Something I did actually WORKED!!

[TerranRich]

Woohoo! Well, I purchased WWE SmackDown! Vs. RAW, the newest WWE wrestling video game for the PS2. It's a good game and all, but the original music they give you for your created wrestlers are just...eh. And a few of the wrestlers in the game have been released by the company in the past few months since the game came out in November. So I was excited to learn about a way to replace all of the music (and even the entrance videos) with your own and burn the compilation as a new game. I consider it legal since I legally own the game. Of course, I had to modify my PS2 (and thus void the warranty, whoopedy-doo) in order to play burned DVD+R's. It took me an entire week, hours per day of work, finding the themes, cutting them down to size, changing the quality settings, replacing them one by one in the game's libraries, and finalizing everything.

I bought one of those flip-top PS2 cover replacements, along with Swap Magic v3.3 (1 DVD, 1 CD). My fears arose as I realized that anything I've ever tried along the lines of modifying things and altering things NEVER worked out and I have the worst luck in the world. I struggle with getting a certain part off the PS2 unit (the reset/eject unit thing) and getting the reset/eject thin cable out of the freakin' way. Of course, I heard a strange noise after my game would run for a minute or so. But I actually fixed that. And I got through all the problems. And after all the work I did, all the struggles with this operation that was completely new to me... it worked. It actually worked.

I just finished playing my game, with the music *I* wanted for all of my created wrestlers and even some updated versions of in-game wrestlers' themes. I have songs like "A Favor House Atlantic" by Coheed and Cambria, and "Bombs Over Baghdad (Instrumental)" by Outkast as themes for my own created wrestlers (guys that I've had since the first wrestling games allowed creations, back in 1999 for the N64). And it worked!

Boo-yah! Just wanted to celebrate, because nothing I ever do EVER seems to either (1) get finished, or (2) work properly.

Certain people might already know that my luck has changed for the better lately, because just recently I found the complete plans for Chapters 4 thru 6 of By the Sword, which I thought I had lost forever. Yahoo! had saved them in a sent email I had sent to Gravator, who has since vanished from the face of the planet. This means that, when I am ready to do so, I will continue working on BTS, although I still have a LOT to do from scratch. At least the full plot and storylines and puzzles and gameplay for the latter half of the game is a big step forward.

[Blackthorne]

Certain people might already know that my luck has changed for the better lately, because just recently I found the complete plans for Chapters 4 thru 6 of By the Sword, which I thought I had lost forever. Yahoo! had saved them in a sent email I had sent to Gravator, who has since vanished from the face of the planet. This means that, when I am ready to do so, I will continue working on BTS, although I still have a LOT to do from scratch. At least the full plot and storylines and puzzles and gameplay for the latter half of the game is a big step forward.

That is SWEET news man.  BTS looked so awesome.

Bt

[BerserkerTails]

Agreed. By the Sword was one of the adventures I was really waiting for, it looked great.

As for PS2 Modding, I know what you mean. Whereas I'm not going to mod my PS2 until I have my hands on a PS3 (Backwards compadability... Pleeeease?), I did have to open my PS2 to fix the infamous Disc Read Error.

Took me two hours to fix, and it was very tense the whole time.

[TerranRich]

How DO you fix that DR error??

[BerserkerTails]

http://www.geocities.com/belzorash/

There's tons of websites online that detail this in super detail, so just google "PS2 Disc Read Error", and you should find them easily. It's not too hard a process. You will, however, need supplies to open the PS2, a q-tip (Or soft cloth), some rubbing alcohol, a fine tiped sharpie pen, and a lot of patience.

It's worth it though. I got blue discs and DVD movies to work on my PS2 again!