Ten Things, as the name implies, gives you ten opinions from ten different Irrational employees, each time on a new topic.  It could be cookies, or albums you should own, or things to do at a picnic… any and every subject is fair game.

With E3 behind us, we’re kicking off Ten Things with the topic:  “Impressive products at E3 in 2010.”

Stephen Alexander – Senior FX Artist: Portal 2. Looked very pretty, gameplay seemed like what made the first great with lots of new ideas, writing seemed to have maintained its really high bar.

Dan Johnson – Quality Assurance Tester: Dance Central, using Kinect and creating a real game that has the same infectiousness that pervades Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

Kristina Drzaic – Designer: Epic Mickey blew me away, more over Disney’s decision to play with Mickey’s brand image in an interesting way than actual demonstrated gameplay, which still looked great.  I’m looking forward to that one.

Sarah Rosa – Assistant to the Creative Director: There was a lot of awesome at E3.  I must say that the 3DS is definitely worth molesting and worked as described!

Mike Syrnyk – Associate Producer: I was impressed by Bulletstorm just because I love the idea of literally booting the crap out of every enemy in sight.

Chad LaClair – Level Designer: RAGE.  Best looking game I’ve seen on the 360.

Adrian Murphy – Associate Producer: Ghost Recon.  I didn’t pay too much attention before E3, but after watching the videos, I was pleasantly surprised.  It doesn’t seem to be taking the Modern Warfare/ Battlefield route of “ZOMG everything is exploding all the time I am Rambo.”  The cloaking looked cool, and the joint takedown sequence was rad.

Ben Lo – Concept Artist: The most impressive one was Gran Turismo 5 to me. Even though I’m not a big racing gamer, the in-game graphics alone will be able to get me going at it for hours and hours. It is just gorgeous.

Joe Faulstick – Producer: Civilization 5 has me excited. They seem to be finding the perfect balance between keeping what worked well and improving upon the original core experience.

Jorge Lacera – Concept Artist: Metal Gear Solid: Rising fucking blew my mind. I’m ready to slice some shit up!