At first sight the "Freestyle Pro" seems to be just a regular gamepad, but appearances are deceptive. This gamepad is based on socalled Motion Sensing Technology, which uses an internal motion sensor to determine the exact location of the gamepad. The movements in the games depend on how you move with the gamepad, e. g. in a car race game leaning the whole gamepad left or right you turn, leaning it forwards you accelerate and lifting the front of the gamepad you break. So, a piece of the virtual reality comes among common people.
Ideal technology for racing games (Need for Speed, Motocross Madness ....) and movements in 3D space. In case of more complicated games a joystick is more suitable, because you can control the both - the joystick and the keyboard, too.
Control
The default setup is the control with sensors, which many users may not value. The sensors´ attributes approximate handling a joystick and the "Freestyle" can also work as a regular gamepad - when you press the "Sensor" button you will gain except the change of the LED diode colour the possibility of controlling the gamepad with a direction button (D-PAD). Sellers can confirm you will gain two devices in one - joystick and
gamepad.
Getting used to the described control may not be so easy as it could seem. The solution is to change the sensitivity settings;
practicing the control in the games and switching the "Sensor" button on or off you will find out what is the most acceptable for you. If the reactions will seem too slow or too fast to you just try to change the sensitivity.
In some games the users will maybe call for their old classical gamepads. The "Freestyle" is not suitable for all games - a wheel for car simulators and joystick for flight simulators are invaluable, but those who want to get a different view of some games and manage to get use to this untraditional control, will gain new experience. The players of Quake and some other games will be probably disappointed, fast reactions and a lot of controlling elements can be managed rather by help of keyboard, joystick and mouse. You have to hold the gamepad in the both hands, so you lose the possibility of controlling keyboard. Fast and exact reactions you will reach with this gamepad very heavily.
Microsoft recommends to use this controller for racing and sport games. For the games as rpg, flight simulators,
adventures and strategy games they recommend another controllers or other Sidewinder products.
Our tip - Need for Speed 2, 3, Motocross Madness, Combat Flight Simulator (for more complicated flight simulators choose a joystick).
Description
Sensor - activates and deactivates the motion sensing technology. Switching it off you will get a regular top-class gamepad (in most games you will get to like rather the control with sensors).
Diode - informs what mode is on at the moment. Red - the internal sensor is off. Green - the internal sensor is on.
D-PAD (Direction Pad) - direction button which determines the direction of the movements in the games when the control with sensors is off.
6 programmable buttons + 2 programmable
buttons on the front side (triggers)
Throttle - settings for the throttle-lever (fine settings of gas amount)
Shift - button for activating of further functions of the programmable buttons (similar to the function of Shift, Alt, and Ctrl keys on the keyboard)
Start - button for restarting the game, if supported.
Software
Besides the drivers, detailed electronic guide and additional supporting software you will also find a game in the pack. It is Motocross Madness to test the control (it is ideal to use the control with sensors). The control of this game you can configure by help of software supplied with the gamepad. At the time when this game was brought out the price for the game + gamepad was very keen. Now, let´s look at the supporting software:
Microsoft Sidewinder Central - initial panel linking to the control panel, detailed help and basic information about Sidewinder controller (Freestyle pro, Force Feedback Pro, Game pad, Force Feedback Wheel, Precision Pro)
Profile Editor - Software for programming and setting the buttons for particular games, possibility of saving the values into profiles. Profiles for Road Rash, Moto Racer, Motocross Madness and Ski Racer are a part of the software.
Profile Activator - activates the saved profiles.
You can program not only the buttons, but you can assign several actions to a button, pressing one button you can then make several programed tasks (e. g. pressing of several different buttons fast one after another)..
Connection
You can connect the gamepad through a common gameport or use reduction from gameport to
USB. For playing the games under DOS I recommend to use the gameport on the sound card. Using of DOS for gaming brings some limitations - some Freestyle functions may not work, e. g. the wheel button and button programming.
System requirements
Pentium 90Mhz and higher, min. 16MB RAM
Gameport or USB port
Windows 9x - After having installed the supporting software you have to restart the computer (not necessary in case of USB and standard drivers). Together with SW a controller for Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro is installed. It is not advisable to leave it in the settings, uninstall it and change the ID to "ID 1".
The gamepad is officially supported only under Windows 9x, but it works under Windows 2000 too, but without the supporting software.
Price
The price is much higher than the price for common gamepads. According to the technology and the quality it is quite understandable (still a lot of people cannot afford it). At the time when the gamepad came in the market, this price was positively influenced by the game Motocross Madness.
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