Gameplay-wise, Popscene is similar to Rockstar, but with many more options and a stronger focus on exciting, non-quantitative aspects of the music industry such as the personalities of various singers, scandals, industry awards, and taking your band on a tour. Of course, the addition of graphics alone will interest Rockstar fans who are used to seeing everything presented in text. The blocky 3D graphics in Popscene, like MDickie's wrestling games, are nothing to write home about in terms of realism, but they do a great job of conveying the various moods of your band, the crowd, and the (usually surly) record company representatives.

The best thing about Popscene is the tremendous amount of personality. Like MDickie's wrestling games, characters in Popscene have a wide range of unique traits, moods, and actions. Putting together musicians whose personalities are opposites – and making sure they stay together as a band – is a lot of fun, since you will see them bicker, fight, and, of course, constantly ask for a higher cut of your income. As a band, you have to keep a close eye on the collective Popularity, Reputation, and even "Attitude". As in a real-life band, you need to attract and retain the best mix of talents, since a well-rounded band needs someone with good production skills, a good writer, an entertaining performer, and a real artistic talent. If you are lucky, you can sign musicians who have most of the required qualities, but most of the time you will need to hire a specialist in each area. There is a plethora of options in Popscene so you will never run out of things to do. You can create songs, select up to four songs from each album to release as singles, book concert venues (naturally, you can only book prominent venues when your band is famous), negotiate your band's contract with the record company and also with each band member, and watch your band perform in concerts. As you become more famous, cool things start to happen – for example, you might get a visit from a well-known singer who wants to collaborate with you, endorse products, and even go to court when scandals break out.

As fun as Popscene is, I do have a few complaints. The most glaring omission, in my view, is the inability to record or use your own songs in the game. Each song in the game has only two traits: an "entertainment" rating, and an "artistic" rating. As MDickie describes, "...Entertaining songs are those with commercial appeal that can expect to do well in the charts. Artistic songs, on the other hand, are those that warrant critical acclaim and take longer to lose their appeal. Although these qualities are somewhat random, they are strongly influenced by the skills of your production team. A poorly managed team will be lucky to have more than a couple of hits on an album, whereas those with dedicated producers will boast a more consistent hit rate." This all sounds well and good, except it is hard to judge whether the song you just produced is going to do well or not. The ability to actually create songs or use MP3s from your own collection in the game would have added a lot of atmosphere to the game and make it more believable. Other than that, there are some niggling faults here and there, such as quirks in 3D animations, some cumbersome interface designs, and the weird feeling watching your singer's mouth move completely out of sync with the song he's singing. These are minor complaints, though, and they definitely do not detract from the overall enjoyment. If you like Rockstar but wish it were more interactive, deep, and colorful, Popscene fits the bill. Two thumbs up, way up!