So when I start a mission it never gets past the loading screen and the prompt to start the match never appears. Then the music skips a bit and I have to turn off my PS. I put in KZ3 and it worked fine, despite some obvious smudges so I deduced that the problem was the disk.... and upon closer inspection, the scratches confirmed my fear.

So my question is if I buy a new disk will I still keep all my characters? Does the game save to the HD by default on PS3, an option to do so or none at all and everything including profile information is stored on the disk? IOW, Helllllp!!!

All your save data will be on the console itself, so you're fine. Personally I back up my save data on my xbox with a usb drive just to be safe with the games some people report having their saves erased. I believe you can do that on the PS3 as well but I can't say for certain since I don't have one. I sure hope the disks aren't of shody quality.

Best bet would be to make sure the console is laying flat and not on anything like a subwoofer or on the floor where people walk past as the vibrations can cause disks to get scratched. Also don't know if it's an option on PS3 but I always install games I play a lot to the hard drive so the disk isn't spinning the whole time I'm playing, just on start up. Makes everything last longer that way.

Your system will have a less of a problem with overheating also... I've noticed my gamefly games make my system heat up a lot more than my installed or arcade games

rent it, install on your hard drive, and then it should wwork with the scratched disk right?

Does brink even offer the option to DL to the hd for ps?

Hmm, just did a quick search and it looks like PS3 doesn't have the option to just install any game like xbox does. Some games install parts automatically, others have the option to install parts somewhere in the main menu.

That's a shame because if it was the same as xbox you could possibly go without purchasing a new game, like vampire said. Looks to me like you're stuck getting a new disk, sorry bud.

Do you think gamestop would just clean the disk for me, maybe for a small fee?

You can take it to a DVD rental place and they may have a CD cleaner that shaves off microscopic film of the cd's plastic. I know that For Your Entertainment, figuritoes, blockbuster has these.