SEGA of America, Inc. today announced Niccolo Balce as the winner of “Bayonetta Re-Envisioned,” a user-generated art contest at WizardUniverse.com centered on the heroine of SEGA’s BAYONETTA video game. After hundreds of votes were cast to assist the judges from Wizard and SEGA in gauging fan favorites, the collective panel selected its eleven favorites with the overall winner being chosen by PlatinumGames’ Hideki Kamiya, the creative visionary behind the game.

While Niccolo Balce’s art took top prize, the 10 runner-ups were Darren Geers, Jamine Tyndall, Jason Meek, Jessie Lam, Levi Somerville, Eric Huang, Feliciano Mario Mora, Jesse Elliott, Autumn Lorne and Salvador Samano. As the grand prize winner, Balce will receive an Xbox 360, a 50 inch Panasonic TC-P50X1 HDTV Plasma TV, a developer-autographed copy of BAYONETTA for Xbox 360 and will have his submission featured in Wizard magazine. The runner-ups will all be posted in a special gallery on WizardUniverse.com and each will be awarded an autographed copy of the game when it is available in January 2010.

BAYONETTA is a cinematic, stylized action game from the famed creative mind of renowned game developer, Hideki Kamiya of PlatinumGames. Bayonetta, the game’s protagonist, is a graceful, gun-wielding witch who awakens after being entombed in a coffin at bottom of a lake for 500 years with no memory. As players embark on this quest with Bayonetta, they will begin to unfold the mystery behind her past and her purpose in the game, such as why she fights against angels and other countless fantastic enemies. In combat, Bayonetta uses weapons, magic, acrobatics and her larger-than-life hair to redefine the look and feel of the action genre.

BAYONETTA is slated for release in January 2010 for Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3. For game details, visit sega.com/platinumgames/bayonetta/.

For Halloween tips on the costume you can head here http://bayonettahalloween.com/

Heh, the Make-a-Witch foundation...clever.