did Kojima fail in some way - does he actually need some sort of external guidance? It's clear Dan hated it from the hints he was dropping, yes, but the *why* is intriguing. Plus, a lot of people think that Dan's just a fun guy to whom to listen, and this promised to be a big blow-up that would be entertaining, even if you're not invested in the other questions.
As for Dan being cut off: I took a careful listen to the segment again, and by my count, Dan is interrupted or cut off no less than fifteen times. He is always cut off, with one exception, during the first half of the discussion, when he is trying to get most of his opinion out there; most of the times he's allowed to talk, he's making a short comment to agree with someone else or ask a question. Furthermore, he is the only person whose opinions are disparaged or discounted with long "well, that's just one person's opinion :\" rants - most notably around 17:30, where, despite Dan copiously noting that he understands the game took "a ton of time, and craft, and money, and work" to make and prefacing most every statement with "I think," Vinny accuses him of claiming his opinion is "objective" (again, despite Dan stating this view of the game is "for me, of course, yes,") and notes at length that a lot of games aren't "for" Dan and makes a lot of disclaimers that are, frankly, very condescending. (I love Vinny, but he's behaving pretty badly here.)
Conversely, Vinny and Alex are very patient and natural going back and forth with each other in explaining the basic story and mechanics, allowing each other to speak at length unimpeded, and Abby is largely allowed to interject opinions, including negative opinions, when she wants to add something. (Jeff is mostly silent.) Also, Vinny makes a LOT of strong declarations of opinion, particularly at around the 26:00 mark, that he does not preface with "this is my opinion" (though he does add a "stop me if I'm getting worked up here"), and which no one feels necessary to disclaim. The longest Dan is allowed to talk is a couple minutes around the 17:30 imbroglio, which is interrupted numerous times and which Vinny takes great pains to dismiss.
I didn't mean to go on for so many posts on this bit, or for so long here, but I just find utterly bizarre this idea that Dan should be required to sign forms in triplicate and obtain special approval to express video game opinions on a podcast about video game opinions on which he has been hired to appear.
@bisonhero: Your entire comment is a bunch of assuming and extrapolating about what Dan thinks that could easily be avoided by...allowing Dan to say what he thinks. You yourself claim not to be interested, but a bunch of folks are, which makes it worth hearing. There's a reason why he's on one of the leading video game podcasts, and this whole "we don't need to hear this person's opinion about video games on a show about opinions on video games; it's better if we just guess" argument is kind of ludicrous.
@bisonhero: I find this argument extremely disingenuous. Kojima made his name on Metal Gear, and people are interested in Death Stranding precisely because of the legacy of those games. It's not as if there's an expectation that Death Stranding be another Metal Gear, but the esteem that franchise has certainly built up anticipation for Death Stranding and Kojima's work as a whole; it's ridiculous to argue that the two are unrelated. Furthermore, Dan's hints that he hated Death Stranding have been the talk of the comments sections (and Reddit, and ResetEra thread) for the past week, to the point where a number of people were saying they were going to snatch this podcast up right at the 3:00 a.m. drop date precisely because they wanted to hear if huge Kojima fan Dan Ryckert had turned on this game. The position of "hey, no one wanted to hear what Dan had to say on this random game completely unrelated to anything he likes" is demonstrably untenable.
(And forget about "lengthy" opinions; Dan is barely allowed to speak at points in this. Alex and Vinny are great, and, obviously, given that they completed the game, they should have a lot to say, but there's dramatic interest in a big fan of an artist having a very strong negative reaction to his "unchained" debut, and Dan should have been allowed to speak his piece, too. (The two major complaints he gets out, that the game piles systems upon systems without regard for fun and that the story is incredibly ham-fisted, are not the kneejerk "it's not Metal Gear so it's bad" reactions of which he's being accused.) There seems to be an idea that certain opinions are prima facie bad if they're negative, which I find unreasonable and unhealthy.)
I've said this elsewhere, but I wish Dan had been allowed to speak more here. I'm very interested in what Dan's opinions are on this given that he's such a big Metal Gear fan but has a strong negative reaction, but it seems like Vinny and Alex are cutting him off a lot with variations of "this isn't for you, Dan." Alex cuts off almost every single thought he voices in the last 40 minutes of the discussion.
Also, Alex has no right to call Dan "the dumbest motherfucker alive" re: Metal Gear & politics given his very vocal and extremely wrong ideas about what salt is a few weeks ago, where he at one point seemed to be arguing that it was part or wholly plant.
@huser: Building on your mention of curiosity, I have more patience with Dan with the salt thing since he acknowledges he doesn't know and wants to know, whereas Alex is completely confident in his bizarre ideas on what salt is and how it's made.
The "salt is not a rock" declaration, and subsequent justification for it, is the most headache-inducing scientific statement that has ever come out of Giant Bomb, and it wasn't from Dan.
(Yes, there's a very technical distinction between rocks and minerals where the former are considered disorganized aggregates of the latter (+ other detritus) - but that distinction was fifty miles from whatever was going on in that explanation.)
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