PopStar Guitar is XS Games' first foray into the virtual band music video game space. There are a couple of unique twists to this release that could make this title a big hit for the holidays.

The first is that the game is targeted at the Tween/Tween demographic - the music is from artists like Miley Cyrus, Jonas Brothers and Fall Out Boy. I hadn't really considered this but when I played Guitar Hero with my pre-teen but artists like Social Distortion, Pearl Jam and Guns N' Roses mean very little to her. Even though, I've never heard of half of the acts on PopStar, my daughter spent hours focused on the game and built up her skills/points so that she could get to play Miley Cyrus' "See You Again". There are 60 songs in total so it doesn't look like this game is going to get old quickly.

The game controller also further differentiates PopStar from its competitors as the concept is that you are playing an air guitar. The game comes with an "AirG" peripheral that attaches over the remote and the nunchuck is used to "strum" the guitar. These controllers seem a bit more flexible and forgiving than the Guitar Hero guitar, which is good for a younger user.

Similar to other virtual band/music games, the user gets to form and customize their band, there are multiple male and female characters and there are three levels of difficulty. Earning points and building skills allows you to unlock new venues, songs and solos and videos of your band in Studio Mode.

All-in-all, both the music and game play seems very relevant to this teen/tween age group and it added a high level of enjoyment for my daughter. It is definitely worth checking out if you have kids in this age bracket.