I'm with karajorma. Even putting the thematic elements of the storylines aside, it always felt to me like the actual tasks you performed in-mission tied in far more with driving the story forward in FS2 than in FS1. The original had a few too many of those "destroy a cargo depot/take out a few enemy ships for no discernible purpose" sorts of missions, particularly in the periods before Playing Judas and Reaching the Zenith. When you couple the SOC loops with arcs like the first nebular campaign or chipping away at the NTF's remains, you just feel like you're
doing more throughout the whole of FS2. Granted, FS1's situation probably better replicates the mix you'd see in any sort of realistic military setting, but I'll always take unrealistically being at the center of the action over that. Besides that, I thought the squadron changes were a far more superior way of introducing new technology to the player than the "oh, we're suddenly pumping out all these new ship classes when we only had Apollos before" FS1 method.
Plus, when you think in terms of actual combat, FS2 just blows FS1 out of the water. I'm sure we all remember how hard we fangasmed the first time we saw a beam cannon fire. And le gasp, homing missiles actually...homed!
(And in terms of "oldbie vs. newbie," I played and replayed FS1 for years before finally getting my mitts on FS2, so there goes that theory.
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