the patch was released which allows you to change difficulty setting. on easy it is just hard to win.
you should give the game another go!

Besides, the race is easy as hell once you remember that you're playing a far more realistic game than GTA. Calm and smooth will win every time. Well you have to be reasonably fast but you have to take corners like a real driver rather than someone playing GTA3.
Basically if you can do the mission to drive the car across town to tune it, you can win the race.

I remember not being able to win the race no matter how many times I tried. I ended up cheating in order to skip it. I didn't have much trouble with any other part of the game though. Despite that small annoyance, Mafia is one of the best games I've played.
As lukaszthegreat mentioned I'd welcome a quicksave feature, as I hate having to do the same thing twice, even if it's only a minute or two of game time. But if Mafia II is half as great as the original then I'm sure I'll love it with or without quicksave.

I love how the game is "alive", people around you do their own thing, showshining, hawking, bumping into each other, as your character walks around, which is a far cry from GTA, where everyone seems to just walk along to Random City. The detail this gives the game is very welcome indeed. Then again, if this means they sacrificed the size of the locale... well, shit.

Bah, I'm playing a damn Mafia simulator! Not... Normal-Boring-Non-Mafia-Race-Driver-Life-In-The-20's/30's. But it's been at least a year since I last played it, so I could take another go, but right now I've finally managed to get another game with shitty driving in a somewhat playable state, and that is Grand Theft Normal Boring Life (Normal Boring Life part avoided by ignoring most phone calls and driving on the sidewalk), which does NOT have realistic driving, just pure shit, and everyone who says so either drive cars with shitty maneuverability or have no fucking clue of what they're talking about.

The DLC Joe's Adventures came out today and from what I can tell it's a real expansion pack style add-on, rather than the arcade thing the first DLC was. The opening mission is as long and good as most missions in the original game and is very story-based. It also adds a whole new map area to the upper right of the game world.

Seems to be well worth $10 so far for Mafia 2 fans.
Edit/Delete Message

Surely you mean "$10 (Region Permitting)". $13 for australians

Anyone wanna swap a $10 GOG for it?

As an American I refuse to acknowledge the existence of other countries.

Not even to exploit them for financial gain? Are you REALLY an american??

That sounds political, I leave that to the President and shit, man. I just consume stuff and pretend no other culture exists.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/50130/?cc=jp

*Sigh* Valve/2K still refuse to let us actually get access to the game. No qualms in selling it though... And all 2K have said is "we're looking into it" and then sitting on their arses doing nothing 'cept counting the money they're making without having to hand over a product.

In fact, I bet it'll be discounted in sale* before they release it here.

* During which time, the ability to (pre-) purchase the game will be removed. And yup, exactly *that* happened last year with RFG.

Fucking Steamworks.