Peripheral Vision: ASCII Pad PS No.800 Controller

Along side the Interact Barracuda and Nuby’s “The Rock”, there sits yet another controller I own for the Playstation that baffles me as to how it passed the R&D stage. I’m more familiar with ASCIIWare’s SNES and Genesis era controllers, and many of them are actually really nice. The slim, boxy design of the PS No.800 controller just leaves me scratching my head as to who thought this was a good idea. With the official Playstation logo on the front I first thought this was an odd Sony controller, but later I finally noticed the ASCIIWare logo at the top.

With its thin, boxy edged design I originally thought it was going to be difficult to hold for long periods of time, and while it is unorthodox I can’t say it’s completely uncomfortable. There is a massive air gap between my hands and the grips, but it did get more comfortable the longer I held it. While we’re comparing the controller to the Nuby “The Rock”, it seems ASCIIWare also used the wafer thin L and R buttons, but yet again they are spaced in such a way that you know which one is which. For durability I gave the controller a twist and didn’t hear so much as a single pop, now I didn’t really wrench on it but I would say this controller would hold up to being tossed angrily at the TV a few times.

The layout of the face buttons are pretty much the same as an official Playstation controller. The buttons feel a slight bit cheaper, but they all respond and act as they’re suppose to. The D-pad however is a full faced cross, which I actually grew to like while testing this little thing out. Sony’s four section D-Pad works perfectly fine, but there was just a more tactile connection with the full face D-Pad of the PS No.800. I can say with complete certainty this controller won’t be replacing any Playstation controller with the comfortable, round handles. It’s a fully functional controller, but it’s not something I would even pass to a sibling or friends to suffer with. ASCIIWare, what were you thinking?

Posted July 3rd, 2020

About the author

Samuel Floyd first fell into video gaming with the Atari 2600...in the mid-90s! Always late into the system wars, Samuel enjoys that as he acquires them when they're cheap and the hot titles of yesteryear are bountiful. Samuel loves RPGs, his favorite being Crystalis for the NES.


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