Yeah, there is no reason a 3D engine cant totally duplicate the look of a 2D isometric tile. For some cases its definitely a good way to go.

-Geoff

I saw that game and it looks great, and my question is if you were to make a game in 3D like that would you need a special engine or could you use a generic 3D engine and just do the rendering in the iso view? And if you can use a generic 3D engine how might you go about doing the graphics or would it be just like implementing regular 3D graphics? Also Geoff sorry to trouble you but I was wondering if you were going to make your game engine avialable to others eather for pay or for free, cause I'm trying to make a game but I'm not a programmer and I want to make it a free game but all the game engines that would work for my game are $20,000.00 and up if you would rather reply off list my e-mail is... mclarnon@cybertours.com.

Thanks
Phade

I've never tried it, but I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to use a 3D engine to make an isometric game. After all, isometric projections are a form 3D projection, they just aren't normally done in real-time.

http://www.advanced-productions.com/discovery/disc_screenshots.html

Following a line from flipcode, i ran across a game which uses a 3d engine projecting to near isometric perspective. Whats notable about this game is the level of detail vs screen area nearly matches a tradational 2d isometric engine.

-ddn

True. Any time you apply a generic solution to a specific problem you are probably going to see lower performance than writing code specific to your purpose. So although you COULD use a generic 3D engine for an iso game, whether or you SHOULD is up to you, and it depends a lot on the engine you choose and what elements of it your game would use.