Faulty Dreamcast/DC Games?

[HappehLemons]

When I was younger I remember getting a brand new copy of Sonic Adventure for my dreamcast, it was in perfect condition. For some reason the game didn't work on my dreamcast (and it was the only game that I had that didn't work) although it worked perfectly on my friends.

Does anyone know more about this? I've researched it a bit and found that some Sonic copys were made faulty, but for some reason still work on some DCs? Is it possible to tell when you have a fautly copy of a game or a dreamcast that wont run these oddly made versions?
I've been unable to find anymore in depth information on this other then people simply saying that their dreamcast wont read their sonic game.

-Thanks!

[Smashed Brother]

Heh.... I remember being all stoked on the day that the DC was released. I woke up early, went to the store and bought a shiny new DC and Sonic. I proudly walked my ass home with my new gear, hooked it up....only to find out that Sonic didn't work. I traded the game for a new one, multiple times. I even traded my DC for a new one, to no avail. I later found that some of the early titles (Sonic, some Midway titles) had a faulty pressing and didn't work at all. I've never heard of the faulty games working on specific DC's though.

Even stranger, however, is that I've had perfectly fine games decide to stop working on my DC. It first happened with Crazy Taxi. One day, I put it in to play like always, and it just kicked me back out to the DC dashboard. I selected 'Play' and it told me to 'Insert a game'. The game was immaculate... I was the first owner and the disc was absolutely spotless. It just refused to play, no matter what I did. I traded that game in for a brand new copy, which worked fine! So, I knew that it must've been the game, not my DC. Then, sometime later, my 'UFC' game decided to stop working. Same situation with that, too. I ended up buying a used copy of that game, which worked just fine. This was all dealing with the first DC (the launch model) that I had.

So, now I'm on my second DC that I bought brand-new a few years back, right? A few months ago, I pop in 'Cannon Spike', which I haven't touched in about 2 years or so, and it decides not to work. The last time I played it, the game worked perfectly, so this shit pisses me off, especially since I can't just go out and pick up a used copy for dirt cheap anymore. I'd really like to hear what experiences other DC owners have had with this kind of stuff.

[SPAZ-12]

The same thing has happened to me, or close enough. I bought The House of the Dead 2 used for my Dreamcast, and it played just fine. There were some small scratches on it, but it worked for a couple of months. Then one day it just stopped loading one of the levels. I assume that some small scratch ended up over an important bit of the disc or something, but it just seemed to stop working without reason.

My Crazy Taxi disc also is screwed up. It works for the most part, but sometimes the songs load, and sometimes they don't. It seems kinda random whether they do or not.

When it comes to buying disc based games, I much more leery of buying used Dreamcast games than discs for other systems. I'm pretty sure that the the GDrom format is just more easily damaged then say, DVDs or CDs. After all, the GDrom is just a CD with twice the number of data tracks crammed into the same space.

Then again, I have a problem with digital optical discs as a form of media as a whole. Everyone should go back to Laserdisc.

[ScottK]

yes, it was a faulty press run on about a 1/2 dozen launch titles. the ones that i know of were Sonic Adventure, NFL Blitz 2000, Hydro Thunder, and Ready 2 Rumble Boxing. i had to return my copy of Sonic Adventure 4 times to kb toys, before the manager finally got sick of seeing me and decided to let me exchange it for a different title. working re-releases of those same titles have the green "HOT NEW" sticker on the front of the case. it is true that some played on certain dreamcasts without a problem. my buddy had NFL Blitz 2000 that worked perfectly on his system, but wouldn't load on mine. the first copy of Sonic Adventure i had worked about once every 50 or so tries.

[ooXxXoo]

I also have a, in new condition Sonic Adventure game that doesn't play..
...Never knew about the bad batch of games thou...
...
...

[NayusDante]

I had this problem, but with an Xbox game. I picked up Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance for $5 at GameStop, looked pretty good. Since it wasn't backwards compatible, I put it in my original Xbox. Won't play. I try ripping it to the HDD, won't read. For the heck of it, I put it in my 360, but it doesn't even see a disc in the drive. Same problem in my main PC. On my laptop, I actually get the DVD video to play ("This is an Xbox game disc..."). I tracked down a disc-only copy at another GameStop, and swapped the disc. Worked fine.

Oddly, I experienced this once before with a PC game. The game was 9, also known as The Last Resort. A Dollar Tree had recently opened up and had a ton of copies, so of course I buy one. It's blank in every PC I put it in. I actually RETURNED it to Dollar Tree, and got another one. Same problem. I actually returned it AGAIN, and gave up. I never knew Dollar Tree took returns before that...