Meet Cee. She’s great. There’s a mild Fallout 4 spoiler if I give you her full name, so I’ll refrain from using it here (highlight the next paragraph to see where Cee's at). It’s nothing huge, or campaign ruining, just a minor companion side quest bit. It’s not important. What is important is that Cee is amazing.
When you first meet Cee, or Curie, she’s actually a robot working in Vault 81 on disease research. After you go to the classroom and complete a mission to save a cat, you’ll find a quest that leads you to her. Take her with you as a companion, make friends, and you unlock a mission where you can transfer her AI consciousness into a synthetic body.
On face value it’s not hard to see the attraction. Cee has a French accent and wears a tux. Although admittedly, the tux was an accident. When I first realised she was becoming a firm favourite I decided she needed some protection. So I tried to give her some armour and, well… um, one shoulder pad made all her clothes disappear.
I swear that wasn’t a choice. All her apparel disappeared. Not replaced, just completely missing from her inventory - nothing in there but shoulder pads and guilt. The tuxedo was the only thing I had that she could wear. Although as soon as she put it on there was quite the moment of hot, collar-tweaking confusion. That is your suit now, I thought, never take it off. “All these new experiences are quite exhilarating,” she purred in Disney-style French tones. Oh GOD.
But it’s not the pixie cut, the suit or accent that sealed her place in her heart. No, it’s the extreme levels of violence.
I mean, she really likes hitting people.
Serious. Loves it.
She was a medical scientist when I found her. I can only assume she enjoys hurting people so much because she knows exactly where the bits break off. Her knowledge of unarmed combat is terrifying - she flips Raiders over her shoulder, deflects blows like they were her idea anyway, and has a move where she kicks people’s legs out and then snaps their neck while they’re on their knees.
Me while all this is happening:
She doesn’t even have to fight with her hands or the shock baton - she’s got all the guns. Way more than me. I can only assume she hoovers them up from all the bodies she leaves behind. She just really likes whacking people with a stick. At one point even a Deathclaw got a stern prodding. It looked more confused than angry.
There is one other thing that makes her great, however, once you’ve washed off the blood and picked the bits of brain out from under the Pip-Boy. Because of her origins, everything is new and exciting to her. Where everyone else is worn, jaded or grumpy, each fresh discovery she makes is a thing of wonder. I picked up a perk-boosting magazine and didn’t think a thing of it until Cee piped up: “I like the colours on this comic book, they are very bright.” No, you see this gives me plus 5 on all criticals and... Well, I guess the colours are kind of nice now you mention it.
She positively frolics through the wasteland like a wide-eyed murderous child, bringing an entirely different way of looking at the world with her. “Maybe zeh are friendly?” she wonders, as a man waving an axe runs over to see us. “This is a surprisingly good physical exercise,” she says as she curb stomps his face into cheap deli meat. “Zis is all so exciting!” It’s amazing how much it changes the game to play it with a companion who’s as thrilled as you are to see anything. For that reason Dogmeat’s left in the kennel and Codsworth off doing... oh, I don’t know, robot stuff. From this point on it’s me and Cee to the end.
tl;dr - turns out I have a bit of weird thing for enthusiastic pixie-haired girls with incredible fighting skills and a well-cut suit.
