As I mentioned in one of my first reviews for iPad Insight, I don’t care much for racing games. Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2, a Playstation 2 release from more than 10 years ago, was the only exception. It was a racing game with a twist; pitting players not only against each other, but also a range of police chases, blockades and bomb-dropping helicopters. I flipping loved that game.

When I found out EA Games released an iPad version called Need For Speed: Most Wanted, I was thrilled. Finally, a racing game I could enjoy playing, because it’s focused on more than just one car beating the other car.

Does the iPad release compare with the original I loved so much? Well, yes and no.

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When it comes to games with female protagonists, the iPad is sorely lacking. Ever since I started reviewing iPad games, I’ve been on the hunt for ones with female leads, and have sadly come up short. Most of the games I’ve found were “girly,” with topics and themes only women (particularly teens and tweens) would likely be interested in playing.

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It’s Christmas! One of my favorite times of the year. While I did see plenty of holiday-themed iPad games such as Super Mega Worm vs. Santa, I thought it would be best to take a look at a game that’s not only good for the holidays, but year-round.

Before I get into it, let me state this for the record: I don’t particularly like Farmville, Mafia Wars, Restaurant City or any of those other social network “freemium” games Facebook has made popular throughout the years. I find the genre, as a whole, annoying, frustrating and addictive purely for the sake of being addictive.

That being said, The Simpsons: Tapped Out stands out as one of the only social network-style games I actually like.

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Here’s my special Halloween-themed review … dressed (rather poorly) as a Star Trek vulcan! Here I take a look at two zombie games — one a traditional shoot-em-up and the other a modern take on a classic PC game — to see how they measure up. This review features special guest Bill Hanstock, SB Nation contributor and co-founder of Raise Zombie Awareness.

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Bastion for iPad. This is a video review of Bastion for iPad, an indie action RPG that was released in late-August. Many thanks to Kenny Ryan for his narration in the beginning.

Here’s an App Store link for Bastion for iPad; it’s currently priced at $4.99.

Disclosure: This game was independently purchased by the post’s author. For further information regarding our site’s review policies, please see the “About” page.

The Room for iPad. I’m very pleased to introduce my first video game review (no pun intended) for iPad Insight. This review is of Fireproof Games’ first release, The Room, released Sept. 19.

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Let’s take a moment to talk about video game adaptations of movies and TV shows.

I’m not talking about ones that take a retroactive look at movies and shows from days gone by, such as Telltale Games’ Jurassic Park and Back to the Future series. Instead, I’m looking at games that are released around the same time as their film and TV counterparts. I have nothing but the highest respect for Telltale Games and think they’re doing an amazing job.

For as long as video games have been around, studios have tried to use the medium to market their movies, TV shows and other pop-culture phenomenons. This can be traced back all the way to 1982, when a little Atari game based on the movie “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” came out — forever scarring thousands of movie fans by being one of the worst video games of all time.

Since then, hundreds of video game adaptations have been released, and hundreds have failed. It often seems that the better a movie or TV show is, the worse the video game. So why is it that many video games can’t or don’t translate the visual medium of movies and TV shows successfully? Let’s take a look at a recent example.

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