One Must Fall (via DOSBox): An old PC fighting game, but still quite fun. At first it didn’t work so hot with this pad, but telling it to reverse the POV and Left Analog Stick controls fixed the problem. I was able to do various special moves, general maneuvering, and so on with no problem. The P3200 did fine here once I used the Control Panel to do that swap.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Legal copy ran via Playstation emulator): Worked perfectly with no special setup necessary. I was able to smoothly jump from platform to platform, easily make angled attacks (which are normally hard on a regular PS1 controller, if memory serves), execute special moves, and use Alucard’s various spells (including half-circle motions, etc.) pretty well. There were a few slip-ups at first, but those went away once I finished breaking in the d-pad, which only took a few minutes. I really have nothing seriously bad to say about how it handled this classic ’Metroidvania’ game.
Ur-Quan Masters: Also worked fine out of the box, with only one caveat. Menus didn’t work well at all on the gamepad, but this was also true of a Logitech pad I tried, so I think it’s a bug in the game. Once actually in combat however, this space shooter gave me no trouble. Even ships that require extremely fast controls like the inertia-less Probe and Skiff worked great, and I was dancing around opponents quite well. Seeing as the menu issue doesn’t seem to be Saitek’s fault, I have no real complaints here.
Various modern fighting games: This was where I encountered some problems. The POV/D-Pad would not read at all in these games at first, and the SST software on the disc that came with it was no help. Swapping the D-Pad and Analog Stick controls in Control Panel didn’t help either, since analog controls generally don’t work well in this genre. Fortunately, Saitek provided excellent and prompt tech support, giving me step by step instructions on updating their SST program. Once updated, I was able to easily configure the POV switch to act like keyboard arrow keys, and my problems went away. I would not call it ideal for this genre, as 360-motion commands and such are hard to do on it... but then again, it does not bill itself as a fighting game pad. It’s acceptable if you’re going to use characters with easier motions, however.
Linux: Before I say anything else, I want to make this clear: Saitek does not market this as a Linux gamepad. This is strictly a side matter. I tried a few games on Linux (Kubuntu 9.04 32-bit, specifically) and found that it is ’plug and play’ to an extent; the analog sticks work fine, the buttons are fine, but the POV hat/D-Pad is hit or miss. Some games worked with it just fine, others did not. Your mileage may vary, but it did to some extent work with Linux right out of the box for me.
