I wasn't able to play Vice City for a while because of this problem. What seemed to help was standing it up on its side. But the best solution I found was to use a lens cleaner on it for everytime you wanted to play on it. I'm not sure about the other games I have but I bought Sly Cooper and it didn't work at all.
I have the lens cleaner, I have the canned air - neither worked. I did return my new PS2 for another one, and so far so good with that one. I'll have to call Sony and raise some Hell about the first one - good idea skitch. Hell, if they agree to fix it for me, I'll just take this new new one back for some sweet store credit...
My brother bought PS2 a little over a year ago. The fuckin thing just stopped working all of a sudden. So, my mom being the crafty fuck she is....went to the store with her friend who was buying a PS2 for her son for xmas. They took it home, swapped the new with the old one. They took it back no problem, and gave my mom a brand new one. Then when playing VC, it would get the read error at the same points in the city.
To fix this, I changed the setting in the configuration of the PS2. Haven't had a problem since.
I can't remember what the setting was for it, but I'll look tonight and post it. Hopefully that will help.
<center> i want something good to die for, to make it beatiful to live</center>