It is definitely time for Christmas shopping. We even had a couple of actual deaths on Black Friday. Last year, there was no game genre more prevalent under the Christmas trees than the guitar controller-based rhythm game, be it Guitar Hero III or Rock Band. One major issue with the new editions, Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band 2, is that many of us have switched consoles since last year, and many more of us have broken our controllers. Well, if you have an old PS2 guitar controller laying around from Guitar Hero 1 or 2, this product will allow you to use it on the PlayStation 3 for $20, far less than buying a new guitar controller.
There's not much to it; just plug it in a USB port on the PS3, then plug in either your wired or wireless PS2 guitar controller plug that used to go straight into the PS2. There is a switch on the device that allows you to switch between Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and "other" formats for play. This is clearly preferable to having to purchase another guitar controller for those low on funds this holiday season, which is well, everybody.
There is basically one minor issue, however. Deploying "Star Power" or "Overdrive" by tilting the controller up with the newer games takes about another second to actually deploy, apparently because of a switch in how the games read if the controller has been tilted. Less importantly, you don't get any of the features from the newer Rock Band controllers like the lower frets and the home button if you're using an old controller. Otherwise, the old controllers work just fine with this adaptor, which is keeping me playing after my original Rock Band controller's strum bar turned to dust.
Also, it should be pointed out that this adaptor, for whatever reason, does not work with PS2 games played via backward compatibility on the PS3. There doesn't seem to be any particular reason for this, but very few new PlayStations support this feature anyway. However, this may disrupt the plans of anyone hoping to play their old PS2 games if they threw it out or something.
Article comments
1 - adam
I have rock the 80s encore for ps2 and want to play it on ps3 , if i have a guitar for ps2 or a ps2/ps3 compatable guitar and this device this will play that game on the ps3?
2 - Nathaniel Edwards
Oddly enough, no, it won't work for that. If you're playing a PS2 game on the PS3 with backwards compatibility, the adaptor doesn't work, which is really irritating.
3 - adam
what do you mean by backwards compatibility?
4 - Nathaniel Edwards
If you're playing PS1 or PS2 games on your PS3, that's backwards compatibility. This adaptor will not let you play Guitar Hero 80's on the PS3.