UK Charts: Matrix holds No.1 slot

Enter The Matrix has made it three weeks at the top, with very little movement anywhere else in the All Formats Top 40 after a poor week for new releases.

EA's Sims bandwagon continued rolling, with the 400th Sims expansion pack The Sims: Superstar doing rather nicely, thank you, at No.2, while the standalone The Sims moved up a place to No.4. Elsewhere, The Sims: Unleashed was the highest climber up seven places to No.23, while the stagnant waters of the PC Full Price chart feature no fewer than five Sims related titles.

The surprise hit of the summer, however, is gangsta rapper beat 'em up Def Jam Vendetta, which rises to the heady heights of No.3. There really is no stopping EA, is there? Scanning through the rest of the listings, Midnight Club II continues to sell well - now at No.7 - and will benefit from the release of the Xbox version this week, while Silent Hill 3 continues its slightly quiet start, down one place to No.8 despite being released in Europe first.

The much-loved The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker remains the sole GameCube exclusive title in the Top 40, up to No.9, dethroning Enter The Matrix as the format's No.1 seller.

Return To Castle Wolfenstein: Tides Of War, meanwhile, is the Xbox's soles exclusive representative, down to No.18 on the listings, while ETM holds firm as the Xbox's top seller, as well as the PS2's.

With sod all out last Friday, new entries were at a premium, with Konami's Dancing Stage MegaMix making a deceptively disappointing debut at No.40 in the All Formats, and No.12 in the PS2 chart. We say 'deceptive' as we know full well that over the next two years or more that this will take residence in the charts, as the PSone versions did recently.

Other new entries were hard to come by, with Music 3000 entering at No.15 on the PS2 chart and No.34 in the All Format Full Price chart, and Capcom's rather pointless Resident Evil 2 and 3 re-issues entering the GameCube-only chart at No.7 and No.11 respectively. Meanwhile, the apparently much sought after Ikaruga has shot its bolt already, tumbling down to No.13 on the Cube chart after less than two weeks on sale. The similarly excellent Wario Ware has also died a horrible death already, slumping to No.13 in the GBA chart, again, after less than two weeks on sale.

Next week, the picture is likely to be much the same, with only a few ports going to interest the punters. Splinter Cell on GameCube and GBA finally get a release, the PS2-only Return To Castle Wolfenstein: Operation Resurrection will do well; Red Faction II might pick up a few stragglers on Xbox, PC and Cube, while the Xbox version of Midnight Club II will be interesting.