Midnight Club: LA Lock-up issues?

[owa]

First let me say that I think the game looks great and I'm really enjoying it BUT, it keeps locking up. This is the only PS3 game that I can recall ever locking up on me and I've tried it with both PS3s with the same result.

Anyone else having a lock-up issue?

The only thing out of the ordinary is that I'm driving around a lot ignoring all the requests to race and just trying to learn the city. That means occasionally evading the police, trying to find the collectibles, etc.. I've completed a few of the races and earned a couple of trophies so it hasn't all been cruising. Anyway, with a PC there are probably 50 things I could try but with a console, I have no idea what to do with a lock-up issue. Any suggestions? Basically, I have to hold the power button down until it beeps to get out of it. The music is left playing but the wheel, another controller or the remote can't get me out of it.

More info, I was using a controller with rumble on one of the PS3s and using a steering wheel with the other one. As I mentioned, both systems locked after a while. Both systems have the patch also. One time I thought it locked as soon as the game started but after around 5-10 seconds, it started working. Locked completely later on. One of the other times, it started up fine but locked after a while of cruising around.

BTW, it is so much better with the wheel but it doesn't look as good on that system. On the 52" TV sitting around 6 to 6.5 ft. away, I think it looks great. On the system I use for driving games, it's 37" TV that I'm sitting 2 ft. from and it doesn't look nearly as good that way (but so far that has been a common issue with that setup -- not just with this game).