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I'm interested in Ed's thoughts on Mass Effect, a game I absolutely adore, mainly because it's just so damn cool. So I probe. If you were reviewing Mass Effect what would you have given it?

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"I think it's fair to say I wouldn't have reviewed it as highly as most people reviewed it. I don't know if I can put a number on that. I'd get hatred! This gets printed and BioWare's like, who the hell is Liquid?! Who the f$!k is Ed?! Raaarrrrr! You turn off the recorder and I'll tell you what I think off the record."

I'm tempted to. I really am, because Ed clearly has a passion for the RPG, and I want complete honesty. But, like much of what we game journalists hear in whispered tones in dark alleys, it's often useless from a publishing point of view because it's off the record. So I keep the tape recorder going, and dig some more.

Despite the problems you talk about, Ed, Mass Effect still enjoyed great sales and great scores. How do you explain that? "You'll notice that I never said this is why RPGs are failures," he says. "I just think this is a way to do something better. Here's a positive way of saying it. If games like Mass Effect did some of the stuff that I was talking about they would have sold even more than they sold. That's what I'm trying to say. I'm not trying to say that these games are not viable. I feel that we can do even better. Why settle for good when we can have great?"

Wow. That's one hell of a claim. But I'm starting to see what he means. He's not dumping on Mass Effect per se. Well, he probably is. But what he's trying to say is that Mass Effect and other modern RPGs are still stuck in the dark ages, and would enjoy much greater commercial success if they were more accessible and less hardcore. Still though, I'm shocked. Are you sure, Ed?

"I might be wrong but I have a real solid belief that people are going to gravitate to something that's a little easier to play. And I'm not saying easier to play from a how many buttons or whatever. I mean easier to play in that it lets you get into it and you don't have to be an RPG gamer to play it.

"Just look at how long it took you before you finally got to play Mass Effect. I mean the whole front end, the whole telling your background, the whole picking your character and God forbid you should start customising your face. That alone would drop out more casual players. You have to be hardcore to want to do that."

Hardcore, really, is the key word when it comes to Rise of the Argonauts, a game that feels less and less like an RPG the longer the interview goes on. Ed is completely rejecting the notion that role playing games are for hardcore gamers only. He believes the genre has a more mass market future, and he's willing to try to realise that.

"We try to pace the game in one hour chunks, because we want people to be able to do their homework and go out and play. There's always this last interview question in many of these interviews which is, do you have anything else you want to say to your fans? I say, go out. Pick up a football. Go and do something else. Because if you're reading this, it means you play way too many games. Which is OK, it's OK to play games. You can play too much football, you can do too much studying, you can eat too much, you can sleep too much, you can do everything too much and we have to recognise that you can play games too much."

What I'm loving about Ed is the fact that he's not simply ranting about RPGs and what they do wrong, something any one of us can do for hours on end on forums across the Internet. Ed's actually trying to do something about it. He's come up with ideas, gameplay mechanics and systems which he thinks will lead to something that will change the way RPGs work. He's having a go. And, whatever your opinion of his opinions, you have to admit, he's got some balls.

I decide to wrap up the interview, the "have you got anything else you want to say to your fans" question stricken from the list. The roller coaster has come to an end, and I'm exhausted and thrilled all at the same time. And now I find myself having to come to some conclusion about how Rise of the Argonauts is shaping up. I decide the graphics are great, it has some cool ideas and the combat looks like a lot of fun. It may or may not turn out to be the RPG that pushes the boundaries of its genre. It may or may not enjoy a 10 out of 10 review score. It may or may not end up better than Mass Effect. But as I shake Ed's hand and thank him for his time, I know one thing's for sure: with this guy in charge the RPG is in for one hell of a ride.

Rise of the Argonauts is due out on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC this autumn.

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