The screen turns on, and a menu pops up with many tantalizing options: Start, Options, and Multiplayer – so many choices. But what is this screen?

There are many students at CHS who could be called “gamers,” but there is a sharp divide between those that play on consoles, and those that play on Microsoft Personal Computers.

“The advantages of using a PC are great.” junior Andrew Knox said. “When on a PC, one has more freedom to customize games such as through mods or custom control layouts.”

The most basic difference between the two styles of play is that one is for consoles such as Xbox, PlayStation, or Wii, while the other is for the PC.

“The biggest difference between my system and the other is the controller; the different feels and adjustments of the controller make people unable to switch between systems.” junior Evan Heger said. “Some people even modify controllers, allowing you to utilize every button more efficiently.”

These differences, while not seeming to be that important, are the cause of a split between console gamers and PC gamers.

“Most people usually side with one or the other,” junior Paul Armstrong said, “Some PC gamers play on console just for the console-exclusive games.”

An argument for console gaming is that it is the more traditional style of play; most people who are gamers today got into it from playing on the Nintendo Entertainment System or the Nintendo 64 or the PlayStation. It is what people grew up with, and what they are used to.

“On a console, players are usually laying on the couch with a controller.” Armstrong said. “On PC players are 2 feet away from the monitor, sitting upright with twitchy mouse controls allowing them to pull off quick maneuvers. If you play on console, the game-play experience will be much more relaxed.”

However, a game system can become obsolete the moment the next generation of that system comes out, as the vast majority of the games designed for the system will not be playable on the previous generation.

“On a PC you will never have to buy a new gen system, like console gamers do, in order to play the latest games.” Knox said. “You can upgrade individual parts of your PC so it can perform better. Also PC games can have better graphics because a upgraded system can perform better than a console.”