Rock Commandos Universal PS2 to PS3 Converter

Purchasing additional Guitar Hero and Rock Band controllers for the PS3 can be quite a pricey endeavor. It seems especially pointless if you’ve already spent some hard-earned dough on guitar controllers for the PS2, considering that The Ant Commandos has released a $20 alternative. The Ant Commandos Universal PS2 to PS3 Controller Adapter is more than a mouthful to say, but is also a pretty competent adapter aside from a few problems.

As the device was “engineered to function perfectly with every feature in the Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Band games for PS3” (to quote the official press release), we dealt primarily with those games when factoring this review.

Operation of the adapter is pretty easy. You simply plug it into a USB port on your PS3 and then connect the PS2 controller into the device. Depending on what game you are playing, you flip a switch on the adapter to allow it to function with a certain game. There are three settings (GH, RB, and GP) for Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and regular gamepad use, respectively. You’ll want to make sure that the switch is in the right place for whatever game you’re playing, otherwise the buttons will be improperly mapped.

Functionally, the adapter works fairly well. The buttons are very responsive, allowing for easy hammer-ons and pull-offs, and the whammy bar works great. There is a slight 1.5 second response delay when activating Star Power, but this is only a minor issue, since the select button can still be used to activate it.

While the adapter generally works pretty well, there is one major caveat: it does not work on PS2 games. The adapter was designed to allow you to play PS3 games with a PS2 controller, and while it does function with a wide range of controllers, you still can’t use it as a fully backwards compatible device. Curiously, the adapter is compatible with the first Guitar Hero, but will not work at all with Guitar Hero II or Rocks the 80's. So, if you’re trying to find a way to use your PS2 Guitar Hero controllers for PS2 Guitar Hero games on your PS3, you are out of luck.

If you have the desire to play Guitar Hero III or Rock Band for PS3 with your PS2 Guitar Controllers, then this adapter is a fine option for $20. However, if you want to revisit your PS2 Guitar Hero games with it, you might want to wait for something else.

Pros:
Works well with Guitar Hero III and Rock Band for PS3, easy to plug in, fairly cheap alternative to buying new guitar controllers.

Cons:
No support for certain PS2 Guitar Hero games, tilting the guitar for Star Power takes a bit to activate.

Overall: 8.0
While the adapter works pretty well with PS3 guitar games, the lack of support for PS2 games is a big negative.