Inicdentally, if you want to see the full 60-page commissioned report, it’s a snip at 4,950 Euros.

We’re giving away a job lot of codes that will give you a chance of winning a limited edition crystal dragon egg – available to the first takers. All you have to do is email us on tpcg@imagine-publishing.co.uk with “martial arts mmo beta” in the subject heading. If you’re lucky enough to win a code, simply use your code while registering for the TLBB beta on the official website.

So for me, I’ll be keeping a stopwatch alarm next to my desk for the next three months. For those of you with far more sense, you can upgrade to the full version of Windows 7 for anything from around £60.

We’ve been weaned onto DRM in recent years and personally, I can accept limited activations as a part of my PC purchase. Does it bother me that my copy of Bioshock 2 can only be installed 15 times before I have to phone customer services for reactivation? Don’t be so soft. That barely counts, especially in the light of Ubisoft’s all-new, singing and goose-stepping, über-führer DRM, which forces Assassin’s Creed II PC customers to stay online while they’re playing (despite it being a single-player game) and will actually kick you out of the game if your connection drops for any reason. Talk about breaking the fourth wall – I wasn’t a big fan of leaving twelfth century Jerusalem for the world outside the Animus in the first place, but I’d rather be there than get punished for Internet death and hang around in limbo while I wait to reconnect.

So the pirates will become more prolific because of DRM, the publishing execs will continue to implement increasingly draconian measures because of it, everyone will blame eachother and this vicious circle is threatening to spiral out of control. Someone’s going to have to sidestep soon or big-budget PC gaming is heading for a crash.

Total PC Gaming issue 30 is now available online and from all good newsagents.

Included in this issue

All the biggest PC games covered including:

Splash Damage takes TPCG to the Brink

Prince Of Persia: The Forgotten Sands previewed

Napoleon: Total War multiplayer explored

New for PC it’s Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Reviewed

In-depth reviews and analysis including:

Supreme Commander 2 exclusive review

Into Rapture again with Bioshock 2

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat reviewed

Tales Of Monkey Island Episode 5

Bonus Content:

Sinclair zx80 Retroinspection

How the recession is good for gaming

The Best Gaming Mouse super-test

Next issue on sale 18/03/09

But the more recently released Mass Effect 2 won’t be left out in the cold. According to a report by Gamespot EA executives also talked about delivering “something far-reaching for Mass Effect (2),” in the same three month time period in 2011 during a post earnings report conference call.

All in all it sounds like EA have some serious long term plans for both Bio Ware’s RPG’s – hardly surprising when you look at the success of both brands. Mass Effect 2 is currently dominating the games charts following it’s release on the 29th of January.

Closer to the present Dragon Age: Origins will be getting its first major expansion, Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening, on March 16th

Star Trek fans can dress as anything Star Trek related and representatives from the Guinness Book of records will be on hand to adjudicate. (So no comedy Jedi please!) The best dressed fans on the day will win exclusive Star Trek Online prizes including lifetime subscriptions worth over £150 and copies of the recently released digital version of the Star Trek movie.

“This should be an absolutely fantastic fun filled day and definitely one all fans of Star Trek should get involved in,” said Lee Kirton, Head of UK PR for Namco Bandai Partners, the distributors of Star Trek Online  who are organising the day. “This is the chance to become part of history with a ‘World Record’ for the largest group of dressed up Star Trek characters in one place. Namco Bandai will also have a bunch of fantastic prizes up for grabs on the day for the best dressed ‘Trekkers, and some prizes for just being part of the day should make it a trip worthwhile!”

And it’s on Valantines day, so what better day to declare your love for all things Trek?

Star Trek Online officially launches on February 5th, but the ‘Head Start’ (allowing early access for players who pre-ordered) kicked off last Saturday. Due to large numbers of players, there were some issues of overcrowding and queues to get into the game over the weekend. The STO team at Cryptic are promising increased server capacity for the new MMO this week.

For more information regarding the record attempt, you can visit www.namcobandaigames.eu and www.startrekonline.com

Valve announced that over 25 million people have Steam accounts, with 10 million of those users also having Steam Community profiles. Overall the service saw a 25 per cent rise in users from the previous year, and the figures for concurrent users are equally impressive-peaking at 2.5 million. Average monthly player minutes now stand at more than 13 billion. Game sales on the platform saw an even bigger rise last year with a whooping 205 per cent increase, the fifth year running that Steam has seen 100% year by year sales growth.

Steam currently offers over 1,000 games from over 100 developers and publishers around the world, and some of last years biggest hits like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Dawn of War II, and Empire: Total War were all released on the service, with Empire handling all it’s DLC on Steam. Increasing numbers of publishers and developers seem attracted to the features of the service, particularly with regards to anti-piracy. Few would argue the burgeoning importance of the service on the PC landscape and Valve has big plans for the future.

“With the introduction of each new platform feature released over the years — such as the Steam Community, Steam Cloud, and Steamworks — we’ve seen corresponding growth in account numbers, concurrent player numbers and developer support for the platform,” said Gabe Newell, president of Valve.” As such, we plan to continue to expand and grow the platform to better serve the developers supporting the open platform and millions of gamers logging in each day.”

Masseffectsaves.com is a database of original Mass Effect saves that anyone who wants to try a different permutation of Shepard’s career can access. It’s been created with the purpose of providing an easy way for fans to get a specific version of events in Mass Effect 2, without having to play through the original Mass Effect again.

To date there have been 63 different Shepards uploaded, male and female, with the fine details of their respective careers listed in their biography. You can also upload your own Shepard to the database and there’s a comprehensive guide on how to import a character into Mass Effect 2.

Is it cheating? In our opinion, no. There’s no gameplay advantage to using these saves, just the option to explore a different path for Shepard. We think that this site is providing a valuable service for Mass Effect 2 fans, so check it out.

It’s still limited by standard Games For Windows Live, though the 15 activations available can be reset with a call to Microsoft. Read more about it on the Cult Of Rapture website.