Today, we have been treated with a few new screenshots as well as some new details about the upcoming Fallout: New Vegas. The images provide a glimpse of what we can expect in the game, such as a solar-powered super laser, known as Archimedes II. This super laser is housed at Helios One, a solar energy plant that appears to serve as a New California Republic (NCR) outpost, as can be seen in the below screenshot. It is uncertain whether or not this section will be integral to the main storyline, but it has been said a major moral choice—as we often see in the Fallout universe—will involve Helios One and Archimedes II.

Also featured in the small pack of screenshots is an altercation with the new TV Robots, first introduced in the Fallout: New Vegas teaser trailer released early in February. Not much is known about the role these machines play in the overall storyline, but they are considered to be hostile. However, one particular robot—known as Victor—is responsible for digging the game’s protagonist out of his shallow grave in the Mojave Desert wastes. Unlike the three games in the main canonical series, New Vegas will actually feature someone experienced in traversing the wastelands rather than venturing out for the first time.

One of the new features of New Vegas will be the Companion Wheel, which is essentially a radial menu that will allow you to direct your companions in a more streamlined fashion, something that has been lacking from all previous iterations. For the first time ever, you companions might actually be useful rather than just serving as meat shields and pack mules. Additionally, the Reputation System first introduced in Fallout 2 will be making a return. Where Karma simply shows how good or evil you are, Reputation tracks the consequences of your actions. No further details have been revealed yet, but hopefully this will expand upon Fallout 2’s concept of characters reacting accordingly to your reputation in each town. If so, being a hero of a town may cause children to follow you and ask for autographs, while being vilified could greatly increase your chance of getting shot just for passing through.

It has also been announced that New Vegas will feature double the amount of weapons found in Fallout 3. Anyone who has played will know that there was no shortage of variety in the last game, so any increase should allow you to collect a rather impressive arsenal. Better yet, according to the fact sheet released today, the game will even let you “tinker with your toys and see the modifications you make in real time” which means that there will be even more variety. Wielding a combat shotgun with a scope and silencer would make me strangely giddy. For melee buffs, special combat moves have been added to make hand-to-hand and melee fighting a bit more interesting.

Not much else has been revealed about the upcoming RPG developed by Obsidian and published by Bethesda, but it is shaping up quite nicely. Despite the brief developmental time frame, it may very well surpass Fallout 3 and might even bring back more feelings of nostalgia for those of us who played the old isometric turn-based Fallout games. Fallout: New Vegas is currently set to release in the final quarter of 2010 for the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. We will keep you all updated on further details.