Being a poor European who gets gaming releases late (or not at all), I was curious as to if anyone had any information regarding a mod chip for the PS2 so I can play NTSC games? I have seen some online, but most of them require a lot of soldering work which I'm not really that keen on getting into.

I have heard, and seen, some cases of a CD-ROM which I guess changes the software of the PS2 so it thinks that it's booting a PAL game when in fact it's booting an NTSC game.

Could anyone offer me any information as to if such a thing exists, and if it is effective or not in playing NTSC games?

If you're modding to play NTSC games, you'll need an SCART (one that converts NTSC signals to PAL), I believe it can be bought at some electronic stores over there.

Or if you have spare CD-Rs/DVD-Rs, you can make backups of games, apply a patch to convert them to PAL and reburn them.

I got a mod chip done for me and used an action replay to play games from other countrys but i heard it shortens your ps2's "life"
but mine is still up and running.

If it's one of those swap disc mods, they really suck. I had one and it was all nasty ish.

You could try one of those new fliptop ones. The only problem is that you can only play it in it's horizontal position.