WETA, the special effects and design house behind movies like Lord of the Rings and District 9, has teamed up with Valve for a little cross-promotion, with some of its original designs to be featured in Team Fortress 2.

For a while now WETA has peddled its own intellectual property (created by WETA's Greg Broadmore), that of Dr. Grordbort, seller of old-timey ray guns for combat against old-timey aliens.

That universe, previously restricted to comics and high-priced collectibles, is now part of Team Fortress 2, a variety of items now available including a pair of guns, a pith helmet and a beard/pipe combo.

That explains the rockets! oh, and there's also a new comic, available at the link below.

Dr. Grordbort + TF2 [Team Fortress 2]

We could have had Sackboy for free at one point. Turns out that this was an early suggestion from Sony to the fledgling group of devs that would become Media Molecule, the studio revealed at the Develop 2011 conference.

"Phil said all sorts of buzzwords that hadn't really hit yet. He said it should be driven by DLC and that it should be free-to-play, have a social core and premium, paid-for content. From that initial meeting Sony agreed to fund us for six months. But that time was primarily spent making videos to try to explain what this game was going to be, not to Sony, but to ourselves!"

At that time, the game was called Craftworld, and Valve had even expressed interest in hiring the team — and this was in 2005, before they had hired the Narbacular Drop team that would go on to develop Portal.

I'm now imagining a world where Little Big Planet could have been free to play, Portal never happened, or maybe it did, but was developed by Media Molecule, and it was full of candy and joy.

Someone should notify these guys of all the alternate realities they've potentially created by telling us this.

Develop: LittleBigPlanet Was Originally Free-To-Play Reveals Media Molecule via Gamasutra

Earlier this week, a Team Fortress 2 update quietly added a bizarre new feature: several crashed rockets, which can now be seen smoking in the distance of several of the game's maps.

There's no explanation for the rocket's appearance, just the fact they're there, and that when yanked from the game's code we find they're called "Grockets".

Bizarre, but then, we had something similar recently, when doves started turning up in the middle of matches. That ended up preceding the release of "Meet the Medic", so there's hope that this means another of Valve's excellent animated shorts will soon be on the way.

Rockets? In MY TF2 maps? [Steam]

Chinese shooter Final Combat, an unsubtle, shameless swipe of two other free-to-play games—Valve's Team Fortress 2 and EA's Battlefield Heroes—has a new playable class it would like to introduce: the Sniper. The sexy, short-skirted, probably-does-not-urinate-in-jars Sniper.

See, where Xunlei's Final Combat distinguishes itself from Valve's team-based shooter is in the fact that two of its classes are female. The Medic's a woman, as is the Sniper. And the latter plays up her sex appeal by seductively stroking her sniper rifle and revealing ample, sometimes jiggling flesh—a tactically brilliant distraction!

So, here you go, fans of things vaguely like Team Fortress and Battlefield. Enjoy "Meet The Sniper." Again.

Thanks, Chase!

You like Team Fortress 2? You like the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game? Watch this.

It's Team Fortress 2 as a side-scrolling, beat-em-up arcade game. If you're wondering why the whole thing looks so awesome/authentic, that's because it's the product of Eric Ruth, who has already give us retro demakes of games like Halo and Left 4 Dead, along with the fantastical fighting game Head 2 Head.

Not only is it an actual, playable thing, but every class from the online multiplayer shooter is available, including some of their trademark moves (like the Soldier's rocket jump).

It should be available on PC by the end of the Summer. For free, of course.

Team Fortress Arcade Announced by Eric Ruth Games, with Video Interview [Piki Geek]