posted 05-20-99 10:32 AM ET            

The game would be called S.P.I.D.E.R., and it would be a strategy game set in the 1950's and 60's. You play a James Bond-type supervillan, like Goldfinger or Blofeld and your job is to build up your organization until you can take over the world.

Basically the game would be strategic. You would set up your cover businesses to make money and build influence in areas. Then you would recruit agents and have them gather information. When your agents discover a likely target, you could choose to launch an operation to, say, hijack a space station or steal a nuke and hold the world for ransom. Somewhat like X-com you would assign some of your ruthless minions to carry out the plan and then go to a tactical map to do it.

Eventually you will atract the notice of the world's intelligence services, and one of those frickin British super-agents will show up, toss off a dryly annoying witticism, and completely destroy one of your expensive, carefully built bases.

There's a lot you could do with this sort of setting. You can have a really great soundtrack paying homage to all those spy movie themes. You can have a technology tree filled with villanous items like pirrana traps and fembots. And you get to make all sorts of sly references to popular culture and spy movies. You get to kill James Bond! (or rather you get to kill Alex King, of Her Majesty's Secret Service, who I envision as the droll antagonist of the game) You get to take over the world! What more do you want?