Borderlands? Brought down to a pithy Bitmap game? PREPOSTUROUS

"The existence of the fizz gland explains why
certain games possess us in an inexplicable way"

Having become absorbed into what can easily be classified as my iPad, I have been playing many different iPad games that ask for regular attention.  Jetpack Joyride, Birzzle Fever, Angry Birds Epic, Clash of Clans, Boom Beach... just to name a few.

With my current Fizzyness with Borderlands and it's upcoming Pre-Sequel, I think about it's iPad game "Borderlands Legends".  A somewhat side story of the Borderlands game that is a bit... cheap and nasty, really.

You get your four characters, each with their specific favoured weapons (Snipers for Mordecai, SMG's for Lylyth, Combat Rifles for Roland, and Shotguns for Brick) and the role of the player is to drag each character into range of enemies that are coming from Ecks Direction.

That's all well and good, but for a US$7 game, I would've expected something a bit more in-depth than random occurances of enemies walking from offscreen on a randomly chosen Bitmap environment, between buying items from a Bitmap Vending Machine so you can do it all again.  So it makes me think of what I would do to make for a better Borderlands themed iPad game.

First of all, I would change the format.  Rather than a top-down-drag-click shooter, make it a Turn Based Tactical game.  Grid based?  Maybe.  It could be somewhat original to have a free movement tactical style.  Either way, cover would be of importance as it should always be in a tactical game, and in most Borderlands games too.

Units would be more than just a handful of, but not limited to, Vault Hunters themselves.  Get some generic units, like Ex-Atlas Soldiers and scrapped Robots.  I'm sure there would be characters from town that would throw in their 2 bucks worth as well.

Equip them as normal, giving them two, or even four, weapons to choose from on top of their shields and grenade mods.  Would there be Artifacts or Class Mods to choose from?  What about a new item to throw in the mix?

Then there's skill trees.  Vault Hunters, and maybe just named characters, could have the same options as usual, three distinct trees to change their playstyle.  Between fights you can reassign them as you would in Borderlands, paying to refund your skill points which would allow players to adjust whomever for and upcoming mission.

Currency would be pretty much the same as usual, your dosh as your base, make Eridium your secondary, and then something like Seraph crystals as your rare or trade in currency.

Generic Characters can have a single skill tree which players can pick and choose to customise said soldier as they see fit until they reach a saturation point, where they can maybe upgrade to become something like a Vault Hunter of their own right?  Or maybe just an upgraded version of their own class?  Or maybe they can have three trees as well to change what kind of soldier they are.  Atlas had a wide choice, after all.

Then we go onto the Pre-battle view.  You have your scene, a large map across a segment of Pandora, with Trails and Locations that the player can pick and choose to progress through.  Each battle containing individual bosses, or hordes of enemies, and the player would be required to wade their way through and progress along until they've done accomplished a feat of some sort in the encounter.

The missions may have some longevity, rather than just being one after another they may have to move on through a large corridor, or circle their way around an industrial site, picking up items dropped from enemies such as health packs and being that little bit cautious so that when they reach the final encounter they will be worn down or fully capable.

Have daily missions, where a player can go back and pick up some money or run through a dungeon or something for a chance at a super rare weapon from a boss.  Have previously cleared missions be raided by Bandits, or taken by a chosen enemy corporation/s that have been elected for the story.

Story?  Now that's a tough one.  I would like to warrant that it would be after Borderlands 1, just to keep with the setting of the devastation Dahl has wreaked upon Pandora and the Populace.  Possibly around the Pre-Sequel time?  While the Vault Hunters are going mad on the Moon, this game could cover the events on the Mainland, where Hyperion is taking over everything and Eridium is becoming a Commodity.

The game could eventually expand on to the events in Borderlands 2, the turn of the tide against Hyperion and the rise of the new Vault Hunters.  Further on, as more games come out, another update coinciding with them, featuring side encounters and possibly game linking.  What with this Shift Rewards setup, you could earn Badass Points in all three games and benefit from them, unless they drastically change the Borderlands series after the Pre-sequel.

It's an idea.  A pretty straight forward idea, but it's an idea none the less, and a better idea than what they had for Borderlands Legends.

While I'm on the subject of Borderlands, I read an article about how Gearbox are thinking about releasing the Pre-Sequel for the current generation consoles (Xbone, PS4 and WiiU presumably).  This calls for an update and remake for the previous games.  One thing I know about the Pre-Gen games I have is that they don't display as well as the PC versions do.  And while it's a little petty, I would really enjoy seeing the game get that little bit prettier.

But what I really want is a Borderlands 1 improvement.  While there are some good features to it, there are still so many simple improvements they made for Borderlands 2, such as the AI for enemies, the weapon cards, the general interface. Keep a similar style, by all means, but make those minor improvements that make Borderlands 2 such a massive improvement over it's predecessor.

I know this is a dinky little gamers bog, with little rhyme or reason to the thought process of the majority of it's posts, but damnit wouldn't I love to see those simple features implemented into that first game.