The problem is the gaming industry has been sucked up by the corperate world. Its about the bottom line and what statistics show will get them that bottom line. That leaves us with games with less innovation and less heart. Back in the day a small group of people putting everything they had into it and working closely together usaly had a love for what they working on. On the up side games that are coming out now are more polished than ever before.

As a historical view on how CRPGs have developed over time, the article does a nice job in listing the various games, which the author believe had an impact on the market. However I would have preffered a more detailed look at the evolution of CRPG game mechanics themselves rather than the games and how they have developed instead (ie. no inventory to simple inventory, equipment, spells, character development etc.).

Some of the points he's trying to make are a bit far fetched. For instance likening "Severance: Blade of Darkness" to a Diablo type game is weird, seeing that it is far more related to Tomb Raider, than Diablo. In that sense, he ought to have included the Hexen and the Heretic series as well, but perhaps they are not CRPG enough to even warrant a crude mentioning.

Overall a nice job at mentioning obscure pieces of gaming history, but for useful content it's not really worth much. Entertaining the same way a tabloid is entertaining.

I can't rate this at more than a 6/10 due to the very hands-off nature of the article.