UK Charts: Splinter Cell unseats Potter as PS2 sales surge

Ubisoft's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow has taken the top spot in the UK sales charts this week, moving up one place to unseat EA's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban thanks to strong sales of its recently released PS2 version.

In fact, sales of the PS2 version of Pandora Tomorrow, which was launched a fortnight ago, several months after the PC and Xbox versions of the game, climbed 34 per cent this week - a strong performance which sealed the number one spot for the game.

The Potter title dropped just one place to number two, while there was another small shuffle in third and fourth place, as EA's UEFA Euro 2004 title swapped places with Rockstar's Red Dead Revolver to take third place in the chart.

Three new entries made it into the top ten, with Activision's movie tie-in Shrek 2 at number five being the highest ranked, followed by Atari's Driv3r at number six - with the Reflections developed title only charting at all because of broken street dates at several retailers. Atari will be hoping for a number one placing next week, with the title on general release.

The last new release in the top ten is Nintendo's Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour on the GameCube, which enters the chart at number ten - a respectable enough performance for a niche title, although Nintendo certainly deserve a slap on the wrist for taking almost an entire year since its American arrival to launch the title in Europe.

The only other new releases anywhere in the chart were Atari's Shadow Ops: Red Mercury, which popped up at number 28, and Sega's GBA title Sonic Advance 3, which appeared at number 39. A number of games re-entered the top 40 thanks to retailer discounting, though - with Championship Manager: Season 03/04 appearing at number 12, while Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 re-entered at number 24.

In terms of the missing in action list, Empire's Mashed and Atari's .hack: Mutation failed to show up in the rankings despite generally decent critical response to both; less surprisingly, Asterix and Obelix XXL also failed to chart anywhere, with England presumably not in the mood for any more wacky Gallic antics just at the moment (it's a soccer reference, for the benefit of our American readers...)

Next week sees a veritable cornucopia of delights arriving on game retail shelves in Europe as publishers dash to get titles out in time for the end of the second calendar quarter. Highlights include THQ's Full Spectrum Warrior, the official launch of Atari's Driv3r, Vivendi's Ground Control II and other possible contenders like Koei's Samurai Warriors, Crash Bandicoot Fusion, Everquest spin-off Champions of Norrath and Nintendo's Donkey Kong Country 2.