Maybe a bit older but must play- descent 2 (3 looks awesome but i havent tried) thief 2 hitman 2 black and white
Call yourself lucky as I, a PC classic expert is going to help you. Deus Ex- Don't call yourself as a lover of creativity and revolutionary ideas if you do not play it. came out in 2000 and often regarded as one of the greatest game of all time and almost definitely the greatest PC game of all time. I am not joking and this not just my opinion but critics as well. Another classics you should take a look is Planescape: Torment. Hands down the "truest" RPG ever. But....do yourself a favor....X-COM:UFO Defense/Enemy Unknown. If you do not play it, I think the world will end very soon and I will not forgive myself for failing to convince a youngster like you to play this cult classic. It's up there as the greatest game of all time along with the aforementioned Deus Ex and a few other games.
Command & Conquer: Red Alert to be exact And yeah! "Shake it Baby! I'm there!" <- C&C: Red Alert's Tanya reference. That one surely fits the time frame the topic starter is looking into. So are Warcraft 2 & Commandos.
Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (1997). This game is one of my favorites, and is the first Star Wars game to feature Good/Evil Choices, with two different ending. The game's graphics aren't anything special, so you should be able to run it (There's tons of mods and such available to make the game look a little prettier, but I personally prefer it's original graphics). The most memorable thing about this game though is that it features Live Action Cutscenes, with Real Actors, and of course CG Effects. Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II: Mysteries of the Sith (1998). Expansion for Dark Forces II. Doesn't have Live Action Cutscenes, but it's still really fun. There's demos available for both those Star Wars Games, so give them a go. Warhammer 40k Dawn of War (2004). The game is from 2004, but you should be able to run it (I can run it on my Netbook, so that says something about playability. For me the game lags up when there are lots of units on screen). I've only played the demo, and it is pretty fun. It's a good strategy game. Like I said, you should be able to run it. So try the demo yourself and see what you think. The Half Life 1 Trilogy (Half Life, Half Life: Blue Shift, Half Life Opposing Forces). All the games are really fun, and they should run on your computer just fine, they run on mine just fine, and I have an underpowered netbook. Like the other games I mentioned, there is a Half Life Demo called "Half Life Uplink" which is sort of a special Demo level, and not a level from the actual game. You should be able to run all these games just fine, judging by what you have already played. If you can play KOTOR and Jedi Academy and such, these games should be no problem for your computer to handle. They're not as graphically demanding as KOTOR either, and you said you get a bit of lag from KOTOR, so as I said, they should work good.
Battle Zone 2 + Forgotten Enemies and Flesh Storm mods Tachyon the Fringe Dark Reign 2 Halo Delta Force 3 Land Warrior CnC Renegade Starwars Battle Front 2 Heavy Gear Heavy Gear 2 Unreal Doom Home World Tiberian Sun + Firestorm expansion Red Alert 2 + Yuri's Revenge expansion All will run on 512 mb ram, 64 mb vid card, and p4 class cpu. Im listing BFII because that WILL run on the hardware you listed. It just won't run on vista. Which speaking of vista... You shouldn't be running vista on specs that low anyway.
You can buy Arcanum for 5 Dollars in Good Old Games Website. They made it Vista Compatible... And like other Games they have there... but meh, Maybe I'm just enjoying myself playing as a Ogre with a Machine Gun...
Hey I just remembered another PC Game I used to love, Black & White! And no, it ain't Pokemon I'm talking about
Divine Divinity, it's like more role-playing Diablo. Plus you can pick up all kind of stuff like bottles, cups, rocks, other useless items - like in TES games.
I already tried. I can get to the menu, but whenever it starts a match, it just crashes. Anyway, I'm running Tiny Vista, which uses just slightly more RAM than XP does.