UK Charts: Tiger on top

Namco's Soul Calibur 2 has been knocked off the top spot in the UK sales charts after only a week, with EA's Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 rising two places to take poll position.

Soul Calibur 2 remains the best-selling GameCube game this week, but Tiger Woods deposes the popular fighting game from the top of the Xbox ranking, while the PS2 chart is headed up by Universal Interactive's Hulk, which rises eighteen places in the PS2 ranking thanks to retailer offers.

Sony's Formula One 2003 is also back in the ranking thanks to bundles and special offers at retail, and as a result, Hulk and Formula One 2003 are at numbers three and four respectively in the All-Formats chart.

It's business as usual for the rest of the chart, however, with SCi's Conflict: Desert Storm II dropping three places to number five, Sony's EyeToy: Play still selling strongly at number six, and Codemasters' Colin McRae Rally 04 down three places to number seven, ahead of three in a row for Electonic Arts - with Freedom Fighters, FIFA 2003 and Medal of Honor: Allied Assault Breakthrough making up the rest of the top ten.

It's a slow week for new releases, however; THQ has two new wrestling franchise titles in the Top 40, with WWE Raw 2 (Xbox) at number 19 and WWE Wrestlemania XIX (Cube) at number 27, while Disney Interactive's Finding Nemo is at number 20. The release of Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior on PC also gives that title a boost, and it's up to number 12 from last week's number 15.

However, there are some key titles which are notable in the Top 40 only by their absence. Where, for example, is Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising, the sequel to one of the best-loved games on that platform? At number three in the GBA chart behind Pokemon Ruby and Pokemon Sapphire, would be the answer - and hence not even in the All-Formats Top 40, although both of the Pokemon games do scrape into the ranking.

Several other new titles also fail to make the Top 40, such as Cenega's UFO: Aftermath, which clocks in at number nine on the PC chart, and Microsoft's excellent Age of Mythology add-on pack, The Titans, which is a place behind it at number ten.

Other titles have disappeared beneath the waves entirely - with Alter Echo and XGRA both failing to chart on any of the rankings, single-platform or otherwise. An early taster of the Christmas release bloodbath?

You can check out the full set of charts right here.