Byline: Dusty Saunders News Broadcasting Critic

Surviving on an island was always a game for Richard Hatch - one that made him $1 million richer.

Arriving on the remote tropical island of Pulau Tiga with a strategy in mind, Hatch won the dramatic tribal council vote (4-3) in the finale of CBS' widely watched Survivor - a series which will set an all-time record for summer viewing.

``I came here to play the game,'' Hatch told the seven-member council before the final vote. ``I don't know anyone who played the game better. I wouldn't change anything that I did.''

During the 39-day island stay, Hatch became noted for his manipulative ways, which allowed him to to survive nerve-wracking, shifting alliances.

Hatch was the contestant viewers loved to hate.

A TV casting director referred to him as like ``Heather Locklear on Melrose Place.'' Openly gay and brazenly outspoken, Hatch concocted an alliance that kept him on the island despite being considered by many its most despised citizen.

He once said on camera: ``Maintaining some kind of thumb on all these people's personalities who I care very little about is exhausting.''

During Wednesday night's tense, two-hour finale, the...