It sounds like some kind of codec.
The game is from 1998 and was either made for Windows 98 or Windows 95. You can try downloading codecs, but the problem may not be the lack of codecs so much as the way the operating system is trying to access them.
Someone on
***this site*** says it "barely" plays on a 4 year old computer with XP.
Have you tried installing and playing in compatibility mode?