If you want to represent your hobby at halloween, there’s two paths you can take. You can dress as a videogame character that you’re non-videogame-loving friends will recognise, or you can go for broke and pick something original. For all those who don’t want to dress as Mario or Master Chief, this list is for you!
For this you don’t want to go as one of the typical characters. No need to always pick Chun-Li or Ryu! Instead why not choose one of the Street Fighter 4 cast, or even pick a rare, alternate costume for a popular character. If you’re friends don’t recognise Gouken in his samurai costume, then do you really want these people as friends?
9. Team Fortress
All the different characters offer lots of choice, and its easy to go as a group because up to nine of you can go together as different members of the team. Rather disappointingly, theres no female costumes for your lady friends to dress up in. Lets be honest though, if you’re dressing up as a Team Fortress character then how many lady friends do you actually have.
8. The Sonic expanded cast
Its ironic that even in costume form Sonic’s looking a little baggy, sad and tired these days. By going as one of the derided roster of anthropomorphic rejects, you can show off your game knowledge while making a comment on their lack of status amongst gamers. My costume may suck, but no more than Sonic and the Black Knight!
7. Resident Evil characters
The residents of Biohazard alley may be a cartoonish bunch of freaks, but their costumes are both iconic and easy to reproduce. While the likes of Resident Evils 5’s Jill Valentine is a spectacular, award winning affair, anyone can stick on some shades and talk like a bad voice actor to achieve the Wesker effect.
6. The King!
Theres a few different chaarcters that you could go for from Katamari, but none are as charming or plain loony as The King. Even if people don’t recognise you, you’ll become legendary amongst your local hipster community.
5. The Metal Gear So Solid crew
With multiple titles and multiple versions of each title, there’s lots of room for variety with these costumes. Sure, everyone knows Snake, but can everyone name all of the bosses from Metal Gear Solid 3? If they can they’re worth spending halloween with!
4. Samus
Every list includes this one, and I couldn’t leave Samus off. Sure, this costume is a bit harder for most folks to make, but there’s plenty available to buy. Samus turned around our expectations of what an action hero had to be in a videogame. When we realised that we had been playing as a woman throughout the whole mission on Zebes, we became a little more enlightened and a little more tolerant of female gamers and female protagonists. She opened the hobby up to millions of female gamers who finally had a strong female lead. For that reason she can’t ever be left off of a list like this. For bonus points, go for the blue suit as its less iconic, but loved by the Metroid fanbase.
3. Left 4 Dead Infected Characters
Some of these are tougher than others. If you’re going to play as the Boomer or Tank you better have the girth or the steroids respectivelly to pull it off. With creativity though, Smokers and Hunters are achievable. As a bonus, if your friends need a last minute costume idea then a toy gun, medpack and beret/biker vest/breasts/black skin is all they need to be survivors too.
2. Final Fantasy Characters
I’m not a big Final Fantasy fan, but you can’y argue with how distinctive and original the chaarcter and costume design is in all the games across the series. As with Metal Gear, you can always find an orignal choice from the large cast. You don’t have to choose Cloud or Aeris!
1. Mass Effect
Again, these are not easy costumes to make. Anyone who wants to go as Garus has some work ahead of them. But just look at them! Seriously, look at them! These efforts were achieved with months of work that you can see documented below. Kudos to them, they deserve to be at number one for all the work they put in. To achieve similar results, either get to work now (for next year) or pick some of the simpler human costumes and be creative. Any gamer worth their salt will recognise you, and anyone who doesn’t will just think you have a bad Babylon 5 costume. Win/Win!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi63jsjQIHo&feature=related httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVjE69FT2kU&feature=related