So as we all know Poison is back. And by “back” I mean pretty much making her debut in a fighting game (I refuse to count obscure Sega Saturn games). Poison’s popularity is very odd because she has really never been more than a background character but fans love her. Why, you ask? Most likely because she has a rather interesting back story. To make a long story short, When the first game she was in, Final Fight, made its way to US shores back in the late ’80s a very conservative Capcom USA thought people would not be happy with the game’s heroes Haggar, Guy and Cody punching Poison and her fellow female partner Roxy in the face (of course not too long after that gamers were punching Chun Li all in her face and liked it very much!). So Capcom Japan came up with the bright idea that Poison was not a female at all but man dressed as a woman or a former man who had gotten an operation to become female. Which story is correct depends on who you ask. This all created controversy as there are not too many transgender/ transexual characters in video games. As with anything controversial some people loved and some people hated it. However instead of embracing Poison’s cult following, Capcom avoided Poison like the plague and other than some background cameos, she hadn’t been seen since Street Fighter III when she appeared as Hugo’s manager. More recently many people were asking asking for Poison to appear in a current Street Fighter game. Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono often dismissed the notion, chalking it up to being too controversial and complicated to actually happen. However Ono surprised us all and revealed that Poison is indeed going to be a fully playable character in Street Fighter X Tekken (boy was I wrong about that).

Poison’s inclusion in Street Fighter X Tekken can only be described as pure fan service. We aren’t talking about Elena or Rolento here, we are talking about a character that had never even been playable. Yet Capcom listened to the fans and rewarded them for not letting up. So what does this mean?

Firstly, it means the flood gates are open. Up until now Street Fighter X Tekken should have been called “Street Fighter 4 X Tekken” because every character on the Street Fighter side was from Street Fighter 4 and were even sporting their game model from that game. Poison being added means Capcom is not going to be completely lazy on the Street Fighter side of the game and simply port over half the cast of SF4. Its exciting because who knows old friend we are going to see next. All things point to Hugo being added also. It’d be nice to see some off the way additions such as Eagle, Oro or Q. Until Poison was shown I found myself more excited about who was being added on the Tekken side because the Street Fighter side was so predictable. That has all changed now.

Secondly and probably most importantly, it means the fans mean something. Often companies talk about how they listen to the fans but they have nothing tangible to show for it. They pose like they are taking the fans suggestions when the things they do could very well have been things they were going to do anyway. For some time now Capcom has been showing itself to be a company who cares about the thoughts of the people who keep it it business. The last few years it has been quite a treat to be a fan of Capcom games and Poison is like the cherry on top of a great public relations sundae.

On the flip side Capcom may have opened up Pandora’s box in that if fans begin to feel like they have a heavy influence on the content of games, their voices may only grow louder and more demanding. At the end of the day, though players have great ideas, there is a reason why they play games instead of making them and if a company like Capcom tries too hard to please everyone who makes a suggestion or complains, the overall quality of games may go down.

Truth be told there is likely a group of people out there who are already thinking Poison as a playable character was the beginning of that lowering of quality.

Check this out. Omi Gibson dressed up as everyone’s favorite kinda sorta lady brawler, Poison. Don’t worry guys, you don’t have to feel bad looking at these pictures cause Oni is all woman regardless of the character she’s playing.

So what have you guys, is she a Smash or a Pass?

[Omi's Website]

Maybe you heard of Nao Igarashi already. From what I hear, she’s a pretty well known Cosplayer. In these pictures, she squeezes her behind into a rather skimpy Cammy costume. So what do you think guys? Smash or Pass?

No, the site is not dead but if you have visited lately, you have noticed that it has not been updated as much. Very Rarely in fact. Unfortunately my life is packed with an insane amount of responsibilities and X-ISM has has gotten pushed to the back burner a bit. With that said, I love this site and still have serious plans for it but things are going to need to change somewhat. I have come to the conclusion that X-ISM just can not be a news site anymore. I do not have the time to post enough to compete with sites like Eventhubs and Shoryuken. I wish I did but I don’t and as a small business owner I am a firm believer that if you can not compete in a particular space then you need to get out. Those guys do a great job and I respect that. So where does that leave X-ISM then? Well, there is an area where I feel X-ISM can serve this community going into the future and that is by providing thought provoking editorials and exclusives. I never wanted X-ISM to be just another news site but that is exactly what it had become. And if I am being honest with myself, it wasn’t even that good of one. At least in terms of getting the news out there quickly. So going into the future I only plan to put things on this site that are original. This is a major shift for this site and it may take some time to truly find that niche where we belong but X-ISM is here to stay in one form or another. It has been a pleasure interacting with you all up until this point and I hope you will all join me in the next phase of X-ISM.

Here we go again with another round of Smash or Pass. This time we have a Hsein-Ko. Wish I had a name for the young model in these photos but I do not. If you know who she is, feel free to drop me a line. Anyway, you know how this works, Is she a Smash or a Pass?

[The Kartel]

Here are a couple more cosplayers for ya. Of course there is a Morrigan ( I swear 90% of all cosplayers dress up as Morrigan) but there is a Lilith too. Once again I’m not sure who the models are in these photos. If anyone knows, please drop me a line so I can give them the proper credit.

Anyway, what do you think of these ladies. Smash or Pass?

[Pendejaditas]

Here’s another pic of a cosplayer doing her best Morrigan from Darkstalkers. So would you say she’s a “smash” or a “pass”?

To see some more of these pics head over to Ljinto’s Flickr account.

I’m not sure why it has been decided that commercials for Street Fighter will feature hip hop music (remember the other commercial that had music by Just Blaze?) but I love it. Check out the commercial for Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition featuring lyrics by Red Rapper over a remix of Cody‘s theme. If you don’t know about Red Rapper, he’s an artist who has been making some hot fighting game related for a while now.

Some of you may have seen a video floating around the net which showed some guys doing their own ultra combos in real life. Entertaining stuff. Now they are at it again with a version featuring lady fighters. Check it out below.

Screw Attack put together a video showing how the Hulk doesn’t call his partner’s by their name and instead uses terms like “Goldilocks” to describe Thor and “Claw Girl” for X-23

I just wanted to drop an update to let everyone know that we are still hear and kicking and to apologize for the lack of updates this month. The combination of class finals and the holidays have made it especially difficult to keep the site updated but it is only temporary.

In addition to picking up the pace wit the updates I’m looking to do some more things with the site that will make it stand out amongst the pack of fighting game news sites. So don’t go anywhere yet. I’m just getting started.

To be honest I had never heard of Alodia Almira until today and I must admit, the girl is bangin’. I discovered her because I ran across this pic of her over on The Fanboy SEO. From what I hear Alodia frequents conventions and is a rather popular cosplayer. And I see why. Check out the pic above where she poses as Morrigan from Darkstalkers. Sexy Can I?

Smash or Pass?

Here’s something that you don’t see too often, an Elena cosplayer. Unfortunately I don’t have the name of this young lady but if I come across it I’ll let you know. The costume looks pretty authentic and thankfully she didn’t go the blackface route. What to you guys think? Smash or Pass?

[Loot Ninja]

If someone was to ask me what Street Fighter character would I like to see make a comeback the most right now, I’d have to go with Elena. She’s very unique (execeot being a blatant rip off of X-men’s Storm) and would really bring something new to the table. Seems like I’m not the only as Emezie, who is an excellent anomator, created a cool video campaigning for Elena to get another fighting game appearance.

Many people are familiar with the awful Street Fighter cartoon that aired some years back. Yet many are not aware that there was also a very bad Darkstalkers cartoon. When it comes to licensing out its properties for TV and movies, Capcom pretty much sucks. Check out this clip that takes the time to remind us how bad that show really was.

And to think I used to wake up an hour early on weekdays to catch this show as a kid.

This has been a really uneventful day with not much to really report. Figure I should drop this one on you guys. Street Fighter meets Lyonheart.

Machinima has just dropped a rather entertaining animated short which has Ken taking on Mario. Funny stuff.

Awesome video by an animator by the name of Emezie Okorafor. Check what happens when Kazuya and Ryu battle over who has the best win pose.

Shout out to Focus Attack for exposing this gem for me. This video has been floating around for awhile and like some other older videos, someone has added Street Fighter sound effects. This video features a professional wrestler performing a set of moves that looks very much like Zangief‘s Final Atomic Buster.

X-ism’s expansion into social media continues. A few weeks ago we launched our Facebook page and now we are launching a Twitter profile. So if you are on Twitter make sure you follow X-ism. Not only will I be breaking some news there first, I will also be sharing other things going on in the community that I don’t have time to post on the main site. And of course it is a great way to interact with yours truly.

X-ism’s Twitter Page