Last week, GameSpot traveled to Las Vegas to visit Westwood Studios and get hands-on playing time with the company's upcoming online space RPG, Earth and Beyond Online. At first glance, the game looks like a space simulation, but it is at its heart a role-playing game, more like EverQuest than Wing Commander.

Welcome to Earth and Beyond Online!

In the latest demo of the game, Westwood was able to show off even more of the game in action. The game continues to look impressive, with bright, colorful graphics. The ships are completely customizable, as are your avatars. The ship designs are by Doug Chiang, the same artist who designed the look of Star Wars: Episode I and II, and they look fantastic. There is nary a hint of TIE Fighters and X-Wings here. Instead, each of the game's three races has distinct shapes, from the bulky Progen fighter craft to the sleek and many-finned Jenquai explorer ships. You also have the ability to further customize your ships with colors and decals and even mix and match parts, such as wings and cockpits.

When we started our game of Earth and Beyond, we first had to choose our race. The only playable race is the human race, but it's divided into three subspecies. The Terrans are descendants of the inhabitants of Earth, the Jenquai are the children of the first Mars colonists, and the Progen were birthed by the colonists of Jupiter's moons. Over the centuries (300 years in our future, to be exact), these three branches of humanity have developed certain skills and traits. Thus, picking from amongst these three human races is essentially like choosing whether to play as a dwarf, elf, or human in fantasy RPGs. We then chose the appearance of our character avatar. The interface for this section is still changing, but there is a tremendous amount of customization available in determining how you look. Everything we reported in our previous preview is still here, so no two players will ever look alike.

The race you choose is vitally important to the game, more so perhaps than in fantasy RPGs. The Jenquai are the best scientists and explorers. As a space-born people, they are uncomfortable on planet surfaces. They are experts at stealth and energy manipulation, but their ships are frail, with weak shields. Their unique skills, such as cloak, fold space, and psionic shield, can manipulate space, time, and energy.

Navigate the galaxy.

The Terrans are the best negotiators and traders. They are masters at getting the most out of their ships, and they have the fastest ships and best computer systems. Their unique skills, such as hacking and befriend, involve technology and character interaction.

The Progen are the best warriors in the galaxy. They were actually bioengineered for battle. Their ships are the most powerful, with better shields and durability. Of all the races, they can take and dish out the most punishment in ship-to-ship dogfights. Their unique skills, such as shield inversion, gravity link, and menace, are almost exclusively designed for use in combat.

After choosing our race, we next had to choose a class. Essentially, each ship in the game is a class, with different abilities. Of course, each of the three races is most proficient in one kind of ship. Progens, for example, are the best fighter pilots, while the Terrans are the best tradesmen. The Jenquai are the ideal explorers. The warrior, tradesman, and explorer are the three ship archetypes in the game and, thus, the three main character classes. Each race can play as a warrior, tradesman, or explorer, but because the Jenquai's skills are different from those of the Terrans, they'll bring their own subtleties to the class. In essence, that means there will be nine classes, based off the three core races and three ship archetypes. However, Westwood says that only six classes will ship with the game, while the other three will probably be added as a patch once the game has shipped.