Harry Potter Tops the UK Charts

The teenaged wizard works his magic on the UK and keeps Star Wars at bay.

With Harry, Ron and Hermione taking up position at the top of the UK box office, it comes as little surprise that the tie-in video game has done likewise. The latest Potter game, Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire, caught a healthy jump thanks to its source's theatrical debut and kept Star Wars Battlefront II from victory for another week.

Last week saw a healthy number of new entries to the top 40 but none of them made it into the top 5.

The highest newcomer was Activision's Call of Duty 2: Big Red One in 12th position, which placed a couple spots above the bizarrely poorly selling King Kong movie tie-in. Watch for that misstep to be rectified when Peter Jackson's movie opens in theatres later this year.

You may notice that World Tour Soccer for PSP reared its head in the charts again. This isn't because there was a sudden realization that the game is stellar (it's not), but rather the game - and Pursuit Force in 16th place - caught a serendipitous boost thanks to its bundling with the PSP Giga Pack (which contains a 1 GB memory card).

There were also poor openings this week for Sega's gun-toting mascot game Shadow the Hedgehog in 25th spot and EA's well-reviewed Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, which came in at a lowly 36th place position.

Below are the top 10 games in the UK for the week ending 19 November, as determined by Chart Track:

1. Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire (EA)
2. Star Wars: Battlefront II (Activision)
3. WWE SmackDown! Vs Raw 2006 (THQ)
4. Pro Evolution Soccer 5 (Konami)
5. FIFA 06 (EA)
6. The Matrix: Path of Neo (Atari)
7. World Tour Soccer (Sony)
8. The Sims 2 (EA)
9. Gun (Activision)
10. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (Rockstar)

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games