Using WordPress 3.0 to create a searchable database

This is more of a theoretical application question than anything else.

I’m designing a website for a group devoted to serving a niche game community; one of the the features that they want for the site is a searchable database of games belonging in this community.

Thus far, I’ve assumed that another individual would “make” this database, but then it occurred to me that WordPress 3.0 MIGHT be used to do it using custom post types. (I’m still learning to use WordPress and program in PHP, so I’m looking for feedback on the viability of this idea.)

Basically, this game database would need to be searchable, its results segregated from the rest of the website (blog posts, articles, pages, etc). It would need to be searched based on set criteria (engine, number of players, theme, etc). Each game should have it’s own unique page generated (for descriptions, links to other parts of the site that might relate, images, etc).

Possible?

How difficult would this be?

Would it be safe (or even wise) to contain this database in the same MySQL database used by the rest of the WP site (which has news posts, and a sort of academic journal)?

Is there a plug-in already in existence that has similar functionality to this (the less I have to do the better.. hehe)?