Star Trek Online allows players to create playable alien races

Speaking to the AP before tonight's 9.30pm reveal of Star Trek Online in Las Vegas, Cryptic creative boss Jack Emmert has revealed that players will be able to make characters from existing Star Trek races - human, klingon, etc - or will be able to create their own.

As you progress through the game you get better ships, a bigger crew, and so on. Against our better judgement, we're highly interested.

"You'll venture through space exploring new civilizations and life-forms," said Emmert. "You'll also beam down to planets and have adventures inside your ship. It's a galactic-wide game. There's going to be tons of space to investigate. We have a great system for exploration, which will allow for almost infinite possibilities."

Tonight's reveal will show the game in fully working form, apparently, which should be a strong hint that release isn't 50 billion light years away.

"You're going to see the actual game working and functioning," said Emmert. "This isn't renders. This isn't concept art. Everything that people will see on Sunday is going to be taken right from 'Star Trek Online' as it stands today, so hardened people should know that a release date might be closer than they think."

Tonight's event is to be webcast live at StarTrekOnline.com. More through the link.