The Steam Christmas sale has launched, kicking off a series of deals that will throw ridiculous bargains at us every day from now until the new year. As well as the daily deals there's a selection of developer and publisher packs offering as much as 86% off entire game catalogues. Read on for more on the spectacular deals on offer.

Today's sales have the rock solid platformer, Super Meat Boy going at 75% off, Fallout 3 at 33% off, the excellent action RPG, Titan Quest at 75% off. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is also on sale at a third of its normal price.

Every day one of the new offers will be eligible for a special holiday bonus. The discount on these games will increase if you own a certain game. For example, today's special deal is on Portal. It's 75% off everyone, but if you own Half Life 2, you'll get an extra 10% off.

The huge game packs and publisher catalogue deals will be available from now until January 2nd, and offer the biggest savings. The THQ pack is currently offering 21 THQ games for the price of one, and contains gems like Company of Heroes, Stalker, Dawn of War and Dawn of War 2. The Square Enix & Eidos bundle is also another great deal at 86% off, and that includes Batman: Arkham Asylum, Deus Ex, the Hitman series, Just Cause 2 and much more.

You'll find the full list deals listed on Steam. What will you be buying?

After five years of work, GoldenEye: Source is finally out of beta and free for everyone to download and play. This Half Life 2 mod brings a multiplayer adaptation of the famous Nintendo 64 shooter GoldenEye to the Source engine, complete with the most famous locations, characters and weapons from the original.

Familiar locations like Facility and Complex have all been rebuilt in high definition to work with Valve's Source engine. There are 22 maps to fight on with 11 characters split between MI6 and Janus forces. There's no single player component at the moment, but GoldenEye's famous multiplayer has been recreated from the ground up, with recreations of many of the original weapons, including the always slightly rubbish Klobb sub-machineguns and the deadly Golden Gun.

For a full overview, check out the GoldenEye: Source ModDB page. The mod can be downloaded right here. You'll need a copy of Half Life 2 to run it.

A spectacular second trailer has been released for Beyond Black Mesa, a live action short film set in the Half Life universe. It's packed full of explosions and tense shoot outs with the Combine, and features the coolest holographic wrist display gadget ever. You'll find the video embedded below.

The film tells the story of Adrian Shephard, a member of the human resistance movement. He has one mission: to get a message to City 17 about the incoming Combine invasion. It's a tough assignment. The Combine know who he is, and are hot on his tail.

The whole film was made by a small crew of talented and dedicated Half Life fans, who financed the film with their own money, and shot the whole thing during their free weekends. Now the film is finished, and is currently being shown in film festivals throughout North America. The team are planning to release the film once it's finished conquering the festival circuit. We've interviewed some of the guys behind the production about the risks, rewards and bruises that come with filming a professional quality action flick on a budget. We'll be bringing you that soon. Meanwhile, here's the omfg trailer.