Valve crowbars partner studio

HOT ON THE HEELS of its new chummy-chummy relationship with Nvidia, Valve has been making friends elsewhere in California - acquiring Los Angeles-based developer Turtle Rock.

The Turtle has already been working with Valve on projects for the past couple of years - including the Xbox port of Counter-Strike and the highly-anticipated new zombie shooter, Left 4 Dead, built on the Half-Life 2 engine.

Valve says it intends to expand the LA-based operations - although goodness knows what that means. Is it intending to start doing movie ports? We pray not.

The Seattle-based studio founded by Gabe Newell has already acquired the teams that worked on Team Fortress and Portal in the last 18 months, consolidating its talent base and burning some of that lovely Half-Life cash. µ