there's certainly a good chance, as +r have a much lower success rate than -R
yeah stick to using -R, Traxdata (or any Ritek G03/G04 dye based disc) should do you proud and use RecordNow Max for creating your backups, its a winning combination for like 95% of the members here
the ALMSOST perfect part could be down to a dirty laser (give it a clean by running a dvd lens cleaner through it). Do any of your other games run like this?
it could also be that your mod has something to do with it, although i'm not in a position to say as i don't know much about the Ripper2 DX....
hope that helpds