The Sidewinder Freestyle Pro is in the shape of a boomerang and features two thick handles for easy gripping and a full body. The 6 degrees of freedom you have in moving around brings in more flexibility into your game play, and you need not wait for hours to control your movements enough to actually play. When compared to earlier releases of Sidewinder game controllers, the controls of the Freestyle are somewhat different. A raised 8-way D-pad occupies the left of the console and the right is fitted with six programmable buttons. 
 

The most unique feature -when talking about the controls- is the throttle wheel situated right in the middle of the front body, in perfect position for access by either thumb, which is used mainly in flight simulators, or games of this genre. Shift, Start, and Sensor buttons occupy the area around the D-pad. The Shift button effectively doubles what you can do with the buttons, while the Sensor button activates the internal motion-control sensor. Once this is activated, all you have to do to tilt the unit to move along the X or Y axis, with the internal solid-state, gravity-based motion detector giving very fast, accurate response to your every movement. The installation procedure of the Sidewinder Freestyle Pro was as easy as any installation could get, as the Microsoft's Game Controller Software v 3.0 does everything needed to hook up the unit into your system. Hardware connects directly to a Sound Blaster-compatible PC game port.

The Sidewinder profile editor allows you to perform a full customization of the controls. You have the option of mapping keystrokes, keystrings and chords to individual buttons and triggers, and you can also swap game axes and customize the sensitivity and dead zone of motion sensors.