Fresh get on for a little were doing some KOTH games,
I'll second the HORI FC3. It's all I use and it owns, and owns hard. It's got a nice d pad, very easy to hit diagonals; it's got real buttons for L2 and R2, and not the weird trigger things that are on the stock PS3 controller; it has a 6 button layout with the L1 and R1 buttons on the, uh, flat part of the controller, but it also has R1 and L1 as triggers, so you can use those buttons in whichever way is more comfortable for you (I use the triggers for MK and the 6 button layout for HDR). Also the turbo function is useful for the Test Your Might challenges in the Challenge TowerHORI Fighting Commander 3 (Regular/Pro), MadCatz SFIV Fightpad, and PDP Versus Fightpad are probably the best 3rd-party PS3 controllers you'll find. If you want a stock PS3 pad that's wired, the closest thing would be a PS2 controller using an Inpin converter by eTokki.
