Zero’s latest video release Strange World has been somewhat unexpected, there was no massive hype campaign building up to it’s release and they choose to announce the first thing about it only months before its eventual release. This isn’t a full length DVD either, most of Zero’s team only get brief sections and this years SOTY Chris Cole shares his section with a young Tom Asta. Seems Zero have choose to focus on select skaters and release videos more frequently rather than release a mammoth video every four years or so, which is actually a brilliant idea.

The DVD opens up with Garett Hill and for good reason he has such a nice style and chooses a good selection of tricks in his part, the guy could have easily closed the DVD, one of his stand out tricks for me was a Nollie Flip 50-50 which is honestly as sick as it gets.

Keegan Saunders follows and hes another with one of those almost too comfortable looking style to him, he steps it up and his section is a definite improvement from some of his previous parts.

Strange World provides two montages of skaters who didn’t get full parts, the first montage consists of the likes of Rattray, Sheldon, Cervantes and Ben Gilley.  Rattray produces some sick lines and throws himself down some huge sets all at some speed, he may be getting on a bit but he isn’t slowing down yet that’s for sure! Gilley lands a huge 50-50 down a pretty gnarly rail despite destroying himself three times on it before hand.

Marissa Dal Santos breaks up the two montages with her busting out some big hammers, she front boards this huge 14 set at the end of a line which is pretty epic!

The second montage contains the likes of Thomas, Steamer, Piscopo and Sandoval. Thomas puts hit down with his usual steeze and has a decent street part, Elisa is solid although her sections on the short side, Donovan has a solid part and Sandoval is as sick as usual.

Next up is Dane Burman the latest Zero am, the Aussy proves his worth and defiantly kills it, he has some pretty heafty tricks in his section including a hardflip over a huge street gap, one of the better sections in the DVD. Following is James Brockman who has a section full of hammers, its some pretty gnarly stuff and he produces a pretty steezy front blunt!.

Asta and Cole share the next section basically switching between the two after each trick. Both of them are insane,  not heard much about Asta before but rest assured I’m sure I will after this section, he is so sick!  Cole destroys everything like he always does with a mix of some tech grinds and some insane hammers, he closes with a back 360 down a pretty big gap although he does snap his deck!

James Toncowny gets the last part and this kid can skate, he kills it busting out loads of hammers, another unexpected surpise, this kid is sick, defiantly someone to look out for in the future.

Strange World is accompanied by a heavier soundtrack as is expected, the filter effects can be somewhat distracting and the DVD contains a lot less HD shots which is a good thing! Strange World is a good watch and is easily re watchable, defiantly worth the small amount of £10 it’s being sold for. Get down to your local skater owned shop and grab a copy.

There has been anticipation building around ‘Bristol’s Finest’ since Sidewalk announced it would be cover mounted on this months issue of Sidewalk and for good reason, Bristol’s skate scene is well and truly thriving.

The city has already produced some of the UK’s finest upcoming skaters including the likes of Korahn Gayle, Matt ‘Boyo’ Williams, Nicky Howells, Andy Makepeace, Dylan Hughes and many more. These guys are ripping and are helping raise the bar of UK skateboarding.

The flick has some absolute bangers and the majority of the skaters produce the goods, some of the more standout tricks include a smooth bolt perfect 360 front tail from Dan Wileman, a huge switch back 360 down the Lloyds 3 from Korahn Gayle and one of the most insane laser flips you’ll ever see from Nicky Howells.

This is one of the better skate scene videos you’ll witness, judging by the vast array of spots in the video Bristol’s finest are truly making the most of their surroundings, you can expect big things from the Bristolian’s in the future that’s for damn sure.

After watching Bristol’s Finest you could easily find yourself asking whether this is really from the UK, thats how good this has turned out, the skating, editing and soundtrack are all top quality so if you haven’t already grab yourself a copy of this months Sidewalk as ‘Bristol’s Finest’ is a must watch.

The third installment in the Skate series from EA Black Box, Skate 3 picks up where you left off in Skate 2. Your character – having saved skateboarding in San Vanelona has decided its time to move on to pastures new, bringing players to the town of Port Carvelton, and unlike San Vanelona skateboarding is welcomed.

With a new town and new spots to conquer, Skate 3 also takes a new story focus, it’s time to start your own skate company and it’s time to assemble your own crew.

Whilst at first thought it seems Black Box have taken a detour away from what makes Skate so great – the skating, but actually the game focuses on the social side of running a skate company, with the story and goals of the game focused around building the brand of the company by building a team and showcasing your skills.

One of the cooler features of this new story focus is the online aspect, when the time comes to choose your team, if you have Xbox Live you can recruit team members through your friends list. You can play the game cooperatively with your friends and when they’re offline the AI controls them, they still look like your friends character and still skate like them.

Skate 3 vastly improves upon the online features of the Skate series, it adds new modes such as Domination where you have to control spots by performing the most tricks inside them, 1-Up which is our personal favorite, a turn based game where two teams compete in 20 second rounds trying to out do each other by scoring more points and Own the Lot where random challenges are assigned to the area you choose to skate.

Black Box also promised improvements to the actual game play with a more smooth experience off your board, a new training mode titled Skate School designed to help newcomers to the series get to grips with the Flick It control system and a new feature suite called Skate Create an “innovative tool set that empowers gamers to truly express their skate style by creating their own graphics, videos, and skate parks”.

Skate 3 will be released on Xbox 360 and PS3 in May 2010, pre-order the game to get a bonus in-game area called Black Box Distribution Skate Park.

Watch the trailer below:

I’ve been hearing about how good Motive for quite some time from various trips to MK and then after they released their first video Dimensions I decided to take the plunge and ride one for the first time. I managed to pick up one of Sean Smith’s pro decks from the pro mask series, I liked the graphics and the overall shape of the board looked similar to what I would usually ride so it suited me.

My first impressions of the boards were good, the deck has quite a deep concave and thus the pop was decent and after I had become accustomed to it flip tricks were relatively easy to pull off which while is mostly down to me I’ve found some decks can really make things difficult for you but no such trouble with Motive.

After sessioning it for about a month the board was in as good a condition as any American board I’ve ridden so in terms of durability they defiantly measure up. Overall I was pretty impressed with what Motive had to offer and will be looking to ride one again soon, expect big things to come from this up and coming UK board company.

Dimensions is Motives first full length video since they were founded by ex Blueprint pro Rob Selley in 2006, it’s directed by Ciaran O’Connor, many of you will already have come across it on the cover of the October issue of Sidewalk.

The current Motive line up consists of Sean Smith and Leo Smith who you should recognize from DC shoes, Dylan Hughes who had a section in the welsh scene video Who? and Dave Snaddon, Paul Karter, Layth Sami, Jack Edwards and Barney Page.

Jack Edwards opens up the DVD with some smooth and technical ledge work, with his smooth light footed style he floats down sets, not a mind blowing section as we’ve come to expect from skate videos these days, but it proves Motives intentions as a UK board company, a decent start to Dimensions.

Next up is Paul Karter a more aggressive skater, he hacks at gaps and pulls out a huge bluntslide. The only skater who seems to skate any transition and even if its very little at that, not a bad section overall maybe just a little rough around the edges.

Layth Sami’s section is full of bangers! His smooth style flows with some long technical manuals and he has bags of switch tricks to throw down some hefty sets. A short section from Leo Smith is up next, his style is amazing to watch and just makes big sets look so easy, shame there isn’t more footage of him. Keeps your eyes open for the closing tricks!

Dylan Hughes following on from his excellent part in Who? early last year, he yet again proves why he is one to watch. He has a good all round style, showing of his quick feet with some crazy double grinds. Watch out for the frontside flip alley oop over the rail! This is a great section and I’m sure we will be seeing a lot more from him in the future. The friends section filler follows with a bit of excess footage, doesn’t add much to the DVD but worthy of a watch.

Barney Pages another up and comer you need to keep your eyes on, he is full of steeze and he throws down some big tricks, his pop especially in switch goes on for days. Look out for switch front bigspin drop to bank! His rail skills aren’t too shoddy either throwing in tricks like switch 360 front shuv to front board 180 out with ease!

Next up is Dave Shaddon another with a real smooth style. He tares up nollie with a big tre over a bench and the most stylish full cab flips I have seen. In my opinion his closing trick is the best on the DVD!

Sean Smith bring things to a close they way you would expect him to! By flipping in, out, off and over anything. He provides an onslaught of tricks over one of the blocks at the MK theater, his style is so smooth and his standard of his skating shows with some long technical lines, the best all round section in this feature.

It also includes a good amount of extra footage and a feature of their Lille and Brussels tour.

If you didn’t get this when it was on the cover of Sidewalk I suggest you track it down, all the skaters have pretty diverse sections and unlike most DVD’s with Dimensions there are no sections I can’t bare to sit through. The music throughout is instrumental with some nice chilled out hip hop beats leaving the focus fully on the skating! This defiantly raises the bar for UK skateboarding but on the downside it leaves every spot in MK well and truly owned!

By Matt Firmin

Rarely does a skate video have a soundtrack worthy of it’s own release but Flip’s Extremely Sorry is an exception, produced by DJ Baron it breaks the mold by using completely original tracks.

The stand out tracks for me are Stand By Me featuring Lemmy from Motorhead and Dave Lombardo from Slayer. It’s something you wouldn’t expect from Lemmy or Lombardo, but they do it justice, there’s some good twists to a classic and they’ve done their own thing without taking too much away from the song. Lead The Storm which is a decent track with an almost Muse – Knights of Cydonia feel to it. Love Shroom featuring Mack Winston a track with a good blend of guitar use and it has an almost orchestra feel to it. The End Of The Beginning featuring Black Mountain which starts with a intense bass line, it’s more twisted than the rest of the tracks and it has a real swagger to it, sounds almost like music from a nightmare. Burn Out Like Firefly’s featuring Sounder has a British 1990’s indie feel to it but in a good way. The Process of Extinction featuring Early Man is a brilliantly dirty track with a real Queens Of The Stone Age feel to it, it’s a classic rock and roll style song.

This album is a massive rainbow of different genres, there’s a cool middle eastern vibe to it, but it almost gets lost in the middle, it does come to life at the end and tracks 12-14 really do stand out. I would describe the album as a psychedelic head trip, a trip best heard when blended with the visuals that is Extremely Sorry, not taking anything away from the album but it doesn’t make as much sense without it. There isn’t really a bad track on the album and it’s certainly more interesting than anything you’re likely to hear on the radio at the moment. Defiantly worth a listen.

The soundtrack is released December 7th through Volcom Entertainment.

As British Skate flicks go, Heel Toe Magic has to be the most eagerly anticipated video to come out this year. Any video with Andy Evans name attached to it turns into skate gold, and following the trailer, it seemed as though this film would not disappoint.

The video starts off promisingly with a typical Andy Evan’s-esque domino train of DVDs, DV tapes and some other unusual stuff. Following this, we join the famous Skate Relic Hunter Marc Churchill on his hunt for the magical Kingpin. This sequence is low-budget production at it’s best and had me laughing out loud.

After meeting sir Bob of Bobbington, we’re treated with a section from the UK’s rising star Ben Raemers. This section is filled with some bowl and ramp based madness and some street bangers on some decent sized handrails. It’s also worth mentioning that the last trick in the section is amazing, a great opening to the DVD. Following this is a montage from a whole bunch of skaters, with cameos from Joe Lynskey, Marc Churchill and Tom Penny to name a few. Slightly larger sections of this montage are set aside for Joe Moore, a Works local with a crazy bag of flip-in flip-out manual craziness, Kris Vile, who gets massive pop, skates fast and does it with style and Ross McGouran who has come a long way, doing difficult tricks over big stairsets; along with one of the most stylish nollie inward heels over a set I’ve seen in a good long time.

After a bizarre look into the history of Skateboarding, we’re taken to have a look inside the freestyle room. In this section, Darran Nolan brings the ruckus with a range of flip-in flip-out ledge and manny tricks along with some downright crazy flatland flip trickery. For most of this section I actually felt as though the slow motion wasn’t slow enough to see what was happening. Accompanying Darran once more is Callum Bowran, bringing his old school freestyle tricks to the party. Next up is a full section from Greg Nowik, whose section seems to have come straight from the early nineties; clearly he’s been messing around with the Time Machine he developed in This n That. As you could expect, this section is filled of later-than-late shoves, benihanas and a whole host of coping tech. There’s even a brief cameo from “Street Nowik”, so there’s something for everyone here!

Jeff the Ffej Hedges is up next, continuing the 80s comeback Claus Grabke had started in a typical comical fashion; also giving us the greatest skater the world has ever known. Following this is a full section from Stevie Thompson section, which is full of some pretty shocking tricks on a range of unusual obstacles. The most enjoyable thing about this section is just how relaxed the skating is; which left me wondering just how his mind works! After this is a montage featuring Rupert Antoine, James Kilpatrick and Matt Ransom who all have some pretty amazing tricks, Matt having an amazing kickflip wallride which was one of my personal favourite tricks of the whole film. The main attraction of this section however was Aaron Revell, who managed to bust out a huge array of late tricks over a hip, still managing to throw in the odd massive stairset trickery.

Up next is another montage featuring Amir Williams’ fast and fluid tricks, Louis Cooper with some nice street skating; including a smooth hardflip 5-0 midline, and Ollie Smith who has some pretty cool tricks and an awesome final trick. As with the Andy Evans’ previous projects, this video features a contests and demos section with all the best tricks from loads of events across the past few years. This section is a great testament to the standard of skating that gets put down at contests from UK based skaters, the Manny Mania footage from Craig Smedley, Avi and Mike Wright (to name a few) being downright outstanding. There’s also some footage from UK legend Andy Scott and some demo footage from a whole bunch of international pros, including Sheckler, Haslam, Lutzka and many others.

In spite of a whole host of impressive demos, the secret is that shoe sales are still down. The solution, it seems, is simple; an intergalactic skate tour led by Mark Munson and a size 5000 D3! Upon his glorious return, he found the time to get a good amount of footage for his section in this video, with some good old-fashioned pool and bowl shredding. Next in the montage is Pete King with some miniramp and ledge tech, followed by Carl Wilson, who begins his part with a massive blunt, which sets the tone for the rest of his footage. Finally, there’s some footage from Adam Howe, who skates some massive rails and gaps, mixed in with a bunch of insane park footage.

Another montage is up next, starting with Tom Knox and James Gardner who throw down some smooth stylish street footage. This is followed by some Chris Oliver footage, which is always a treat. For this section, he seems to focus on specific items at Pioneer and Bay 66 skateparks and just tear them apart. Closing up the montage is UK vert champion Sam Beckett, showing us just how he has managed this, his section including the first 720 performed by a UK rider; very impressive stuff.

Finishing up the video is a full-length section from Mike Wright who has recently started riding for Almost Skateboards. After his hilarious first meeting with the “Messiah”, a legendary skateboarder who keeps everything right in the world of skateboarding, Mike sets about destroying Hebdon Park and the Works with some lateflip madness and massive airs. This is easily the high point of the video, his section featuring 270 ollie underflips over hips, flatland tech and a line with both a later varial flip AND a flip bs smith on bench midway through! I personally had to watch this section through several times to get to grips with it, simply outstanding! As the video winds down, we’re also treated to a closing montage of slams, silliness and various other bits and bobs that didn’t fit in anywhere else.

Overall, this video is downright fantastic. On top of the main feature, which is over an hour in length, there are a bunch of extras including a whole second section from Mike Wright and an extended Manny Mania video; all of which for just £5. This film is great value for money and a great watch start to finish. While some of the footage is recorded a little strangely, it’s easy to overlook this, as the quality of the skating is so high. It’s a mostly park based affair, but there’s also a load of incredible street skating too, so it should be worth a watch for anyone into skateboarding. It’s also worth mentioning that this DVD is fantastically funny for all it’s silliness and will undoubtedly have you laughing out loud. Andy Evans has managed to put together what will no doubt be a timeless classic that you’ll be able to watch over and over again.

Review by Fozzz

As the third official instalment of the Flip video timeline, Extremely Sorry has an awful lot to live up to. Does
this unruly mob still have the golden touch? Will Tom Penny produce a video part that stands up to his legend? Will Lance Mountain ever have his eyebrows plucked?

To kick things off, a tribute to the late Shane Cross, who whilst no longer in the realm of the living has a great part filled with lots of clever little animated touches that give this tribute an otherworldly appeal. A seam of clay-mation introductions and a bespoke dj soundtrack, which will polarise viewer’s opinions hold the rest of the video together. Personally I like them, they make Extremely Sorry distinct in a market full of HD tracking shots and reversed loops of pigeons and flowers set to the tones of last yeas indy hits.

Geoff Rowley, who at this time needs no introduction follows Shane’s more than respectable array of tricks with a glut of interesting, creative and down right suicidal manoeuvres, without wanting to give away the tricks too much; the ollie impossible seems to have staged a full comeback throughout the duration of Extremely Sorry.

Next we move on to Louie Lopez, who is the first of the Flip uber ams to come under our scrutiny, with an impressive array of block technicality and filthy street gaps and stairs is certainly a bright hope for years to come!

Following Louie’s impressive debut is Rodrigo Tx, Brazilian foot mathematician and former The Firm rider. Rodrigo sets the bar high for switch stanced trickery so high that I wonder if there is even a point in him having a dominant stance anymore. Super hard tricks done in lines and a pop that is not to be sniffed at adds another point to the tally of this videos high points.

Now, after a court jester like claymation segue comes the infamous Ali Boulala, who comes equipped with an awful lot of silliness and some outrageously scary antics set to a sleazy rendition of the pink panther theme, possibly a match made in heaven.

Bob, Bob, Bob, just what have you done to skateboarding? This isn’t an accusation of selling out; it’s a question of disbelief as Bob Burnquist simultaneously destroys his mega-ultra-hyper ramp and every brain cell used to calculate the sheer lunacy and difficulty on display. Simply unfathomable.

Luan Oliveria comes correct with a part that could stand toe to toe with PJ Ladd at his peak and come off the better. A flawless, interesting style storming through combinations and lines that would give lesser men a headache followed by an awesome-induced heart attack.

Sadly Luan’s obscene dexterity flows into possibly the weakest element of the video – Bob’s canyon stunt-work. Whilst visually impressive, it adds nothing to the video except a longer running time. But don’t let this put you off finishing the video.

Curren Caples fires off a segment of shorter sections, each of which impresses, a special mention goes to Willow’s laser flipping skills and Ben Nordberg’s casual lip tricks.

Rune Glifberg should be superfluous to proceedings due to the carnage seen in Bob’s part, but instead what we have here is a work of balls-out concrete park fun, a very different take on transition skating and entirely welcome!

Tom Penny, the man, the myth, with an insurmountable legacy, this part whilst entirely good and peppered with some good transition and manny combinations would never ever live up to the mystique cultivated over the years.

Lance Mountain has a part that is unlike anything from the last decade, filmed entirely in one pool and made to look like it has been shot in a single day it harks back to a perceived better time of the golden era Powell-Peralta videos. Whilst the skating is top notch it is the overall feel of Lance’s part that really leaves an impression.

The previous Flip efforts both had a common trait that Mark Appleyard’s parts were a highlight. This is no exception, Appleyard has a balanced slice of street action with a variety of stunts being laid down on all manner of objects, with the same natural casualness no matter how intense it gets.

And with the closing curtains we have David Gonzales who chaotically and compellingly shuts down every spot he takes with an unconventional but never forced feeling trick selection, his part is truly impressive as it leaves you feeling that he is truly capable of anything and that whatever comes next surely won’t be what we’re expecting. A part full of solid fast curve-ball skating and a fitting way to close a fine video. I can only finish this review buy saying that if you want to see it, then buy it as it is truly worth your hard earned cash, a well presented showcase of an alarming level of talent that never takes itself overly seriously, it can only be winner.

The Square Ones are one of the best shoes to come out of éS in a good while at least in terms of the look and style of them – they look seriously good. As with most éS shoes they’re available in multiple colours so you should be able to find a pair to your tastes.

They’re slightly on the thin side which means you can feel a lot more of your board, this kind of comprises their comfort on the top of your foot but not anything you can’t live with. They also have an decent amount of grip which I put to the test on some snowy days!

I was pretty impressed with every part of this shoe except with how they skate, I found the shape slightly inhibits flip tricks – although this might just be me. I had to spend a fair bit of time relearning certain tricks which I don’t usually have to do with new shoes.

They also failed the durability test as a hole started appearing after only a week of solid skating which is disappointed to say the least. Overall a good pair of shoes style wise but they fall just short of being a good shoe for skating.

The DVS Daewon CT is designed to be simple as requested by the man himself, I found this to be fairly true when I brought a pair – the design is simple and there isn’t any overly complicated features which can be a good thing.

In terms of comfort, they’re pretty comfortable once you’ve worn them in but until that happens I found them to be fairly stiff which affected how they skated originally – it took a good couple of days of skating to properly wear them in but after I did I was fairly impressed with what they had to offer. Because of the simplicity you do have a good feel of the board and flip tricks are easy to perform, they lacked a little bit in terms of grip but this didn’t affect my tricks in a major way.

For all the good this shoe brings in terms of actually skater, their lack of durability let them down in a big way. They pretty much started to give way to holes after only a week or so and after 3-4 weeks they were pretty much toast and new shoes were needed. Overall if you can afford a new pair of shoes after a month then by all means buy these cause they do skate well but if not give them a miss.