Sam Fisher's Contest History

Who is Sam Fisher?
Though the case can be made that Sam Fisher and his Splinter Cell series would not exist without the insane success of Metal Gear Solid, this doesn't take away from Fisher as a character. He has been top notch in the field of tactical espionage for years, and is an honest, hard-working man. However, Fisher knows that even though he is at the top of his field, he line of work puts his life at risk; this is different from Solid Snake in that Snake oftentimes has no regard for his own well-being as he progresses through his games.

Fisher's series is based upon Tom Clancy's novels, and the games take Clancy's geopolitical stories and put them in video game form. Splinter Cell also focuses a bit more on realism, and Fisher is far more focused on his objective than Solid Snake is throughout his games. The problem with Fisher, despite being a good character in his own right, may very well be Solid Snake and his Metal Gear series. Regardless of anything Fisher does, being on the lower end of comparisons between he and Snake are almost inevitable.

"I am Spliner Cell." -Sam Fisher

Sam Fisher's Contest History
Win-Loss Record: 1-4

Summer 2003 Contest - North Division - 4 Seed
 * Northern Round 1 --- Lost to (13) Magus, 30866 [33.75%] - 60598 [66.25%]
 * Extrapolated Strength --- 35th Place [22.81%]

Summer 2004 Contest - Chaos Division - 7 Seed
 * Chaos Round 1 --- Defeated (10) Gordon Freeman, 41691 [55.43%] - 33528 [44.57%]
 * Chaos Quarterfinal --- Lost to (2) Samus, 15464 [19.03%] - 65809 [80.97%]
 * Extrapolated Strength --- 50th Place [15.03%]

When Sam Fisher came into the contest in 2003, he was arguably the most overseeded character we had ever seen in one of these things. He was a 4 seed, and in charge of dealing with the firestorm that is Magus in the first round. As most people saw coming, as soon as the match started, it seemed as if the seedings were reversed. Not only did Magus start the match by stomping a hole through Sam, but there were TWO Sam Fishers in the poll; he still could manage little more than nothing early.

The poll was glitched, of course, and Sam would actually go on to a rather respectable loss against Magus. It wasn't necessarily respectable for a 4 seed, however, and 2004 would prove just how strong Sam really was. In his first match against Gordon Freeman, he came dangerously close to allowing the universe to implode through the first few hours of the poll in letting Gordon hang within 100 votes. He would go on to win with ease, but the damage was likely done right then and there. Not only would Sam go down as the guy who almost let Gordon Freeman win a match, but he allowed Samus the first 39 votes of the poll come his second round match. In my opinion, the Sam we saw in 2004 was the true strength of Sam Fisher, and that his 2003 match against Magus was actually an overperformance.

Sam has a lot of games under his belt, but for whatever reason, he is not in favor of the voters come match time. GameFAQs loves the Metal Gear series when it comes to giving stealth shooter votes, and not much else.

Summer 2005 Contest - Flood Division - 5 Seed
 * Flood Round 1 --- Lost to (4) Donkey Kong, 30708 [35.24%] - 56433 [64.76%]
 * Extrapolated Strength --- 44th Place [19.62%]

The man's only career win is against Gordon Freeman, and he was blown out by Donkey Kong in his only match. Yet despite Donkey Kong performing extremely well against Master Chief, Sam wound up finishing lower than Gordon Freeman in the stats this contest.

Any questions?

Summer 2007 Contest - Division 4 - Third Group
 * Division 4 Round 1 --- 3rd place, 24944 [19.86%] - Crono, 60534 [48.18%] - Raiden, 25316 [20.15%] - Simon Belmont, 14836 [11.81%]

Although Sam Fisher was one-and-done, he did manage to give Raiden a scare and a run for his money before bowing out. Splinter Cell will never outdo Metal Gear Solid on this site, but seeing Fisher come that close to a major character in the MGS series had to give those Splinter Cell fans out there a small sense of satisfaction.