GOONL!NE

Characters. Avatars. People. All designed by developers to have their own distinct body, face, style and personality. But what happens when two characters look rather too similar? Go Online tracks them down and makes a list. That’s what! So sit back and enjoy, as we scroll through the families the gaming industry don’t want you to know about. There’s also a lot of hats.

We’ll open with an easy one. Everybody knows that Niko Bellic (GTA 4, right) and Victor Zakhaev (COD4, left) are brothers. Hey, they rock the same grubby tracksuits, with the collar opening out to reveal the same bearded, balding, evil-looking face. While Victor preferred to follow his father in a life of crime, Niko decided to move to the Big Apple. Living a life of crime. With guns.

This is the sort of pairing when you need your mums glasses – the really powerful ones that make your head hurt and mean you can’t see faces. I promised this article wouldn’t be the usual bunch of twins, and tell you want – I think I’m the only person in the world to pair Ray McCall (Call Of Juarez, left) and Scott Shelby (Heavy Rain, right) together. It’s a bit of a stretch, but they have the dead eyes, massive nose and chubby cheeks. Ray is the fit one, with a short temper and a quick hand, while Scott decided to settle down in the city, get overweight, and solve some crimes. As you do.

I’ve really nailed this, haven’t I? Yeah, another superb spot by my red, watering eyes;  The USMC Rifleman (BF 1943, left) and The Scout (Team Fortress 2). If one is the dirty, horror-filled hero of Wake Island, the other is a smirking, energetic, loud, rude, cartoon version. Plus, they both have a hat. I mean come on! So obvious! (Thanks reader BackedOut_ for the rifleman identification)

Grab for mum’s glasses again. Francis (L4D, right) got bored of plugging the walking dead at point black, wiped the boomer sick off his face, and took a nice holiday to Venezuela, where we dyed his hair, grew his beard, got a Mohawk and make a rather lackluster videogame, in which he was known as Mattias Nilsson (Mercs 2, left, and yes, I did have to search for that spelling). They even have the same tattoos, and love of violence. Just…use your imagination, ok?

Again, glasses. I could only find these poor screenshots of Alec Mason (Red Faction: Guerrilla, left) and Sean Devlin (The Saboteur, right), but believe me, they are the same person. Chubby, girly, baby-ish faces, action-adventure heroes, and slightly annoying. In fact, Volition and Pandemic didn’t want anyone to know of their secret love, and how they share character models, so they used a hat. Go Online actually have the exclusive recording of that meeting;

Volition – ‘But how do we hide that fact we have a secret love, and that we share character models?’

Pandemic – ‘…Hat.’

Two more bald, pink-faced saviours (or destroyers, if you’re a sociopath) that make embarrassing eye-contact at family weddings. Nathan Hale (Resistance, left) and Cole MacGrath (Infamous, right) both belong to the Playstation, look disgruntled, have special powers, and have reached critical mass (I made that last one up).

‘Oh dear. He’s done a racist.’ No, dear reader, I hasn’t done a racist. Far from pairing the first two black characters together (That was the first plan, and it worked quite well), I really tried to find a pairing that worked. James Webb (World In Conflict, left) and Owen (Operation Flashpoint 2, right) do look similar, if Flashpoint’s art style wasn’t so dark. In fact, we don’t know anything about ‘Owen’; what he does in the game, how he sounds, how much of a part he’ll be – even is he’ll be in the game. All I know is that he’s the poster boy for the Official Operation Flashpoint forums, and he has the same helmet as Webb. So there.

Cut his hair. Do it. See Guile (Street Fighter VI, right), and his heli-pad hair; cut it, give him some glasses and a gun, then you’ve got the spitting image of Duke Nukem (Duke Nukem Series, left). Ok, their faces are kinda different, and the only thing combining them is their blonde locks, but still – how often do you come across two people with the same, ridiculous mullet?

I mean come on! They’re perfect! They could be brothers! They-…

…What? Ohh…I never knew…It would explain the hats…

Marcus Phoenix (Gears Of War, left) and Kratos (God Of War, right). Where to begin? Same eyes. Same grimace. Same ‘tire track’ facial hair. Scars. Ears. Hell, even their games are basically the same (GOW and GOW. Oops). A match made in heaven. Or rather Mount Olympus.

Ok, I just wanted an excuse to get S.T.A.L.K.E.R in here, because it’s amazing. If you squint, and replace the nanosuit with a gas mask and hood, Physco (Crysis, left) does look like the British version of Strelok (S.T.A.L.K.E.R, right). They have the same wide, pointy, expressionless faces that make  anyone kick ass. Except, while Physco fights aliens on a Korean Island, Strelok stumbles his way through the terrifying, buggy, and brilliant world of Chernobyl.

Give Fallout 3 a lick of graphical prowess, and you have two sexy twins in Lyons (Fallout 3, left) and Elena (Uncharted, right). Both are pretty head-strong, sassy, have ovaries and are blonde; the only differences being the pale skin of Lyons. And the fact anyone in Fallout 3 look like they’re made of wax.

Firstly, I should be congratulated for finding a suitable picture of Zoey (L4D, left). I had to navigate my way through 9 pages of pure fan-made smut before finding that innocent looking picture. Disgusting. I also tried to not get two characters from the same game, but I had to have another L4D survivor because LOOK THAT THAT! Zoey and Naomi (Metal Gear Solid 4, right) are EXACTLY the same person. They even have the same hair covering their face! It’s just one is a scientist, and the other has a smoker tongue round her (a lot of fan pictures of that on Google Images…)