9 life lessons to learn from playing Mafia II
OPINION
...that may or may not be transferable to real-world situations.
1. No one cares if you run the red lights. The police only take notice if you crash someone as you do so. The most you will have to fear are scathing comments from your own passengers, if you happen to have them.
2. You travel a lot faster if you bypass traffic jams by ditching your car and stealing another one as soon as you’ve run past the jam. Works also at those traffic lights where there’s no room to drive by the other cars.
3. Your outfits get cleaned up auto-magically if you put them in your wardrobe and take them out again. Also lost pieces of that outfit, like hats, reappear as if out of thin air by using this same method.
4. The attention span of the police is very short; if you manage to hide for a minute or two, they will give up and go away. Similarly they'd need extra lessons in fugitive-recognition – a simple change of suit is enough to fool them. And it is enough for one of the party members to change their suit. The biggest problem that real-life crime gangs must have is to figure out which one of them is the one who needs to change their clothes after each robbery or heist...
5. The invisible maintenance crew is very efficient. No matter how much destruction you lay about, it will be magically fixed by the time you return to the scene from the next block over (or so). Wouldn't it be great if this was true also in real life? Especially in homes with 2-year-olds running about...
6. If you need transport, there's never a taxi available (unless you hijack it) and buses only fit one person (even if you hijack it). Yup, you read that right: only one person per bus. Remember that the next time you wait at a bus stop.
7. Mafiosi don't steal clothes. If the clothing store clerk happens to die in a firefight, a mafioso will look for another store to buy clothes from instead of robbing one from the stand. There are limits to the crimes mafiosi are willing to commit. Unfortunately, this doesn't make the life of a clothes store clerk any safer.
8. Your friends really like you to drive their cars for them. Even if you've wrecked the previous four cars that they gave you to drive, they are still enthusiastic for more. This is one lesson that I'm very enthusiastic about transferring to real life!
9. Life kicks you in the head. Repeatedly. Every time you think things are starting to look good, Life comes back with a roundhouse and drops you on your knees again. This lesson may not be as funny as the rest of them, but it may also have the unfortunate edge of being the easiest to transfer to real life.