"Halo: Combat Evolved" is back. Sixteen years after Microsoft brought its Xbox flagship to the desktop, Bungie's big green soldier is back with the latest installment of "Halo: The Master Chief Collection." The old soldier is less of an old soldier, missing some features that have been commonplace in FPS design over the past two decades and sporting a rougher 2011 paint job. Still, "Halo" holds up surprisingly well, and 343 Industries has undoubtedly delivered a definitive version of Master Chief's debut in a package that has all the comforts of a modern PC version.

As you can see, "Halo" is still an effortlessly smart shooter. From jackals with shields to giant iron beast hunters that require bullfighter-like skill, every Covenant nuisance you face has its own unique quirks. While not quite as good as the labyrinth, Halo's level design has a Doom-like quality to it.

Similarly, every gun has a purpose. Well, almost every gun. Whereas human weapons fit neatly into their respective roles (shotguns, snipers, and rockets are obvious examples of use), alien guns are a bit inconsistent. Plasma pistols can destroy shields with a single blow, making them a necessity on the higher difficulty levels, while rifles and needlers struggle to find their uses.

Then there's the pistol, whose sidearm at the start of Halo 1 is practically legendary, hitting headshots with deadly accuracy and taking down enemies in one or two shots; like the DMR in Halo Reach, it has the unfortunate effect of unbalancing the weapon, especially on PC. It's the first gun in the game, and it's the first gun in the game to pave the way to victory with a point-and-click.

Later games add more elements, more bad guys to throw in your direction, more quirky weapons to add to your arsenal. However, there is a delightful simplicity to the combat puzzles in "Halo". This simplicity is shared by "Halo's" brutal passages and sprawling levels. Blocky cliffs and simple textures betray their antiquity, but "Halo" still strikes a sharp tone of curious anxiety. Gunfights are punctuated by prolonged silences, and the ambient sounds of the ancient world. Ancient aliens are an overused trope, but even games since "Halo" have failed to depict the "old" world as permanently as the first.

The real horror comes later in the game, but "Halo" warns against complacency from the start. The forests of the Ringworld are lush but surprisingly lifeless. Every time you spend time on the ground in the blinding sunlight, you step into the interior of "Halo." The sterile maze of corridors, antechambers, and bottomless pits reverberate with the reverberations of the oldest machinery imaginable. Each battle with the Covenant leaves violent scars on the structures that have remained untouched for thousands of years.

It's time to address the elephant in the room: Halo has returned to the PC as Halo: CE Anniversary, an updated version of Sabre Interactive's 2011 remaster. Anniversary's "fixes" are something of a tricky thing for longtime "Halo" fans. Models and textures have been reworked in every detail, and lighting and particle effects have been completely redone.

Sometimes it works. There is something exceptionally beautiful about the way the bow of a dropship glistens in the sun as it descends into a sun-drenched canyon. In general, natural landscapes tend to be taken more lightly; Bungie's original environments had a sparse charm, but were extremely blocky. But the quiet atmosphere of "Halo" is lost in Sabre's anything-goes approach to remastering.

Cruel, barren structures that were once supposed to be made of concrete are now a mess of metal, light, and holograms. Levels of zombie-like parasitic "Flood" creatures, once masterpieces of tension building, have lost none of their tone with the saturated new visuals. Because both visual modes use the same collision mesh, invisible walls are frequently found around the trees in Anniversary.

As rough as the visuals are, I was shocked by Anniversary's audio reworking. The new gun sounds focus on how well Bungie reproduces the ambiguous sensation of the gun's feel.

Halo at least maintains the Anniversary's most clever tricks. With the tap of a button, you can switch between the remastered visuals and Bungie's original art, and at 60 FPS, these old assets get the job done, with widescreen and viewing angle support not offered in the Gearbox 2003 port. This release unfortunately carries over some of the effects that were missing from the 2003 port. Most of the time they are hard to notice, just don't look up during the "assault on the control room."

Combat Evolved's multiplayer has been done without any Anniversary meddling; it has everything from the 2003 PC port, including new maps, new weapons, and new vehicles. What's missing are the mods: the best maps for Halo were created for the highly moddable custom editions that were distributed free with the Gearbox release. The "Master Chief Collection" doesn't have many mods yet. What it can offer instead is a more complete multiplayer; the Gearbox port has been a pain to get recently, and is crawling with servers eager to play Blood Gulch 24/7.

Within the matchmaking ecosystem of the MCC, I began playing games on maps and modes I had long since forsaken. While I'm always the first to lament the loss of dedicated servers, there's no reason I shouldn't enjoy playing a full round of Oddball on Damnation.

It is truly fascinating to see "Halo" return to the PC in this way. Packaged with the rest of the "Master Chief Collection," it's easy to see what all the fuss was about 20 years ago. For those who have spent the past two decades turning their "Halo" PCs into chimeras of custom content, the hurdle will be high; what "Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary" offers is a clean slate.