Deus Ex vs Mass Effect: Which is the better RPG?

[Sacculina]

To clarify, I mean the first Deus Ex, not the pre/sequels

I’m not asking which one's the better game; that's too obvious. Which does the KKKodex think is the superior aar pee gee, and why? Consider the following comparisons:

Character building:

The core character system of Mass Effect is the slow enhancement of skills and abilities that allow you to shoot enemies dead, persuade/intimidate and open locked crates with increased proficiency. You start out a gimped grunt with peashooters and end as a competent grunt with decent weapons.

The core character system of Deus Ex is player-defined enhancement of skills and abilities to suit a preferred play-style. You start out as a rookie with terrible aim and unsteady hands, and end as any combination of super-soldier, invisible ninja, locksmith, technician, bomb expert, genius hacker, blackjacker, Olympic swimmer and crate-stacker. Several powerful weapons are available from the very beginning; their usefulness is determined by the level of your skills.

Gameplay:

In Mass Effect, the primary means of progressing through the game is by shooting people until death or cutscene. Your special abilities serve only to facilitate that. XP is mostly gained by killing enemies.

Deus Ex offers several different approaches to accomplishing your objectives, including (but not limited to) killing all opposition, sneaking past all opposition, hacking into security systems to reprogram turrets and/or bots, and finding alternate paths that bypass opposition altogether. XP is mostly granted for completing objectives, not killing enemies.

Choices and consequences:

Choices and consequences in Mass Effect serve to increase your paragon and renegade alignments, or to pick who gives you the congratulatory handshake in the end. More tangible consequences require you to purchase the sequel(s).

Spoiler

You also choose either of two companions as a mandatory heroic sacrifice.

Choices and consequences in Deus Ex are mostly flavour but sometimes offer rewards (an augmentation canister, a certain kill-switch, an easy way into the shipyards).

Equipment:

Mass Effect offers an array of skin-tight space suits, from armour that does little besides accentuating your wo/manly curves to armour that allows you to fight without cowering behind the Velcro chest-high walls. A variety of weapons is also available, distinguishable by reskin and rank. The latter indicates whether you should expect to spend three shots to kill, or a hundred. Most of these are customizable with useful upgrades, which are also ranked for your convenience. The defence corporations of the Mass Effect universe are nothing if not completely honest about the exact quality of their products.

Deus Ex allows you to customize weapons with weapon mods such as scopes, silencers and laser sights. You cannot change your armour, but there are single-use 'armours' that grant invisibility, increased ballistic protection, more time underwater and resistance to hazardous environments. Their effectiveness is determined by the environmental training skill, which is next to worthless.

Multiple endings:

Mass Effect has two endings, depending on whether your alignment tends more towards paragon or renegade. Before the credits, Shepard strikes a heroic pose: paragons stare blankly into space; renegades carry a weapon, presumably to shoot karma when it comes back to bite them in the arse.

Deus Ex has three endings:

Spoiler

JC can plunge the world into another Dark Age, become part of the new ruling elite, or merge with an AI and rule the world.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

ME is not an RPG... and it's shit. Period.

DE:HR is somewhere in the gray area. Then again if TW2 is ARPG, hmm...

 

[Satan]

both are action RPGs

 

[Captain Shrek]

At least DX is s good, innovative game. Mass effect is for retards.

 

[I.C. Wiener]

DX1 is definitely gray area but it lacks 1.5 of my criteria for being an RPG. Haven't played IW. HR is a stealth-action adventure game with RPG elements.

ME (& 2) is a linear third person shooter/dating sim where you can be a boy scout or keepz it real (to the same effect), and the main choice you're confronted with is do I kill these enemies with a sniper rifle or machine gun?

I enjoyed ME as a junk food summer blockbuster game.

 

[Devil]

both are action RPGs

It will be a cold day in hell when ME will actually become a (a)RPG.

 

[FatCat]

I think ME is more of an RPG , but by no means a better game not even close.

 

[Cassidy]

This thread is pointless. It's like comparing a lump of gold with a lump of shit when it comes to the quality and quantity of serious RPG elements.

Deus Ex allows for much more variation in how you build JC Denton's skills. Although IMO vanilla distributes a bit too many skill points, specially in late game and some of the skills aren't very useful except for a few circumstances(IE: swimming), the way you build your character radically alters the approach you take in gameplay. If you neglect fully hacking, electronics and lockpicking, for example, replacing them with combat skills in character development, you'll have difficulties if you try to do a full stealth approach in game, for obvious reasons.

As for Mass Effect, seriously. All characters will end popping moles with power ups + buffs through totally railroaded linear corridors from cutscene to cutscene instead of using purely guns depending on build, and dialogue choices vary between SEDUCE/NEUTRAL/EXTREME SHEPARD. Gameplay goes through very little serious modification regardless of what kind of character you build. This is one of the features that make a game closer to a CRPG and in this it is a total flop.

Of course eventually it comes to story. Deus Ex takes one theme full of cheese (if you doubt just search for David Icke Lizardpeople conspiracy theories, Grey aliens liking strawberry flavored icecream and it gets even cheesier than that) and builds a much better story and plot from such theme than this Bioware piece of popamole shit "good for what it is", while adding some cool and memorable NPCs to the matter, including NPCs whose life or death depends on the players choices and that aren't cardboard, dull or irritating to make the player give a fuck about their deaths if they get killed.

And finally, which I already mentioned: Exploration. Deus Ex levels are infinitely more open-ended. Even if their final objectives remain mostly linear, there are multiple approaches to achieve them rather than follow quest compass herp derp kill everything along the way durr hurr, and several areas in levels that are totally not required to finish a mission, but that grant rewards if explored. Deus Ex offers nonlinear gameplay even if its plot isn't really that C&C heavy compared to for example Fallout.

In short, Deus Ex beats Mass Effect by a wide margin when it comes to which is closer to a CRPG.

 

[Regdar]

I assume we're talking about DX:HR. I'm only up to the morgue, but I can already say that DX:HR is the better RPG (although not a pure RPG by any means). Even if they packed all the "RPG" into the first mission and it will only get worse from there, it still beats ME on both accounts - RPG and quality.

Although graphically, I don't even know which one is better. DX:HR looks like complete fucking shit, but then so does Mass Effect.

 

[Excidium]

Both games are shooters with RPG elements ™.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

I think you mean rpgs with shooter elements amigo since both games are games where you play a role and playing a role means roleplaying

as with science we must redraw the boundaries of what is known after major breakthroughs and we have had a lot of things broken through in the past few years

now all games are rpgs with elements

how you play with those elements will determine your roleplaying

for example if you shoot at legs only in bulletstorm you are a paladin

stop limiting your worldview and having such a narrow minded classificatiion of game genres this isn't the 90s

 

[Andyman Messiah]

RPGs:
Deus Ex 1: Great

Shooters with RPG elements:
Deus Ex 2: Pretty meh but still enjoyable
Deus Ex 3: Fuck this shit
Mass Effect 1: Fuck this shit
Mass Effect 2: Great
Mass Effect 3: ???

 

[Jack]

both are action RPGs

Both games are shooters with RPG elements ™.

This, they aren't really comparable to real RPGs.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

me2 is better action rpg.

deus ex hr is better overall game



problem codex?

 

[Mastermind]

RPG = turn based isometric games that use 2nd edition D&D.

Anything else is an action rpg even if you can get through the game with little to no actual action.

 

[Carrion]

The OP is obviously referring to the original, so why are you talking about Human Revolution?

Cassidy already summed up my thoughts quite well. Aside from having a much better skill system and more choice when building your character, Deus Ex also has much more interaction with the game world which is also affected by your skills and augs. There are few clear choices with consequences, but the game does react to your actions and offer you different rewards based on what you've done and how you've achieved your objectives. Mass Effect doesn't really have any of this.

And shooting people in the face is just one, almost entirely optional part of the game. I'd say that for example Bloodlines is much closer to being a shooter than Deus Ex is.

 

[Multiple Sarcasm]

Deus Ex vs Mass Effect: Which is the better RPG?

"C&C vs Warcraft: Which is a better Date Sim?"
"HoMM vs King's Bounty: Which is a better platformer?"

It is a dilemma.





But if to take the thread with less derp: ME had magics and allowed for more differing builds than DXHR. On the other hand, DXHR's pros include the absence of romances, less headdesk-inducing dialogues/writing and levels allowing for a wider choice of [still boring and repetitive] approaches.
All in all: neither has any claims to 'RPG', but combat was more varied in ME, despite the game itself being noticeably dumber than DXHR.
If that makes it a better RPG, than I'm WTF-I-don't-even'ing outta this thread.

 

[MetalCraze]

Neither are RPGs

Combat is not stat driven in any way. Enemies also don't have stats.

 

[Sacculina]

Baldur’s Gate 2:
Isometric, purely combat-based, linear = RPG

Fallout 1 and 2:
Isometric, allows several ways to progress through the game, C&C = RPG

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magics Obscura
Isometric, allows several ways to progress through the game, C&C = RPG

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Third person, Star Wars shite and D20 = RPG

Vampire: the Masquerade--Bloodlines
First/third-person, allows several ways to progress through the game, C&C = pop/whackamole with conversations and RPG elements

Deus Ex:
First-person, allows several ways to progress through the game, C&C = pop/whackamole with conversations and RPG elements

Fallout: New Vegas
First/third-person, allows several ways to progress through the game, C&C = pop/whackamole with conversations and RPG elements

Did I geddid rite?

 

[sea]

The core of role-playing games, outside of pre-defined rulesets, is the ability to play the game how you want to... whether that's as a diplomat, a stealthy sneaker type, a hacker, a sniper, a brute-force tower of meat, etc. Deus Ex allows for diverse play-styles that were never even anticipated by the original developers, largely through the combinations of unexpected abilities, and is all the better for it. Mass Effect allows no such thing and basically boils down to whether you're able to unlock certain chests, and whether you can choose blue or red dialogue options. You're still by and large playing a straightforward (and mediocre) shooter even with all the window dressing and ability enhancement, since you're still forced into doing everything a single way, or two if BioWare are feeling generous.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

The core of role-playing games, outside of pre-defined rulesets, is the ability to play the game how you want to... whether that's as a diplomat, a stealthy sneaker type, a hacker, a sniper, a brute-force tower of meat, etc. Deus Ex allows for diverse play-styles that were never even anticipated by the original developers, largely through the combinations of unexpected abilities, and is all the better for it. Mass Effect allows no such thing and basically boils down to whether you're able to unlock certain chests, and whether you can choose blue or red dialogue options. You're still by and large playing a straightforward (and mediocre) shooter even with all the window dressing and ability enhancement, since you're still forced into doing everything a single way, or two if BioWare are feeling generous.

than none of might and magic and golden box games are crpg

 

[Excidium]

I'm pretty sure M&M and Goldbox games have a pre-defined ruleset, simplistic as it may be.

 

[Cassidy]

The core of roleplaying games is a defined ruleset inspired from wargaming through which you interact indirectly with the game world with the use of a character or more either prebuilt or that you built using the same rules, regardless of your twitch skills, for it's the character skills and not the player skills that will matter in a real RPG rather than hybrid, -insert genre here- with RPG elements or POPAMOLE, with the exception of, when available, conversation choices, and of tactical moves during combat.

tl;dr My definition of RPG in a hypothetical perfect example: Jagged Alliance 2 with laptop guy having stats you can modify.

 

[Serious_Business]

The core of role-playing game is stats and loot. Shut the hell up

 

[Renegen]

IW is better than Mass Effect...