The last Metroid is in captivity. The Galaxy is at peace...

Right, just like how people will think of Bugs Bunny or Mickey Mouse when people say "cartoons," despite the fact that Bugs and Mickey are far less relevant to their genre today than Mario is to his own.

*Looks for Resident Evil

*Slowly walks out of room

Out of your list, I'd have to say Mario (at least the platformers) simply because they've stayed consistently similar but good throughout their life. However, I find the new 2D Mario games pretty boring these days so it wouldn't be my personal pick.

Since you mentioned consistency - which I'd agree is a factor in picking it - makes it so much harder. For example, so many series I used to love died with more recent releases - the original Spyro Trilogy are three of my favourite games ever, but the new stuff is trite. Some series just die out altogether - Wild ARMs.

So, of the games I play, it would come down to two - WipEout and Ratchet & Clank. Yeah yeah, I know, both small Sony franchises - sue me. I've played one bad game in both series (Fusion and All 4 One) while I've really loved all the other games equally. Certainly in terms of consistency they both deliver. (edit: LittleBigPlanet is well on the way to getting there too, but 2 main releases and a portable spin-off isn't exactly a big enough franchise just yet)

At the end of the PS1 era I'd have said Final Fantasy. Every single main-series title up until they had been absolutely outstanding quality. But I didn't enjoy X at all and haven't really liked any of them since then. Based on past merits though, it would have been FF.

That was a really interesting list.  And one I kind of agree with.  Although I don't follow all of those series religiously, all the games I have played in them were really good.  Props for mentioning R&C though.

Except Command & Conquer.  I'm not even one of those "EA RUINED IT" kinda guys, because I really enjoyed Red Alert 3.  But I thought Tiberium Wars & Twilight were both sub-par, especially compared to what had come before.

Whats wrong with Mario?

I would probably say the Ace Attorney series from what I have played as of now, which is the three first titles. I hope that the new Ace Attorney will release sometime soon. If there is another candidate, then it's Pokémon. Been replaying the mystery dungeon series recently and still am.

If I HAD to choose I'd say Zelda. The truth is though that I can't really choose. I love Zelda, Mario, Doom, Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat and Gears of War too much to choose my clear favourite.

Zelda, by a huge margin. There is no other series that even comes close to having three games as good as LTTP, Ocarina, and Majora's Mask imo. In fact I've liked every Zelda game I have ever played, and I have played all of them except for Skyward Sword. But those three games would all go in my all-time top 10 probably, and there's no other series that can remotely match that to me.

Uncharted for me.