PS2 Problem

HungryJoe

Okay, I'm sure someone will tell me I'm a n00b for this question. To them I say: "I was programming on punch cards and checking results with an ACTUAL slide rule before your parents even met, so get off my lawn and take a long walk off a short pier."

I'm having a problem playing Star Trek: Encounters on my PS2. I know it's not supposed to be a very good game, but I want to play it. So I got a new copy, and it keeps saying there's a disc read eror. New copies are cheap, so I got another new copy. It still says there's a disc read error. I tried other games, and they loaded just fine.

Possibly embarrassing question: The ST game discs are both kinda dark navy on the date side where most discs are silvery and shiny. Is it possible that there might be some coating or something? It doesn't seem to be any sort of coating.
I don't have any canned air handy. Could it be that I just need to shoot some air into it to dust it out? Do I need a cleaning disc? That's really the reason I posted. I looked for the answers on the web and noticed some people are having DRE errors because their lenses need to be cleaned, but I don't think it's that because the other discs read just fine and there's that odd difference between the ST discs and all the other discs.

Any suggestions? And I'm already expecting suggestions like "Don't play such a crappy game.", or "Get a Wii.", or something like that - so here's a preemptive "That's funnier than a screen door on a submarine."

Katsu

I remember reading similar bouts of problems. If I recall correctly, the problem is that the disks are harder to read than others, and a slight amount of dust can cause a problem. I also remember that there were some issues with the slim PS2's, but I don't know if it applies in your case.
All I can suggest at this point would be to try a cleaning disk.

Hitman Hart

The Star Trek Encounters game is Godawful, the second mission is impossible. It's also meant to be uber cheap, as it is a CD game. Yes....after we thought DVDs might be too small and the Blue Ray game exists, we have games on CDs still. That's why the disc is blue. That means it's a PS2 CD game. As for why it doesn't work, I don't know. It worked fine on my old style PS2 before I traded it in.

Jason

How about, "Star Trek computer games suck; go play God of War."

Dave

Blue bottom discs are CD games, as people have said, and some PS2s (especially older ones) just don't read CD games very well. The only real solution is get a new PS2. I don't think turning the console upsidedown works like it did with the PS1...

HungryJoe

How about, "Star Trek computer games suck; go play God of War."

Yeah, I know. Unfortunately for me, I have an incredible desire to play Star Trek games, dating back to the days I used to play Star Trek on a 32K Commodore PET Desktop (a game I don't remember sucking very much . . . maybe I just had very low standards). I'm ever hopeful, but constantly disappointed.

I didn't know that about the blue-bottomed discs, though. I had already read that this was not a very good game, but did they just not try at all?

Why do people waste this franchise? The concepts that would support a pretty decent game are there. Why do they always end up sucking?

Apreche

Why do people waste this franchise? The concepts that would support a pretty decent game are there. Why do they always end up sucking?
Because people like you will buy any game with the Star Trek label on it regardless of whether it is good or not. Why spend time and money making an awesome game when thousands of trekkies will buy a crap game that took no time or effort to make? The same goes for just about every other game based on a licensed property. You only have yourself to blame.

HungryJoe

Color me pwned.

Apreche

Color me pwned. :(


lol

WallyBman

What about the Star Trek: Starfleet Command games for the PC? Those were pretty darn good. Not much of a Star Trek fan, but I DO enjoy(and crave) some starship strategy type games. Once they got to the point where you could run a random campaign and choose your own mission and take territory and such, they got really good.

Omnutia

Actually replying to your question:
If you haven't got a scratched disk (and I mean scratched to buggery) then it may be that your ps2s laser is on the way out. You can get replacements which aren't too expensive and someone may be able to fit it for you.
I personally use a PS2 HDD loader which means I don't use the laser at all and I can play games off the hard disk and its a whole lot easier than messing around with mod chips and the like.