11 replies to this topic

[gsk]

Ok its looks more and more likely that the Nights PS2 remake will be JPN only, so whats the options for us Westerners? Whats the easiest/cheapest way of playing imports on a PS2? I've been looking at hard mods (sending it away for it to be installed, £40ish too dear for me), or soft modding it (Independence Exploit etc but needs Action Replay stuff, and seems fiddily to do). Any one have experience with either?

[Louis]

There is one, but for the life of me I can't remember the name. The same thing lets you play homebrew and games burnt onto DVD's. Go through the threads about NiGHTS PS2 on NeoGAF and it's mentioned somewhere.

[wocko]

Myself, I have a fat PS2 with a HDD/LAN adapter, 60GB Seagate Barracuda HD, Independence Exploit with HDAdvance loaded on it. I rip a Japanese game directly onto the hard drive, and it just runs, no regional lockout. Do this IF ONLY YOU OWN THE ORIGINAL GAME, I DON'T PROMOTE PIRACY.

[Purgatory]

I don't know anything about this type of thing and I also have to mod my PS2, because NiD is one of the gifts I'm getting for my birthday. I want to be able to play it, if I can. If not, hey, I ordered it to collect anyhow, and for the book. ^^; Guess I'll be peeking into this topic once in a while myself.

[gsk]

Cheers for the info Wocko.

I have a phat PS2. So that would mean getting a USB Save Reader Disc (£5 or less), installing Independence (free), a network adaptor (£25) and a small Harddrive (£30 - max gb size? 3.5" Right?) = £50 plus cost of game.

[wocko]

You're better off using the proper LAN/HDD adapter since you have a fat PS2 because the USB software runs V E R Y slow due to the PS2 using USB 1.1 and USB should only be used as a last resort for slim PS2s.

PS2s use standard 3.5" IDE hard drives. Be sure to get a Seagate drive (120GB, 200 may work, i dunno), because even though WD drives are good drives, the adapter will need some physical modification to get WD drives to connect to the adapter.

PS. American PS2 HD/LAN/modem adapters work fine in PAL PS2s

[gsk]

Ah, so the only difference between the US and PAL adapters is the modem slot? As they've stopped production of them (?) they're quite dear on ebay at the moment...

Any good guides online for installing the exploit? List of compatible harddrives? HDAdvance guides?

[Diogothedreamer]

i am not sure if it helps but a friend of mine has something called magic swap disk that lets him play any kind of PS2 games. I dont even have a PS2 and am going to buy this for the book,badges and soundrack but it does make me curious to play it too and see the improvements.

[gsk]

Yeah, I've heard about swap magic as well, but I've been told that while they work fine, they will eventually wear out the laser/spinning mechanism in the PS2. They're about £25 quid anyway, so if I'm lucky, for an extra £20-odd I can get all the harddrive installed, backing up the majority of my PS1/2 library.

[iLLViLLAiN]

It's a bit dissapointing to know I can't just pop it into my PS3 and play it from there. I hear it's only region free for PS3 games which is cool but I wish it could have been for everything. But like I always say, I think the PS controllers analog would be perfect for NiGHTS.

[Diogothedreamer]

It is very odd that Sony couldnt put the region free coding on the PS3 for all games as it would problably sell more consoles!

My friend is always having to buy new PS2 so that makes sense about the disk making them faulty! I guess maybe buy a cheap PS2 just to play Nights on it until it breaks down perhaps?

[gsk]

Done and done!

ARMax - £5
Network Adaptor - £20
Recycled HDD from an old PC - £0!
Files from various ps2 homebrew sites - free to download
PSX Trigger Disc, Phat PS2, Memory Card - Already had

Preordered Nights PS2 from playasia - £25

Total £50 - which is only a £10 more than a full priced ps2 game over here anyway! And I can play imports from now on (Spannel Channel 5 Speical Edition anyone?).

HDLoader works really well (Ripped Alien Homind and Sonic Riders 2, all load fine from the HDD - faster too!) and Pgen the Megadrive emu for the ps2 works really well too -good all 2D Sonic on the ps2 without the rubbish collection discs...

Highly recomended, especially, relatively easy to do...