I was just wondering if anyone could help explain this to me cause the line between high poly and low poly is kinda unclear to me.  my goal is to make a game that meets the quality of last gen systems such as playstation 2, x box, and game cube. so it can be plaid on a wide range of computers. for instance, how many polygons should a character in real time have? or how many polygons can you have on screen at a time?

completely depends on the limitations of the engine your using, and what type of game it is

3Ds Max 2012+Sp2 +SAP, Vray 2.2, Photoshop CS5.1
OS - Windows 7 Pro x64 Sp1
sys1: i7 2600k (OC to 4.2GHz), 16GB 1600mhz DDR3 Ram, MSI GTX 580 (3GB) (295.51), OCZ vertex 2 120GB SSD, Wacom Intuos 3
sys2: i7 2600k (OC to 4.2GHz), 16GB 1600mhz DDR3 Ram, MSI GTX 560 (1GB) (295.51), wacom bamboo

There are some nice threads about this at CGTalk:

Video Game Polycount/Texture Limit/Laws [current/next gen]
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=39&t=481174

Valuable Game Art Threads/How To/Guidelines
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=39&t=459427

E. K. Anna Hennequet [FA]