----- Original Message ----- From: "mike@nesplayer.com" To: Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 8:04 AM Subject: To RARE LTD: To RARE LTD: (Note: I searched on Rareware.com but only found a "stupid letters page" (editor@rareware.com), and the seriousness of the subject I wish to inquire about certainly does not fit into such a section. I ask this message to be transferred to a RARE public relations/customer support contact to respond. Thank you.) It has come to my attention through an E-mail I received addressed to my fan site, NESPlayer.com, of a situation a visitor shared with me concerning a video game RARE developed back in 1988. The game pak title is "Taboo: The Sixth Sense" and was pusblished by the licensee Trade West in the United States. I asked the person (who shall remain anonymous) if I could share his story via a message to RARE LTD. to hear the company's response. The person agreed, so therefore the following in quotation is the person's actual words: "When I was younger I rented this game because I had seen it and I was curious about it. As I was playing it I noticed that little devil or satyr faces with glowing red eyes would appear super imposed over the suns on the backs of the cards from time to time. Needless to say this creeped me out immensely. Almost every time I asked the game a question I would get a negative reading involving the Devil card and or death. I didn't take any of it very seriously though, after all I was young and just shrugged it all off as a silly video game. Within the next few following months my dog Tippy died, my parakeet died, and then the worst thing all happened my father died of lung cancer. My parents were split already and I lived with my father because my mother was deemed unfit due to her alcoholism. He was my best friend. Anyway years passed and I never really blamed the game for any of those things because logically it is just silly to think that an 8 bit video game cartridge can cause someone to lose everything that they care about. I got married and moved out of town. I finally got a computer and internet access and as a result I discovered [an interest in the NES again]. So I [played] the Taboo [game] to give the game another try. My wife thought it sounded cool and we asked it a few questions. The devil/satyr faces with their creepy red glowing eyes appeared again and my wife saw them too. Needless to say it creeped her out too. Again I got negative readings. Over the course of the next few days both me and my wife became terribly ill. She got over her illness quickly, but I had a fever of nearly 104 off and on for about 5 days straight. I was delirious with fever for a bit. I finally went to the doctor and I was told that I had an unidentifiable flue-like illness. He prescribed me some strong antibiotics (The same kind that they give people who have contracted Anthrax.) and he threatened to hospitalize me if my fever did not go down soon. I got better but the antibiotics cause me to have internal bleeding. Needless to say I have never played the "game" since this happened. I am not saying that I believe that Taboo was responsible for anything that happened in my life but I do feel like it is not worth the risk to find out. Is anything really worth that?" Many authentic cases of different degrees such as the one above have been recorded with psychologists and doctors in the past, involving such "spiritual tools" as the Ouija board and the usage of tarot card decks. I find "Taboo: The Sixth Sense" is no different and belongs in the same category. Many scientists have attempted to make explanations to these unexplained phenomena (including one argument dealing with the impact of such devices on the undeveloped/unconscienous portion of the mind) but the fact remains that the mentioned case and numerous of others remain uncharted areas of science. Before I begin to compose the questions I prepared, if any of the programming crew involved in the "Taboo: The Sixth Sense" project are still available to help answer this case file, this would be of very much appreciation. However I understand the possibility of the aforementioned programmers/planners absence or that I will receive a response from a public relations correspondent of RARE regardless. Despite the sender, we would both like to pose these questions: If a situation such as this could have consciously or unconsciously played out, why would RARE want to produce a possibly harmful software title? What is RARE's reaction to this account? What would RARE like to personally tell this person? What were the reasonings behind the release of such a game, no matter the seriousness or innocence intentions of the developer, knowing of the art's direct origins of occult and black magic practices dating back some 500 years? This grave issue is of great concern to the both of us. Please take respectful note of the seriousness of this issue when replying. Michael Banks Webmaster, NESPlayer.com