There are few things as irritating as a scratched PS2 disc. No, that is not quite correct. There is nothing in the world as infuriating or disappointing as a scratches PS2 disc. In fact I can’t think of anything else that puts quite the cramp in my day as a scratched disc.

What really sucks is that half the time the scratch does not reveal itself until you have put several hours into the game, and you have reached the cut scene everyone has been talking about. Then bam, the machine freezes up. Now as this happens you are thinking, it can’t be a scratch, I am sure that it is just a small bug that will work itself out after I reload from my last save

However as we all know this is a vain hope at best. In fact now the problem isn’t so much figuring out what the problem is. It is figuring out how to fix scratched PS2 games.

Image by Icky Pic via Flickr

Luckily other people have had problems with scratched discs long before the PS2 and so technology is available to fix a scratched disc. The problem is that not all technology is created equal and there is a chance that any particular scratch repair machine is not going to be able to do the job.

So you have a couple of options. The first, to got to a local electronics store and buy one of the scratch repair machines. The problem you have here is that most of the time the ones that are available are either cheap and worthless, or cost more money than you realistically want to spend. So now that buying your own may or may not be feasible what other option is there?

You can always go to a video game store and see if they offer the service. As a matter of fact most of these stores do offer this service. They even offer it for free. However they in no way guarantee the game. So you can trust that the guy behind the counter knows what he is doing and won’t destroy your disc, or you can fork over some serious cash for your own. Either way a scratched PS2 disc is a serious problem. Go figure.