Fashion dolls have all changed their look and style these last few years, with the Bratz line leading the pack. Mattel has joined the trend with a new line called My Scene, which features Barbie and several of her friends, but with a newly designed body look and clothes. My Scene is a software program for girls that features Barbie, Chelsea and Madison, girls that just love to spend their time shopping, chatting and just hanging out.

Barbie and Madison are planning a surprise birthday party for Chelsea. There are several items Barbie has to buy to get ready for the party, but she's up for the task with helpful messages from her friends and frequent checks of her "to-do" list on her cell phone.

Besides the birthday gift, Barbie has to find something to wear to the party, so it's off to do some serious shopping at some very trendy stores like Urban Threads, Digs for Fashion and Tiffs. Here Barbie will buy items like pants, skirts, tops, lipstick, jewelry and gifts. But of course all these things cost money, so Barbie will need to earn some money. Jobs that become available are relayed to her cell phone by friends. These jobs consist of designing clothes, adding music to music tracks, and decorating mannequins and windows at a clothing store.

While most of the activities center on fashion, makeup and shopping, there is also a good amount of logical thinking puzzles intermixed, albeit simple ones. For example, in the music shop where players will need to choose the correct beats and tunes for the music track, the choices are laid out in a "mastermind" type puzzle. Choosing makeup and jewelry is somewhat the same, and a few other shopping excursions use questions about preferences to narrow down the choices. Hints about some of the possible items that need to be bought can be found in the Zine, a magazine that features an anagram about said items.

The other activities are of a creative variety, mostly involving choosing outfits, designs for blank fashion patterns and mixing music tracks. Several of these creations are saved for viewing or listening in the girls' apartments via scrapbooks and music players.

When everything is purchased, it's time to head on down to Barbie's for the surprise party, which of course is a total success! A short animation is shown of the party, and the photos with captions are saved in the scrapbooks. A girl's party life is never through, though, and it's time to move on to the next big event, which of course means more shopping.

These girls are all fly, and their wardrobes show it. All three display bare navels with midriff-showing tops and low-riding pants, reminiscent of styles worn by pop music stars. The clothes are skimpy, and some parents may think them immodest. These outfits are very like what the real My Scene dolls wear, so if parents are familiar with them, then they'll be familiar with the style of these.

The animation is cartoony, and of excellent quality. Watching the girls glide across the screen is quite amusing. The photos in the party scenes are colorful and bright, and can be printed out. All the outfits are very attractive and stylish, and girls will love looking at both the characters and the clothes.

The music is mostly a pop mixture with no words, of the same style but just with different beats. The music composed by players can be played as well, but there's no real music list as such to choose from for the game.

Moving around this game is super easy with the intuitive interface, which utilizes a map and an organizer/cell phone for movement information.

I was pleasantly surprised with this game on the whole, as there is a depth not usually found in so-called "girls' software". The activities are carefully designed and require some thought, plus offer several opportunities to be creative. Nice touches include the ability to listen to player-recorded songs and review photos in the apartments, see the clothing designs in the scrapbook, and the finished mannequins and window arrangements outside the shop. The animation is superb, and the My Scene girls in the software are the epitome of what most pre-teen girls want to look and sound like. There is a strong sense that the designers of this game really cared about what girls like to do in a computer game.

However, there are also some problems, namely that there are only twelve events to attend, and as far as I could tell from starting over a few times, the events are not randomized. Each event appeared to be the same as to the shopping lists, the clues, the activities and the anagrams in the Zine. While it's understandable that the events remain the same, there really should have been some randomization in the activities themselves and the items needed for the events.

Another problem is the inclusion, in a few of the final event animations, of horoscope telling and tarot card reading, features which for some reason seem to keep popping up in "girls software". Of a slight ethical concern, is the fact that Barbie outright lied to Chelsea when Chelsea mentioned her upcoming birthday in the first event. A social lie is still a lie, in my book. And lastly, as mentioned earlier, the clothes are rather on the MTV idea of fashion, which some parents may not appreciate in a game targeted for girls ages 8-12.