4 JANUARY 4-10, 2024 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Hello, Halo 3 BY BENNITO L. KELT Y For gamers across the country, Glendale, Colorado, is a special place. Although it’s a small enclave tucked inside Denver with fewer than 5,000 residents, Glendale has an impressive array of brick-and-mortar stores that have survived the rise of digital shopping and now offer a slice of nostalgia from the time before online services like Amazon Prime butted in. Shoppers can drop by the Glendale Super Tar- get (reportedly the nation’s busiest) and even visit Barnes & Noble for books and random bathroom stops. However, it’s a GameStop on South Colorado Boulevard that’s become the area’s real draw. Plastered on the windows of one side of the store, a Halo 3 mural from 2007 has captured the attention of gamers around the world — with posts online garnering mil- lions of likes and views in recent years. “That wallpaper brought back memories of camping out for video games, memories with your friends,” explains Oscar Castillo, the founder of the online pop-culture platform Modern Notoriety. “Those things don’t hap- pen anymore, as games are downloaded now. It’s lost in memories.” Castillo and Modern Notoriety are based in Chicago, but he found out about the Glendale window mural from a fan of his platform. The mural depicts Master Chief, the main character in the popular mili- tary science fi ction Halo video game series. Castillo shared pictures of the mural with his Instagram followers in a December 12 post, and it seemed to get nothing but love. The post received more than 91,000 likes and over 1,200 comments, mostly praising the store’s commitment to such an iconic video game. “When we shared it, people were very emotional, because it brought back memories of their childhood,” Castillo says. “It stands out because of the signifi cance of the game, the era, the timing, everything.” The Instagram post reached Brenden Po- teet, a college freshman in Columbia, Mis- souri. After he saw it, he decided to carve out time on his winter vacation to pay his respects to the mural. “Seeing something in person from that time is just awesome,” Poteet says. “Halo is one of the fi rst games I ever played as a little kid. It’s like one of my favorite gaming franchises ever.” Poteet was born in 2005, making him too young to remember when Halo 3 came out, but he says that his dad “would host these little sessions at his house where he’d be playing Halo with some of his friends. As I got older, I got to appreciate Halo more and more for what it actually is and enjoy the story and the lore. So we came to Glendale to see this awesome piece of gaming history.” He brought childhood friend Ben Morlan along with him to the GameStop on December 27 and posed in front of the mural while Mor- lan took his picture. Even though Poteet owns a helmet like the one Halo characters wear, he forgot it at his dorm in Missouri, and instead posed with a black Stormtrooper helmet. “It’s Star Wars, I know,” Poteet says. “I just wanted to be able to get proof of myself being here.” Morlan recalls seeing “pictures of this mu- ral fl oating around on the internet for the past couple of years. It’s cool that there’s a remnant from this game when it fi rst came out.” Poteet and Morlan also both saw the IG post by Mod- ern Notoriety celebrating the mural. “I never knew it was here,” Morlan says. “Once we found out, it was like, ‘We’ve got to go, right?’” The fi rst Halo video game came out exclu- sively for the original Xbox console in 2001, with more than fi ve million copies sold. More than a dozen sequels have come out since then, and Halo 3 grossed more than $300 mil- lion. “In 2007, generations were introduced to a new version of multiplayer within the Halo series. Halo 3 in 2007 was peak gaming to the point of it being part of pop culture,” Castillo says. “The music, the rollout, the memories people have of playing with their friends, high school, college — this was something the world was looking forward to.” The Halo mural is on a window that can’t be reached from inside the store; during a renovation more than a decade ago, the owner kept the outer portion of the structure with the window and mural, then built new walls behind it. The mural is now fading and cracking under the sun, with the inside wall preventing it from being touched up. As a result, there are bits of glass stuck in the mural, and part of Master Chief’s shoulder is missing. Despite its condition, Poteet and Morlan are grateful that they could celebrate their love of the Halo series and come close to an artifact from video game history, even if 2007 wasn’t that long ago. “It’s really cool to be able to see something from that time, when I wasn’t able to experience it,” Poteet says. “It’s like a remnant, almost.” Email the author at [email protected]. NEWS KEEP UP ON DENVER NEWS AT WESTWORD.COM/NEWS The Halo 3 mural at the GameStop on South Colorado Boulevard. BENNITO L. KELTY PARK HILL SUPERMARKET High Quality! Huge Variety! Wholesale Prices! Fresh fruit, vegetables, meat & seafood 3770 E 40TH AVE. DENVER, CO 80205 Tel: 303-823-3088 EVERY DAY 9AM-7PM Call Elaine Lustig, PhD .......................................................... at 303-369-7770 Needing Your Emotional ....... Animal W/ You? For eligible people who need their emotional support animal to accompany them at/or away from home, I am available to provide the documentation and counseling. 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