Wild Planet's Spy Gear gadgets are perennial favorites among junior secret agents (and I've got three mini 007s at home who will attest), but the company's recently unveiled board games bring the action out of the kids' hidey-holes and into family game night.
Spy Trackdown ($39.95; pictured above) puts you in the role of a secret agent whose mission is to save the world from an evil mastermind -- essentially the same plot of any spy thriller ever made -- but this time, you're also competing against other super-spies in a race to snag the crime boss. You move through 52 cities in six continents, traveling by plane, boat, motorcycle and helicopter and stopping to receive secret messages from headquarters that tell you how close you are to your target. The game includes a fun little gadget -- the Spy Phone -- that transmits cuztomized clues to each player, and through memory, deductive reasoning and stealth (you'll definitely want to keep tabs on how the other players are moving), the best spy wins.
While Spy Trackdown can be played in about an hour, the new Spy Wire ($29.95, above) is a bit faster-paced: You compete against another player in a race against the clock, furiously sliding tiles to close circuits and defuse a bomb while collecting all three of your opponent's detonators. It's a bit too quick-moving for little players to handle -- although they will dig the explosion sound effects -- but older kids or anyone who's got the patience to get through a round of Perfection will eat it up.
