To really get the most out of Dead Rising 2, you have to be willing to embrace the absurd. The story itself is deadly serious: the zombie outbreak is underway and your daughter was bitten, requiring regular doses of a drug called Zombrex to keep her from succumbing to the infection. On the flip side, the characters you meet in the Vegas-like Fortune City and the weapons you can create are pure insanity.

You just need to bring two objects to a workbench to see if you can attach them together to create something new. You'll be given Combo Cards with weapon recipes during the course of the game, and these give you a special attack with the weapon, but don't let that keep you from experimenting to see what you can create.

"Baby, I will do anything to keep you safe." Daddy, why are you wearing that outfit? "This is how men fight zombies."

Some examples? Fire axe and sledgehammer. Just meditate on that for a bit. Fire axe and sledgehammer. Together at last. Grab a flashlight, and then break into the jewelry store and get a handful of jewels. Take them to the work bench and you'll have yourself a light saber. You think you're going to get disrespected because you're taking down piles of zombies with a light saber? Forget about it.

Add the power drill to a bucket and you get a nice hat for zombies that turns their head into a fine blood-and-bone smoothie. You just put it on the zombie of your choice, and it gets to work. That's a good time.

I won't spoil the story details and some of the more extreme weapons I discovered, but the game does look significantly better than the first entry in the series, and swapping the photography mechanic for this inventive weapons system is a fair trade. Dead Rising 2 has some interesting moments, and it also has an uncanny way of going from giggle-inducing humor to some truly disturbing scenes; the mixture of all these elements together makes for a very good time.

Dead Rising 2 is coming to the PS3 and 360 on September 28. A PC version has been announced but has no specific date.