A Great On-the-go Time-waster: Paper Toss 2.0

I often tell people that I don’t much care for mobile gaming, but as soon as I’m out of the house and find myself bored, I become the biggest hypocrite the world has seen. That being said, I am rather fussy about the games I play. As much as I love FPS titles on the desktop, for example, I find my enjoyment while mobile to be hindered by the touchscreen controls. Thus, I’m much quicker to load up a game of Mahjong or Solitaire than Shadowgun – I like simple games that are still fun.

A great example of such a game is one that’s been downloaded over 5,000,000 times alone on Google’s Play store: Paper Toss 2.0 (Google Play; Apple App Store). If it’s already so popular, why am I even bothering to talk about it? Because, I sit here, preparing to go away for the weekend, and all I can do is envision myself playing it whenever a dull moment hits. I feel compelled to give it a shout out, you could say.

Available as a free download, Paper Toss 2.0 is the sequel to the cleverly-named Paper Toss. As far as I can tell, absolutely everything the game offers can be earned via normal progression, and by that line alone, you can already tell that there’s an in-game shop waiting for those who don’t mind ponying up a couple (or a lot) of bucks to acquire items or power-ups faster (or get rid of the ads that display at the top).

As the game’s name suggests, the premise here is to toss a ball into a basket. What makes the game fun, however, is its collection of different environments, from your boss’ office to the restroom, and interactions you can sometimes have with them (such as tossing the ball onto the aforementioned boss’ head, in an attempt to wake him up).

I stated “ball” above and not “paper ball” because this game has a large assortment of weapons, if you will, to either make the game more challenging, easier, or simply more fun. Who doesn’t want to toss a tomato at their co-worker, for example? Or a watermelon? Or a grenade? And by “co-worker”, I of course mean basket.

Regardless of the environment you’re playing in, there’s always a fan there to haunt you. Before each throw, it changes its direction and speed, forcing you to use that noggin’ of yours to figure out exactly where you should be aiming the toss (by sliding your finger along the display). The better you do, the higher your score will become – and yes, bonuses begin to apply when you manage to get more than one basket in a row.

All-in-all, I consider Paper Toss 2.0 to be quite a fun game, and a great one for loading up on-the-go since you literally only need one minute to actually do anything. The game’s biggest downside is that it constantly encourages you to buy something from the in-game store, and you can expect a permanent ad at the top while you’re playing, unless you pay to remove it ($1). Still, even without hauling your wallet out, it’s a game well worth checking-out.