Why Jedi Academy sucks

DFII: JK

• SP:
  I thought it was great. '88 holds the plot in the beginning before the whole Valley of the Jedi thing gets going. Then it's hot pursuit around the universe. You finally catch up, and your choices - even if simplied to killing or leaving civillians - decide if you will follow the dark side or the light side. Different missions and different ending, that's how it's supposed to be.
• MP:
  Guns and the Force was fun. Saber fights felt like jousting.

JKII: JO

• SP:
  Quite good. A good opening again story-wise - what's with that Remnant activity? Sith always seem to plot, so no points there. Of course they want the Valley of the Jedi, blah blah blah. There's enough plot to tie the missions together quite well, but you don't care much about the main plot - except that it progresses so slowly, almost as an excuse to have the fine minor plots.
• MP:
  Gunplay seemed balanced from what little experience I do have here, though I think the secondary on the Flechette is quite overpowered. Saber play was brilliant though, no matter if played with the Force or not. FFA's turn into a bit of a spamfest with sabers and are best kept with a relatively low amount of sabers or just including guns.
  As for duelling, every single style or way of attacking has a couple of counter-tactics. As the level of competition increases the game goes from being attack focused to counter-move focused and then to striking a balance (note that most people try to find a move that keeps them safe, the classic is the red sideswipe - but it doesn't work against people with a deeper understanding of the game). This progression makes the saber part of the game nearly perfect. Including the Force will add another layer of fighting to it, though some sad examples of Drain-whores and kick-whores exist.
  If you want any elaboration on saber fighting in JO, just let me know.

JK: JA

• SP:
  I'm tempted to say "who cares?" Wedge and Echoman already said most here, so I'll just recap: The "plot" is hideous, but the missions would make great single-level demos.
  I bet no one cared a bit about the dumbarse Rosh (pardon the language). Following the light or dark side depends on one little action, nothing about what Jaden has been running aorund doing for what, a few weeks? Not that it matters though, you'll get to fight a few more Jedi and then Kyle instead of Ragnos-boosted sithspit. Wow... not.
• MP:
  No idea about gunplay, but saber fights are awful. Here's a recap:
  • Stabs:
    Seems random. You hit someone on the side of their kneecap and they instantly get slaughtered. You hit someone in the belly and it does ten damage instead. A nice, but a bit glitchy move.
  • Attack kata:
    Single saber has decent damage. The red seems a bit glitchy about either crushing or scratching the enemy. Dual sabers are wicked, as it packs one hell of a punch when the sabers aren't even flying. Unfortunately, people use cl_yawspeed to lame this move, increasing its potential while making them invulnerable. Double blade is useless, as it'll only scratch someone unless they happen to stand still at your right front.
  • Saber twirl:
    Useless. If you had even a low mobility it would be useful as a counter-move, right now it's useful if someone is running in front of you with standard attacks. Doesn't happen. Then again, we'd have more yawspeed abusers.
  • Forward-attack moves:
    Single saber are all useless. They were so scared of making them any good that they can only scratch people even against static targets. Compare them to JO to see what they're supposed to do. Dual sabers is also useless as it'll almost never do anything more than a scratch, unless you get a "headshot" and instantly kill someone instead, though it's impossible to force it happening. Glitchy. Dual blade is the main reason I went away. The butterfly attack is uber glitchy. Firstly it has mobility all the way, and covers all sides at all times... but it does more damage than any other attack, even the 50-Force point attacks! Ironically, the saber is more dangerous when it's not moving. Trying to counter it in any way will result in a slaughtering of yourself.
  • Standard attacks: Glitchy.
    
    • Single sabers can jump around with red doing swipes until their jumping gets them a "headshot" worth about 90 damage... from a standard attack that scratched you.
    • Dual sabers has some weird attacks that can result in "headshot" triggers as well, but they're nearly impossible to replicate, so it just comes up every once in a while.
    • Double blade has the hilt bug, meaning any swiping attack up close results in huge damage or an instant kill.
  • On the bright side of JA, it at least looks good, and the kicking and rolling was fixed. They just killed any sort of control of the saber and turned it into a buttonmash/powerspam/jump-away party. I like to call it circus academy, due to the moves and clowns.

About the so-called "lamer" issues in JK2 and JA

If you've ever been in a Duel server with more than a few people you'll know that trying to stay awake is a task so tough it would take real Jedi patience. So if you don't want to fight the same 2-3 people again and again, you need to play FFA-duel. This is why the MOTD on the server - the voice of the host and rules on the server - display if it's a true FFA server or a duel-FFA server. So if you go into a server that's advertised as a duel-FFA server in the MOTD and then start annoying everyone, you're truly a lamer. People who expect all FFA servers to be duels only are idiots. The MOTD might say "Happy fragging!" and the idiots will go about saying "omg stop u noob lamer".

Conclusion: People who want a true FFA should go seek out a server that plays true FFA. People who wants duels will have to find a server that plays duels-only FFA. People who cannot follow the rules set in the MOTD should be kicked or banned.