At any rate, NCSoft has hit upon the perfect way to have their City of Heroes fandom burst into the real world. Unfortunately, if I were to actually dress as one of my characters, their would be fatdom bursting out of seams. But still, somebody with sewing skills as mad as their gaming could walk (or fly) away with some pretty nifty prizes.

Here's the catch: you have to wear it out in public, and to meet the deadline, you might just have to do it on a day OTHER than Halloween.

Still, I have no doubt this is not a problem.

From NCSoft:

For players looking for a reason to go into public dressed as a character from City of Heroes they need not look any further than NCsoft’s City of Heroes Halloween Costume Contest, where dressing up like a super-powered hero will not only be acceptable, but could result in the winning of valuable prizes.

Starting Sept. 28 and ending on midnight on Nov. 7, City of Heroes players can submit pictures of themselves in public dressed as a character from Paragon City. To enter, contestants need to provide a digital picture of themselves in public dressed as their character from City of Heroes and a screen shot of their character from the game. Those who best re-create their hero in the real world best will be eligible for prizes in six different categories. Those categories are best male, best female, best gargantuan, most daring, most humorous and best overall costume.

The “Best Overall” winner will receive one GeForce 6800 Ultra Video Card donated by the contest sponsor, nVidia. In addition, top winners in all 6 categories will get:

· One Apple iPod 20 gig MP3 Player

· One Canon PowerShot A75 Digital Camera

· A unique title for their hero in-game

· A speaking role ‘hero cameo’ for their character in an upcoming issue of the Monthly City of Heroes comic book

All 6 Runners-Up will receive:

· One Canon PowerShot A75 Digital Camera

· A unique title for their hero in-game

· A non-speaking ‘hero cameo’ for their character in an upcoming issue of the Monthly City of Heroes comic book

No copyrighted heroes and/or trademarked names will be accepted, also, contestants must be 13 years of age or older to participate and be legal residents of the United States. For more information and for the rules and regulations of the contest, go to: http://www.cityofheroes.com/community/contests_2.html.

Derek McCaw