Just got home from LA and I'm exhausted, so I'll do a more thorough write up later but a few surprises:
I like COD more than I thought I would; there was a lot going on in the snippet that I saw, and it felt a bit all over the place but much better than I imagined. I'm also intrigued with a COD where they claim to have spent a good deal of time (2.5 years they said) developing the characters and the story. It's not my favorite multiplayer, so I tend to play campaign and then a bit of the MP and then I'm finished, so a campaign that is worth a damn is an excellent idea.
Evolve was probably my, omfg, I had no idea the game would be this much fun. The tourney at the show went way late, to the point where they were kicking us out, but it was fabulous to watch. Just a lot of really cool things you can do when you get a bunch of people together. Based on that alone I'll probably end up preordering it.
Assassin's Creed wasn't a *huge* surprise, but I'm still a bit amazed I was as floored by the game as I was. Coming out so close on the heels of 4, I expected the game to be lacking a bit perhaps, but it doesn't. AC is one of those games where pieces are made from all different studios, so it's fucking astounding the game comes out as cohesive as it does. Their guys are right on the same wavelength.
The 4 man co-op is way cooler than I expected, admittedly it was a planned scenario, but I could see excellent things coming out of this with things like challenge maps etc. Also, new weapons and whatnot - phantom blade is really cool, just because old knives weren't a one shot kill if you were spotted before throwing it, so kind of cool to have an instant "knife kill" essentially.
They also mentioned Unity is a 1 to 1 scale, so it's way more realistic and cool especially in cities. The presentation demo showed a giant city with 1400 NPCS operated by various AIs. Looked flipping phenomenal.
The ghosting in taverns is awesome too, and the way the side quest system works. I can't remember if they said they were dynamically spawned (Like Batman:AO) or always there, but it was cool to have a bunch of random side quests that were more than going to a bird cage.
And the last big surprise was Dragon Age Inquisition. I wrote awhile back in the DA:I thread that what I hoped you could do was recruit old friends, old heroes etc and then by that gain access to specific things, and they've done at least SOME of that. Leliana was a confirmed acquisition, and you can send her in to infiltrate a specific stronghold for you. (Though the guy doing the presentation mentioned that that damaged his relationship with Leliana, so I think it'll be somewhat Mass Effecty in this regard, in that there is probably a better person for the job.)
Based on the presentation, I'm way more stoked for the game than previous. Cautious optimism but it seems like they really learned something; it's not fully open world but it has very large areas and while exploring it feels very skyrimy. The crafting system seems to be a mix of DA2 and DA:O; the materials are more than just a few spots every map, and are more like the first where you bought a bunch of elfroot, BUT you also have recipes on top of that.
There's way more customization; the stats on the gear is closer to DA2 but the drop acquisition is more like DA:O, where everything drops something and you start with humble splintmail and go from there. I asked how awesome the customization was, IE, if I wanted a sturdy archer could I create chain mail with specific stats and make them a bit beefier and I was told yes.
The dialogue is also a bit changed; there is still the wheel from DA2, and your companions still react based on things you do while questing, battling etc, BUT they also added the camp dialogue from DA:O, so it won't be like DA2 where you just went to their houses and they gave you a canned one liner. My first play through of DA2 I got most everyone I cared about past the 75% in either friendship or rivalry, but the second one was practically a god damn formula to make sure you were taking the right people to get the big boosts to their rep or leaving behind the people that you knew would get a neg, forcing you to take people that weren't particularly efficient just to max it out.
A few other things that I wrote about on a blog and facebook so I'll probably copy pasta later, but I am very hopeful for this.