Sonic Adventure
Image: Sega

In 1999, Sega of America partnered with IGN on a large-scale promotional tour for its upcoming console, the Dreamcast.

The "Sega Dreamcast Mobile Assault Tour", as it was eventually called, saw two convoys, each with a 6-ton truck, crisscross each other as they travelled coast to coast over 22 weeks to demonstrate the potential of the new system. During the event, players were able to get hands-on with a special version of the upcoming title Sonic Adventure at kiosks, with this early version of the game being dubbed the Sonic Adventure Tournament Disk.

To generate hype, Sega of America challenged players present at the event to get as far as possible in the game in only two minutes, as well as kill the most enemies, and collect the most coins. It then awarded prizes based on their performance like T-Shirts, limited edition controllers, and memory cards, with the best of the best going on to compete in a Las Vegas final.

Recently, on Twitter, the Sega and Dreamcast preservationist CombyLaurent announced that they had managed to discover one of these discs and that they had taken a closer look at its differences from the retail build.

According to Laurent, there are a bunch of minor differences to the finished build. These include Sonic starting the game with all of the upgrades unlocked, different music playing on the main menu, the European localisation not being finalized, and music for the DLC being missing. Laurent states on his website that the main appeal of the disc isn't these changes, but instead its "historical aspect", due to being used during the event.

If you want to check out the full story, we recommend heading over to Laurent's site where you'll also find an interview with one of its organizers, the IGN marketing person Jason Michaels.

[source en.sega-dreamcast-info-games-preservation.com]