Testing games. One thing I do far too much of, and the big boys don’t. Still, I don’t like to brag, but this does mean iG is fundementaly physically and morally better than most high street stores, and they’re all going to hell. Except GameStation, who at least *claim* to put them through a “rigorous checking system” in their “custom built game and console refurbishing centre”. Which either means they really know their stuff, or they’re big fat liars. Ok, I’ll get to the point…
How to test games? Simple. They’re DVDs. Most of them. They have standard file systems… well, some of them. There’s a hugely high big whopping large amount of DVD testing software suites out there. Though you only need one. Bloody use it, eh? You’re not going to hell just for sticking a PS2 game in a PC’s drive, as much as GAME would like you to think you will; it’s them going to hell for not testing owt, remember?
But what happens when the DVD media features a file table (or something) that pretends there’s no data where there is data, uses a custom file system and encrypted error correction code, I hear you say? Huh? Well, such is life with the Xbox. The answer? Hack the hell out of it. Thanks to Bunnie Huang that didn’t take long, and suddenly FTP access to an Xbox was free for all. And file transfers from xbox disc to PC were my primary means of testing the things, up until yesterday at least.
Long story short, why go through an Xbox when you can mod a firmware for a regular PC drive and create custom software to read the Xbox discs right on your PC? Well, Kreon’s the man for that. Add in some Xbox Backup Creator and not only do you have a much quicker way of testing Xbox games, but as an added bonus you can also rip Xbox 360 discs too. Which is good as I’d never be able to afford a 360 just to test them. If you too own a video game sales business, and want to actually make sure you’re selling working produce before some wise guy turns up and claims it’s not, leaving you in a legally crap spot without any ability to prove they’re wrong, well…
Look out for a Samsung SH-D162 or SH-D163 drive. Any of them’ll do, A, B, C or D revisions. There’s other drives but these are probably the best known ones. Once purchased for under a tenner on eBay, flash Kreon’s v1.00 SB00 Firmware for the correct drive. I can’t provide links, it’s not exactly fully legal or some nonsense, just google it, you’ll have a download in no time. Once flashed, grab a copy of Xbox Backup Creator. Now stick an Xbox disc in your drive, run XBC, ignore any errors it pops up about your other drives, select the modded drive from the top drop-down, go to Image Tools > Image Browser, File > Open drive, right click the root and extract. Done. Why you ain’t all doing it I’ll never know… 
And then there’s the CAV media. Well… I’m yet to know, or care. I do know that with a no-doubt prohibitively expensive ethernet add-on, plus a somewhat rare game, one can gain FTP access to the GameCube. I guess that’s a project for another day…