UK Charts: SOCOM No.1 at last
Console online gaming gets its first UK No.1.
PS2 online gaming lynchpin SOCOM: US Navy Seals finally made it to the top of the UK All Formats chart, dethroning Enter The Matrix after its six week stint in pole position.
There was plenty of movement in the chart this week, notably Empire's biggest hit in years, Starsky & Hutch, which moved up to No.8, while Activision's Elite Force II plummeted equally impressively from No.13 to No.27, while Return To Castle Wolfenstein: Operation Resurrection fell from No.12 to No.23.
Predictably, both Harry Potter titles shot up the charts, with Chamber Of Secrets up from No.26 to No.12 and Philosopher's Stone up ten places to No.15.
Recent big releases such as The Sims: Superstar (No.3), Midnight Club II (No.4) Hulk (No.5), and Brute Force (No.7) held their own, while stalwarts The Sims (No.9), Vice City (No.6), and Splinter Cell (No.11) are continuing to attract new punters.
In an unusually busy summer week for new releases, Codemasters took top honours with the No.10 debut of World Championship Snooker (Xbox/PS2). KOEI's PS2-only Dynasty Warriors 4 made a respectable No.13 debut, Microsoft's Xbox only Midtown Madness 3 entered at No.14, while EA's multi-format F1 Career Challenge only made it to No.24, suggesting the public's desire for another F1 game is well and truly dead.
Speaking of the dead, THQ's Evil Dead: A Fistful Of Boomstick debuted at No.33 (helped no doubt by the bundled copy of Evil Dead II on DVD), while Sega's dead horse Sonic Adventure DX on GameCube entered at a fairly anonymous No.35. Meanwhile, the rather excellent Wario World disappeared from the Top 40 after just one week, compounding the miserable performance of the Cube once again.
Next week's chart should see the arrival of the lambasted Tomb Raider: Angel Of Darkness on PS2, Sony's EyeToy, NeverWinter Nights: Shadow Of Undrentide, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, LucasArts' intriguing Hal Barwood (of Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis/The Dig fame) action adventure RTX Red Rock, and possibly Acclaim's lacklustre Burnout clone Speed Kings and SX Superstar.