After reading a couple of articles, I am lead to believe that the PS3 controller should work just like any other joystick when attached using the usb cable.

I am into FPS games at the moment but the only one that recognises the controller is World of Padman, with which it works great.
All other games just don't recognise it and if I try to modify the controls to use the joypad buttons (which I did with WoP), they don't register that anything has been pressed.

Is this something to do with the controller or the games?
There are a couple of other non FPS games I tried which recognised the controller (can't remember which ones now).