UK Charts: Spider-Man 2 stays on top through release drought

Activision's movie license Spider-Man 2 has stayed on top of the UK software sales chart for a third week, as a period largely bereft of major new full-price releases saw no movement in the top four titles.

Sales of Spider-Man 2 remained strong, and the title outsold the rest of the top five combined, buoyed by positive reviews and strong word of mouth for both the game and the movie on which it is based.

Atari's Driv3r, Activision's Shrek 2 and Sony's Athens 2004 held their places at second, third and fourth respectively, while EA's Need for Speed Underground moved back up into the top five courtesy of a budget re-release, climbing two places to this week's number five.

Indeed, it was EA's swathe of budget releases that provided most of the interest in this week's chart; FIFA 2004 was also climbing, up two places to number eight, while Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 was the largest riser in the top 40, up five places to number ten with a sales increase of 38 per cent.

There isn't really a missing in action list for this week, since nothing was actually launched last Friday apart from Army Men - Sarge's Heroes on PS2 and Xbox. The coming week also looks quiet; Sony's Formula One 2004 is set to arrive on Friday, and is probably the biggest new release in a week which also sees Zoo Digital delivering the PC version of The Suffering, Ubisoft releasing the GameCube version of Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow and Jaleco launching World Championship Pool 2004 across all four main platforms.