As long as video game consoles have been around so too has the 3rd party controller. They can be better in quality than first party controllers but often fall far below expectations. The PS2 has been around for almost 19 years now and finding new 1st party controllers is difficult and expensive. 3rd party alternatives like the Logitech Cordless Action are great but are increasingly difficult to source working units. So I set out to find a PS2 controller with features similar to the Logitech Cordless Action.




When I started looking at the PS2 controller offerings I noticed a running theme. Chinese manufacturers have been aping the Dualshock 3 for years now and this has trickled down in to the PS2 in the form of wireless PS2 controllers with receivers. There aren't any quality standards on bootlegs so identical looking products can have wildly different internals. Due to this I started looking for wireless controllers in the shape of the Dualshock 2/3 that had enough positive reviews that I would feel confident ordering from, but cheap enough that if they fell apart I wouldn't feel too bad.

I found the controller I was looking for from a seller on Ebay called Battery Connection. They were selling two 2.4 Ghz PS2 wireless controllers for around $15 with free shipping and the reviews were mostly positive. I knew they weren't going to be the best controllers ever but I only needed something that would work well enough.

My order arrived in about a week and arrived generic white bag mailer with the controllers bubble wrapped inside. At first I thought they controllers might be damaged but repeated use and testing proved this to be false. The controllers were exactly what I hoped for. They didn't experience any lag or disconnect while in use and was sturdy enough to weather through my attempts at 1ccing  DoDonPachi DaiOuJou. The controller is powered from two triple a batteries that last a long time thanks to the auto power off feature after 5 minutes of receiving no input.  Subsequent testing with various games revealed no issues with stuck or broken buttons but did reveal a couple of minor issues. First the rumble sucks. If you want a controller with good rumble buy the Logitech Cordless Action controller. Second the receivers aren't keyed. This means that when you power on the controller and there are two receivers in the system it's going to connect to whichever one responds first. I frequently connected to the controller in P2 instead of P1. I had to power off the controller, count to two, and then power it back up to force it to connect to the receiver in P1.

For those looking for replacement PS2 controllers that are good enough to survive daily use but don't want to spend a lot of money these are the controllers for you. Just know that you may have to fiddle a little bit if you have both receivers plugged in, and the rumble is terrible. At $15 for two controllers with free shipping they hit that sweet spot between price and performance.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/...ksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649

* Please note that I do not make any money from this Ebay listing *.

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