Notch is currently busy "streaming development of something that probably never will be released at all," which seems a shame, because it's a lovely little Team Fortress 2 RTS. You can watch Noch magically turning numbers and letters into scenes of TF2's eight classes fragging each other in the livestream box above. Don't worry, "Herp Derp Herp Fortress" is only a working title for now. You can suggest some alternative names in the live chat happening alongside the stream on Notch's Twitch TV channel.

We've seen some impressive fan-made Portal guns in the past, but they've been rare, costly one-off projects. Valve are giving us the chance to get hold of our own Aperture Science Handheld Portal Devices without having to burn ourselves horribly putting together an injection mould. Joystiq mention that, at Valve's request, toy manufacturers, NECA have put together a life-sized Portal gun. It'll hit the shops this summer with a $130 price tag attached.

There will be lights and those lights will change colour, but will it make the "pwung" noise? There's only one way to find out, and that's to buy at least five. Perhaps ten. Maybe more. More. MORE.

NECA will also be releasing a line of Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life action figures, a few of which were shown off at the NYC Toy Fair. The Team Fortress 2 wiki has a snap of the new figures, you'll find that below along with a few shots of that Portal gun. Baggsy the Heavy.

Gamers eh? It doesn't take long. The Something Special for Someone Special item landed in TF2 yesterday, and it's already shrouded in filth. The $100 wedding ring is a one use only item but every time someone accepts a proposal, every TF2 player logged in to the server gets a notification. And PC gamers like expressing themselves publically.

Click through for some of the more amusing notifications, courtesy of reddit. Warning, one of them is a bit rude.

Let us know any proposals I've missed in the comments and I'll update the post accordingly.

The Something Special for Someone Special item was in a secret update back in December, but you can now buy it. For a hundred dollars. "It's ring-shaped, it's gift-wrapped, it's basically useless, and it's really expensive," say Valve. "In short, it's the most accurate simulation of an actual Valentine's Day gift ever made available to the public."

The ring will let you "marry" another player in the middle of a fire fight. You have to gift the item to make a proposal. If they accept, a big trumpeting message will tell everyone that you're in wuv, and you and your new partner will get matching diamond bands that you can "wear in the rain while you smooch up a storm."

That sure is a lot of bucks for a virtual band, but isn't the gift of a ring all about the gesture rather than the bling? Would you pay a hundred dollars for a TF2 item?

The Scout just got 15% more obnoxious with the addition of a great big ghetto blaster to Team Fortress 2. It'll tease your enemies with a selection of sick beats during every taunt, upgrading the Scout from "unbearable" to "must be killed at any cost" in your enemies' estimations.

It's described as a "level 1-100 Futuristic Sound Device," and will set you back a hefty £7/$10. A portion of that will go to a community member. The Boston Boom-Bringer is the latest item to be promoted from the Steam Workshop, which is still overflowing with nonsensical but brilliant items like an Anubis headdress for the Pyro, a Soldier plushie on a stick and this magnificent bug mask.

A new post on the Team Fortress 2 blog sketches out Valve's 2012 plans for the shooter, which include mention of not one, but two secret projects. We can so far confirm that the first will not be a hat, or a map, or as the blog post suggests, a freakish map-hat hybrid. The second will have something to do with this year's Saxxy Awards, which rates the community's best video replays.

"Expect the Saxxys to be much bigger and better, due to the imminent unveiling of another secret," the post says. Imminent unveiling! That's pretty soon. Could it be something to do with the cinematic tools Valve mentioned they were working on ages ago, which would let players create their own awesome cinematics? Cinematics which could then perhaps be rated by other players in the form of an Oscar-style award ceremony? I have no idea. I'm just trying to translate the squeaks of the PC Gamer Gopher of Speculation into something readable. Have a nut, Gopher.

Whatever those two secrets are, one thing is CERTAIN*. Meet the Pyro will be out this year, which will feature "lots of blood pretty much all the way through." That sounds promising. Valve have also launched the Steam Workshop blog, just in time for the Skyrim Creation Kit, which is set to arrive soon. Now I have to leave because the Gopher has stopped moving and may be dead. I'm all out of speculation, which means it's up to you. What do you think the big secret could be?

Team Fortress 2's loot drops crept in to my brain. At first, random items were enough. Then I had a stint of trading with friends. Then those friends became random internet men. Eventually I replaced "trade" with "buy" and "drops" with "purchases." I started buying hats and name tags and paint and... DAMN you Valve and your clever ways, exploiting my weak brain and its desire for virtual loot.

As highlighted by Reddit, this fan-made game uses your Team Fortress 2 crafting knowledge for good. You're tasked with creating rare stuff from an ever-expanding inventory. It's both educational and fun.

Don't know your Refined Metal from your Reclaimed Metal? Start here.

Here are ten TF2 kill clips to make you go "whaaaat," courtesy of CommFT. They've taken the best of all the kill replays submitted to the Extelevision site during December and ordered them according to their awesomeness. The list features some blinding kill streaks, a jammy but spectacular reflected grenade triple-kill, a remarkable string of headshots and a stunning three-rocket juggle kill. The list demonstrates how TF2's calamitous physics can result in some baffling mid-air encounters. Only the very best players can exploit these to earn game-winning ubers and vital kills. It's fantastic to watch.

This Saturday the 28,000 members of this Steam group are planning to play Half-Life 2 together. It's single player, of course, but there's nothing stopping fans from getting together to stroke their chins and nod slowly in mass mutual appreciation for one of the best shooters ever made.

The group hopes that the massive play session will shoot Half-Life 2 up the Steam most-played list and let Valve know how many people are still waiting for Half-Life 2: Episode 3. Valve certainly know this already, and probably receive dozens of emails every day asking "WHERE AM HL3?" but the group hopes to deliver the message in a more appreciative way.

"Instead of focusing efforts in a negative and disrespectful way, we have decided to gain Valve's attention by delivering a basic message: Your oldest and longest running fanbase would like better communication," they say on the Steam group page.

Even if you're not interested in sending Valve a message, any excuse is a good excuse to dip into Half Life 2 again, so why not join in? You can join the Call for Communication to add your weight to their message, or you can boot up and play a little for old times' sake and spend some time with Eli, Alyx and the crew. It's set to kick off at 7PM GMT / 11AM PST this Saturday. Thanks to Brett and Smash for the heads up.

Quantum Conundrum is being developed by Portal creator Kim Swift. It's a first person puzzler in which you play a twelve your old boy lost in his mad scientist uncle's underground laboratory. It's full of safes, switches, lava and vast gaps with no bridges. This would be a serious problem but for the fact that you can switch between five dimensions, each of which affects matter differently. By switching between world on the fly, otherwise immovable objects like safes can be tossed, stacked and even surfed to make it past the mad machines and laserbeams that every mad scientist installs in their homes as standard. It's all demonstrated perfectly in the walkthrough video above from Gametrailers, spotted on RPS. It's out early this year, and looks rather good, don't you think?