Topic: ASCII Sphere 360

[PyroJockey]

I bought myself a late Christmas present. I bought a new, in-the-box, ASCII Sphere 360 controller to use up a gift card from Amazon.



This is a 6-axis controller for the original Playstation and it supports Descent, Descent Maximum (a.k.a. Descent II for the PS1), and Forsaken. I have all of these for the PS1 that I got just for the novelty. I find them difficult to play using just the D pad and buttons and they do not support PS1 or PS2 analog sticks. I'm going to give this a try over the weekend. I already the PC serial version of this controller, the Space Orb 360, that I have tried with the original Descent. It's not that easy to just pick-up and go but I've heard a lot of old-schoolers swear by them.

[Scyphi]

*tilts head at picture*

...I'm trying to figure out how the heck you'd comfortably hold the thing. 

[PyroJockey]

This fellow gives it a poor review.

https://youtu.be/a9vV0bX5ZAA

[Scyphi]

Okay...so it was one of those ideas where it was good on paper, but in execution needed a bit more polish. Probably didn't help that truly 360 games that could've used it were far and few between at the time, and in some ways, still are today. 

[-<WillyP>-]

I have a Space Orb, I didn't like it. To be fair I didn't use it much. Maybe it takes some time to get comfortable with, but I couldn't see that happening.

[PyroJockey]

The PS1 version of Descent Recognized it as an analog joystick and it showed up as such on the in-game options menu. In contrast the PS1 version of Descent does not recognize a PS1 or PS2 controller with dual analog joysticks as anything other than a gamepad with no joysticks available. Oddly though it is a 6-axis device you can only configure 4 axes as if it were a dual joystick setup. The other 2 axes just go to some default and I could not configure them as desired. The controller is meant to be held in a vertical position with the ball on top. My preference is to hold it in a horizontal orientation with the ball toward the TV and this really threw me off. I struggled with it just to get through level 1 and was exhausted afterward.

[VANGUARD]

Okay...so it was one of those ideas where it was good on paper, but in execution needed a bit more polish. Probably didn't help that truly 360 games that could've used it were far and few between at the time, and in some ways, still are today. 

That could be so. I never used one, nor did I know it existed until I read this post. Maybe if more games benefited from it, it may have done better.