blkmage wrote:y gripe is that they knew that we wanted all of this stuff all along and chose to save it for a sequel, because they wouldn't have been able to justify creating a sequel if they hadn't.
That is another claim entirely, yet it is also mistaken. How could the developers have known what players wanted a game that they had never played? The first game in a series involves some risks, since it is not clear whether players will buy the overall idea of the game. The sequel gives the developers a chance to respond to reviews and player feedback.
This is what I see happening between the two Star Wars: Battlefront games. LucasArts already knows how to make interesting air/space combat games, but they didn't want that to be the focus of the original Battlefront. The attraction was the ability to participated as a soldier in many of the famous Star Wars battles, which was something new in a Star Wars game. I do not agree that the developers could have known that players would want all of the features that will be in Battlefront 2 (and they couldn't have included all of them, since some of the battles are based on Episode 3). If they had included space battles in the first game, it would have been too much like so many other Star Wars games that focus on air/space combat. At any rate, it would have distracted from the innovative elements of the game. The same could be said for the inclusion of playable jedi, since the point of the game was to play as a generic soldier instead of a one-man army.
Which would you rather have in a sequel: a rehash of the first game, something totally different, or significant improvements to the original concept? Assuming that the original game was good (and I think we can agree that Star Wars: Battlefront was good), I would prefer the third option.