SEGA Dreamcast: Don't Play Track 01

Let's jump right into it. My name is Tyler, and, of course, I love video games. Growing up, I always loved playing Sonic the Hedgehog on my SEGA Genesis that I got for Christmas in 1991. I would eventually get more games along with new consoles, such as Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles, NBA Jam, Knuckles Chaotix on the SEGA 32X, etc. So when I heard that the SEGA Dreamcast was released in 1999, I was really excited to play the new console and buy Sonic Adventure, which was a game coming out for it soon. Enough with the chit-chat about my life for now, though. Let's get to the real story.

On January 11th, 2000, I finally brought home a Dreamcast, and I was ecstatic. I couldn't wait to play Sonic Adventure, which I also bought with the console. I went up to my room, put my Dreamcast on my chest drawer, did all the mumbo-jumbo I needed to make sure it worked properly, and put the Sonic Adventure disc in.

I was having such a good time with the game. The 3D graphics, the smooth frame rate, everything was fantastic, besides the camera angles and such. However, let's fast forward to September 29th, 2000. For a couple weeks leading up to that point, I had been listening to the Sonic Adventure soundtrack. I was so intrigued by it; it was one of my favorite video game soundtracks. So, I decided to put the Sonic Adventure disc into my CD player. However, when it started up, I was greeted with this audio clip:

I was a little spooked by the monotone voice uttering the line, "Please stop this disc now." I never heeded the warning though. After all, it was just a normal disc, right?

But no. I was wrong. Very wrong. Dreamcast discs were GD-ROMs, not CD-ROMs. However, at the time, I was never aware of this. So, when I saw a list that read "Track 01, Track 02, Track 03," etc., I selected the first track, Track 01.

Suddenly, loud static blared out of my speakers. I went to shut down the CD player, but a screech came from the speakers that made me jump back. I tried again, but another loud screech prevented me from stopping the CD player. Eventually, I saw that the speakers began to leak mercury. It dripped onto my wooden chest drawer, and I could hear a sickening sizzling sound. I finally managed to turn off the CD player, but it was far too late. My speakers began to emit sparks from it's wires as it eventually died out. I had unintentionally destroyed my speakers. Quickly, I grabbed a cup of water and doused the mercury in it. It took awhile, but with a worn away portion of my chest drawer and a few instances of my speakers letting out loud screeches before dying out, I finally got rid of the mercury. I put the Sonic Adventure disc that was in the CD player back into the Dreamcast so I could play the game and get my mind off of what just happened.

What I met, though, was horrifying. The graphics were messed up. And when I say messed up, I mean messed up. Everything was pink, yellow, and green, among a myriad of other colors. All my save files were corrupt, so I, with a lot of frustrating lag, made a new one. The audio was loud static-y noise that was almost something you would hear in a horror movie, the gameplay was absolutely catastrophic, and after about 20 minutes of near-unbearable playtime, the Dreamcast finally gave me an error message with an image of Sonic, bloodied and bruised, looking at me straight in the eyes:

"Your GD-ROM of SONIC ADVENTURE has suffered irreparable damage. This could only have been caused if the GD-ROM was put in foreign hardware and Track 01 was played. DON'T PLAY TRACK 01. For more information, contact SEGA at 1-800-USA-SEGA (1-800-872-7342) or check the SEGA Dreamcast Manual for more information."

I was absolutely speechless. My very own copy of Sonic Adventure, destroyed. All because I played a single track on my CD player instead of my Dreamcast. I grabbed the disc and threw it on the ground before smashing it into a million pieces. What a fucking waste. I threw the damaged disc in the trash and muttered profanity under my breath. For the next decade, I kept waking up from a nightmare in which the mercury flowing from my speakers became knee-deep in my bedroom and that I had been standing right in it. I always woke up before I fell face-first into the mercury, waking up drenched in my own sweat. I still love my Dreamcast, but I had learned a very painful lesson on what happens if you play Track 01. With that being said, to anyone who is reading this and owns a Dreamcast: if you put a Dreamcast disc into anything other than a Dreamcast, do NOT play Track 01.

If you play Track 01, the consequences could be deadly.

Written by HardcoreGaming7703