Some of us liked Halo better when it was passable Mil-SF.

: I enjoyed the increased chatter
: from all the units in the game. It's also part of what makes RTS units
: distinctive; I remember which ones are which primarily through their
: attitudes and voice work.

OK. Now that I've got the snark out of my system, I'm going to point out that quantity doesn't equal quality. In fact, a greater quantity of spoken lines requires a greater quality of writing. The narrative objective of the unit dialog is to strengthen verisimilitude and make the player feel like he is commanding an army of individuals. Poorly written dialog breaks this verisimilitude and reminds the player that he's playing a game.

Company of Heroes did an excellent job of this. Much of the American units lines sounded like they were straight out of a war movie. "Hidey ho, we're good to go" "Form up and hustle out" "We're taking heavy MG fire!", all delivered in that patented US Army Sergeant Growl, as if the speaker was born with a 5-o'clock shadow and a cigar clenched firmly between his teeth. The units also had good context-sensitive dialog. The engineers reacted to the specific kind of building you ordered them to construct, and units could call out exactly what kind of attack they were receiving. I think the American units actually had a specific response to seeing Tiger tanks, but I can't remember for sure.

I also recall that StarCraft II got this only mostly right. Specifically, if you play Protoss, you will inevitably be treated to a dramatic declaration of "We cannot hold!" So you click over to the ambushed ball of units, ready to salvage what you can from a crushing defeat. And as it turns out, your mighty army of Zealots and Stalkers and Collossi has been ambushed by a handful of Zerglings.

But the more dialog you include, the harder you have to work to make it all fit. Back when Orcs just said "Okay" or "Waugh!", and yelling "Stop Poking Me!" was the height of context-sensitive dialog, the writing of that dialog didn't matter. It just had to sound "Medieval fantasy" enough. When Halo Wars rolled around, I remember being taken out of the game by the cliche lines from the Flamethrower Marines.

I have yet to see what the units are saying in Halo Wars. I still don't have an XBox One, and the PC version doesn't release until the 21st. So this post isn't an attack on you or an affirming of The Lionheart's complaints. I just want to say that what the units are saying matters more than how much they have to say.