Okay, so I've gotten back into burning PS2 games, right? It's overall been a great time, and I made sure to stick to decent brands like Verbatim, I remember them being the top dog back in the days before my PS2 laser died out.
So, I get the first batch, a simple 25 pack, they all work perfectly. Smooth topside. They're the kind that are so clear you actually see the verbatim logo on the readable side. No issue there.
Three months later, I get another batch, even contemplating getting a 50 pack. I got the 25 pack, same packaging, same exact description, but then I open the box and these fucking things are NOTICEABLY cheaper. Very scratchy topside, which is basically ALL white besides a tiny verbatim and dvd-r logo on the middle, somehow feels heavier.
Now, out of the first batch, I essentially got every game perfectly fine, and also a few homebrew applications. The SECOND BATCH was essentially half a box of duds. One game was not getting past a sony logo (not the system logo mind you), another gives me a black screen after the playstation logo while still clearly spinning and apparently finding nothing for minutes, and some even give me a DVD error, meaning the burn was so bad it didn't even qualify as a game backup.
SOME worked, haven't even checked all of them frankly so I might actually have even more faulty ones, but this is just a complete ripoff. Why the sudden downgrade? Some even downright gave me the deadly "uncorrectable error," a clear sign that these are complete garbage. I know the console's drive is fine, I know the computer's drive burned at least half of these correctly, and I know for a fact the games I ripped are not to blame.
I doubt I can get a refund for discs I've used, plus, probably not even worth it. But, maybe take it as a warning, some Verbatims have the same packaging, but are actually hunks of crap.
ps2 has a fantastic selection of network ISO loaders. WIth the disk based consoles you have to be comfortable using network and/or flash based solutions (such as GDemu for Dreamcast) because we don't want to wear out our PS2 lasers.
Sadly I have a slim model, no HDD. Why is that a bad thing? Well, for one, OPL literally doesn't work for any game I tried before I fixed my laser. Second, the USB slot is notoriously slow, and for some games which require dynamic loading, it straight up freezes (the Jak series for example, which I thankfully already burned on good discs).