UK Charts: Hitman makes a killing as Contracts takes the top spot

Eidos' Hitman: Contracts was the best selling game in the UK last week, knocking Codemasters' TOCA Race Driver 2 off the number one spot and holding off a challenge from another new release, EA's Fight Night 2004.

With Fight Night going in aat number two, TOCA dropped to number three after only one week at the top, although it was joined in the top ten by another Codemasters title, as England International Football 2004 debuted at number eight.

A strong week for Codies was topped off by the continued strong sales of LMA Manager, which slid out of the top ten this week but only dropped as far as number eleven.

The rest of the chart was largely unchanged from last week, with no more new entries to be found anywhere in the top 40 - although Serious Sam: The Next Encounter managed a number 16 placing on the Cube chart, and there was an even less promising debut for Star Trek: Shattered Universe, which placed at number 28 in the Budget top 40 chart.

The top ranked GameCube title was Sonic Heroes, and not a single Cube exclusive made it into the top 40 ranking, while the top ranked Xbox game was TOCA Race Driver 2, with Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (number six in the all-formats full price chart) the closest thing the console had to a high-ranked exclusive. However, sales of multi-platform titles on the Xbox continue to perform strongly.

This week's biggest missing in action title was Tecmo's critically acclaimed Project Zero 2: Crimson Butterfly, published in Europe by Ubisoft, which didn't make it into any rankings despite the cult status of its predecessor and generally excellent reviews.

Other games which failed to make the grade this week included PC title Beyond Divinity, Dead Man's Hand on Xbox, Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon on GBA and the much delayed Malice.

Next week sees a new football title from the EA stable, with UEFA Euro 2004 almost certain to grab the top spot for the publishing behemoth, while the only other new title of any real note is Atari's PS2-exclusive Transformers - which should hopefully sell on the back of being a very good game as well as on a wave of 80's nostalgia.