Thursday shorts, part 1: iPad2 "fantastic for games," no dead children in Dead Island, tons more

There's a lot of words out there. Here's all the smaller stuff coming out of GDC, coupled with loads of smaller stuff thatr isn't coming out of GDC. It's like a fusion of smaller stuff.

• Epic's Mark Rein reckons iPad2 is "fantastic for gaming". See him say it on Venturebeat.
• Chair told GDC yesterday that aiming for decent graphics with Infinity Blade meant cutting loads of content. More on Gamefront.
• Battlefield Play4Free has only 10 percent of BF3's budget, Easy's Ben Cousins told GI yesterday.
• 3DS can't run Unreal Engine 3. So stop asking Mark Rein about it, Joystiq.
• EA gave a GDC talk on the design changes made to Isaac for Dead Space 2 yesterday. There's a report on 1UP.
• Kotaku's got a Patapon 3 trailer.
• Halfbrick's next game is Machine Gun Jetpack for iOS. It's a "side-scrolling free-runner," apparently. More on Joystiq.
• Epic's Mark Rein would love to do a yearly Gears of War, like CoD, but can't because he doesn't have the resources. Them's the breaks. More on EG.
• Slam Bolt Scrappers releases on PSN on March 15. It looks cool. Buy it. More on Gamefront.
• Do you want to look at a promotional video of Okamiden plushies and pillows? GoNintendo has you covered.
• Jelsoft MMO Fallen Earth's getting new missions, achievements, PvP objectives, and "special new Scavenger bosses". So says Massively.
• "EverQuest II offering aerial races and time-limited aircraft prizes". We have nothing further to add. Massively does, though.
• The collapse of the USSR helped Yu Suzuki make Virtua Fighter 2 as it opened up military grade graphics. Kotaku has that.
• LucasArts' Kent Hudson reckons player-created stories are important in games. He said so at GDC yesterday. See that on Gamespot.
• 3DS is roughly as powerful as Wii, according to TT Games, speaking at GDC yesterday. Via GoNintendo.
• Toru Iwatani, designer of the original arcade version of Pac-Man, told GDC yesterday how the game cam into being. That's on Gamespot.
• You won't be able to kill children in Dead Island. See at Ripten.
• The 3DS version Tales of the Abyss releases on May 19. Siliconera has that.
• Playdead's Jeppe Carlsen, the lead designer on Limbo, has been talking about creating the creepy puzzler's elements. That's on Gamespot.
• Jordan Mechner walked GDC attendees through the "arduous four-year process of creating" Prince of Persia yesterday. More on Gamespot.
• EA Sports creative director Trey Smith talked at GDC yesterday about rebooting NBA Jam. That's on Gamespot.