Back in the day Intec were heavy hitters when it came to gaming peripherals. I don’t necessarily mean they were good, but they sure released a lot of them. Today I’ll be putting their PS6010A (is that the best they could come up with?) through its paces and see whether this controller was worth however much it retailed for.

Although I never personally seen one of these in a store brand new, I can imagine a young me being drawn to this controller back in the day. When almost every Playstation controller was drab grey this one is completely clear, allowing the internals and how this controller functions be seen. The main features of this controller, since it lacks any analog features, are a programmable turbo and a slow motion function.

The slow motion feature is fairly useless, at least in all the games I tested it with, because most games will either take you to a completely new screen once the Start button is pressed, or a large menu will obscure the entire screen. Factoring in the fact that most PS1 era games took a few seconds to load a pause screen and then a few more seconds to continue after the pause screen was disabled, the slow motion just feels like a relic left over from the cartridge era that really doesn’t translate well in the new CD based era.

Where the PS6010A really shines is the programmable turbo feature. Any of the action buttons can be programmed individually by holding the turbo button and simply pressing the button(s) you wish to program. Once programmed, pressing the buttons will illuminate an LED which will tell you that button has successfully been programmed. To disable turbo on any given button you simply press and hold the Clear button and then press the button you wish to deprogram. The LED will no longer flash once this button is pressed, telling you it is no longer turbo programmed.

The plus sides of the PS6010A are that it feels like an original digital Sony controller, it’s transparent and has a very useful programmable turbo function. The only real downside is the slow motion function. “Then don’t use the slow motion function.”, you might be saying. The problem there is the slow motion button has been placed right where the Select button usually is on a Sony controller, and the Select button has been moved to the right, just between Slow Motion and Start, leading to some accidental usage of the slow motion feature.

Overall I feel the PS6010A is a good alternative to the digital controller, not a replacement but indeed an alternative. It does feel a bit cheaper, but it doesn’t feel like it’s made out of extremely brittle plastic like some other controllers I’ve used. The turbo feature is something I can not praise enough about this controller. Simple to program, simple to deprogram and it actually made the games I tried it with more fun. The only true downside that I can see is the placement of the slow motion feature and that the slow motion feature really isn’t that useful.