I've spent a good amount of time in my days playing games and I'm typically one who will want to play them and get my money's worth. I figured I'd compile a couple top 10s of my favorite games with near unlimited replayability. I think it's pretty obvious that consoles will have the better Platform, FPS and RPG games, PC will have the RTSes and Handheld will have the Simulation and Puzzle games.
Some games will be excluded from this specific list due to having what I fell are better version on different platforms. Some games will include fallbacks for games that I know other people would prefer and the focus will primarily be on the single player components of the games.
10. Borderlands
Borderlands is a very unique game on so many levels. The graphics are really cool. The weapon system and player abilities are pretty cool. There are tons of quests to complete and quirky characters to interact with. The game is a lot of fun solo, but can be even more fun if you team up with some friends. It would be much higher on the list if it was longer, had more diverse enemies, and more diverse environments (you run around in caves and junk yards way too much).
9. Resident Evil
The original on Playstation was great, but the Game Cube remake brought it to a whole new level of awesome. The remastered graphics made the game absolutely terrifying to play. New game features included Lisa Trevor, an invincible monstrous creature that shows up through out the game, Crimson Heads, fast dangerous zombies from corpses of "dispatched" zombies that you didn't burn, and a slew of additional content for completing the game on different difficulties. Word of advice from me, don't play this game in the dark.
8. Left 4 Dead (1 & 2)
Zombie games are fun. FPS games are fun. This is the perfect equation. Both games have their perks and stuff. There are 6 campaigns for each game (if you include DLC) with between 3 and 4 levels for each campaign. L4D adds a new definition to "Random Encounter". Normal baddies are randomly placed, special infected are randomly placed, bosses are randomly placed and "crescendo events" are random. Just about everything in this game is random! Playing online with strangers can be really frustrating. I tried to play through a level I setup on Hard and everyone joining the game kept voting the difficulty down to easy.
7. Mario Kart
Any console version of the game. My brother and I played the SNES and N64 versions a lot. Both had great game play, fun levels and really great battle modes. The Game Cube version is probably the one I would choose for most replayability. The multi driver karts were fun and the mirror mode tracks added a very fun challenge. I really didn't care much for the Wii game. The AI was way too difficult. The retro tracks were great though.
6. Mega Man: Anniversary Collection
This is cheating a little bit, but it's hard to pass up a collection like this. Personally, I prefer 3 above all others, but I understand why 2 is also considered one of the best. The anniversary collection provides the original 8 games with an easy version of the games. I owned this for the Game Cube and Xbox and would buy it again.
5. Super Mario 64
There are very few things I don't like about this game. The music is amazing, the levels are challenging and the graphics are perfect. I think I would have liked Zelda: Ocarina of Time more if the graphics were like this game. I recall frequently climbing to the top of the mountain the first level and just looking down at the level in awe. This was my first true 3D game and it set the bar extremely high.
4. Halo: Reach
The first four games tell a great story of the end of the war with the Covenant. ODST had the coolest way of telling a story and is by far my favorite. ODST lacks replay-ability. All of the games mention "Reach" in some way and this game fills in all of the details. It also opens up a whole new can of worms for back stories. The Firefight Mode, Daily/Weekly challenges and character customization allows for a lot of extra content after you get bored of the campaign and don't want to play against other people.
3. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to The Past / Ocarina of Time
Personally, I'm most fond of LTTP, but I understand why people enjoy OoT. I've played through LTTP many times on many platforms and it never gets old to me. There are plenty of ways for the player to challenge themselves. The player can do dungeons out of order in the later part of the game, play through the game in one sitting and not getting killed leaving the death counter at 000 (this only works on the SNES version as Saving and Quitting on it count as a death), or play through the game without picking up any heart pieces and challenge Ganon with only 3 hears.
OoT includes a more detailed storyline, colorful graphics, and challenging puzzles. I really enjoy the game, but it doesn't appeal to me like LTTP did.
2. Final Fantasy
I'm a big fan of the early Final Fantasies (1 through 10). I've completed all of them up to 10 with the exception of 3. The DS version didn't compel me and the NES version was too hard. If I had to go with one, I'd go with the original. Four and six are my favorite, but the first is the most replayable. The original allowed the player to customize their party at the beginning of the game and stick with it through the end. The player can plan to have a balanced party of Warrior, Monk, Black Mage and White Mage or they can choose an extreme challenge and select 4 White Mages. The story is lacking, but the challenge definately makes up for it.
1. Chrono Trigger
This is no surprise to people who know me. The plus game feature allowed me to play through the game at least 30 times and got all characters to level ** (this is the level 100). The game features great game play, a stellar soundtrack and a compelling story to save the world. This game introduced a ton features that were new to me in gaming. They had dual and triple attacks that would combine several characters skills into powerful attacks. There were different endings based on story paths and when you choose to complete the game. I can easily consider this the most replayable game I've ever played and is a must have for retro gamers.