Whether you’re gunning for gold camo on your favourite assault rifle or trying to unlock the right scope for your sniper rifle, Shipment 24/7 is without a doubt the best playlist to complete any sort of in-game challenge in Modern Warfare 2; it’s even a great place to get longshot kills if you’re smart about it. But, this isn’t a permanent game mode – so, you need to make sure you’re taking full advantage of it when it’s available. While this should be quite easy, it’s actually becoming increasingly complicated in Call of Duty thanks to the increasing presence of killstreaks and scorestreaks in the FPS. When it comes to playing on Shipment specifically, they dominate the match – no matter the mode you’re playing – and I have had just about enough of it. That’s why I think Modern Warfare 2 should blanket ban killstreaks on Shipment 24/7.
If you’re not someone with a lot of free time – or you just don’t have the patience to grind out the overwhelming number of challenges presented to players in MW2 – Shipment 24/7 is a godsend. With high octane action from start to finish, this playlist is perfect for getting quick kills and maximising your playtime; you’re never too far from the fight in Shipment 24/7.
However, as fast and furious as this playlist is, it’s over as soon as someone gets an offensive killstreak. On shipment, where there’s nowhere to hide and players constantly respawning, any offensive killstreak is devastating to the team on the wrong end of the stick.
I know this isn’t a playlist to jump into if you’re worried about your kill-death ratio, but the current restrictions – or lack thereof – when it comes to the number of killstreaks able to be active at any given time (and how frequently you can call them in) is truly killing the experience.
The last time Shipment 24/7 was available on Modern Warfare 2, I found myself taking note of just how impactful these killstreaks are – and, even now, I am surprised by just how impactful the right killstreak can be.
When I tried to tackle airborne killstreaks head on with an RPG, I found myself dying an average of 11 times before destroying it – and that was without the opposing team ever really getting a look-in. When you think about how small Shipment is as a map, I am as surprised as you are that these killstreaks were almost always able to kill me before an enemy player could.
If that doesn’t sound infuriating enough, I found myself dying twice as much in the games where I was trying to ‘ignore’ killstreaks raining death upon my teammates and I. This is meant to be one of the best FPS games out there, but it really doesn’t feel like it sometimes.
I know getting a decent amount of kills is usually as easy as being killed a decent amount when you’re playing Shipment, but it always feels like a race to the first offensive killstreak. As soon as someone calls in anything that can get kills, Shipment turns into a relative sh****ow of explosions and death. If you’re trying to complete a camo challenge that requires you to be alive for more than four seconds at a time, you can forget that. If you’re not able to sit and camp inside one of the few sheltered locations on the man, you’re going to find yourself in a virtual world of hurt.
Now, I know what you might be thinking – and I do agree in part that killstreaks are an important part of the Call of Duty multiplayer experience. However, dropping a Cluster Mine around a bomb site in Demolition or hopping into a Chopper Gunner during a Domination on Zarqwa Hydroelectric is a far cry from what can and does happen while you’re playing Shipment. A Chopper Gunner, stacked on top of a VTOL Jet, with a Precision Airstrike obliterating anyone across half the map – something that can happen several times depending on the game mode – is enough to drive anyone up the wall.
It’s an experience I think we can all handle when it’s something that happens every so often. I don’t want Shipment banned from standard playlists, but it’s something I think MW2 should try to combat when it comes to Shipment 24/7 – a playlist where these sorts of situations happen every single game.
Shipment 24/7 is a Modern Warfare 2 playlist for levelling up the best Modern Warfare 2 guns and quickly completing challenges; it’s a playlist for fast-paced firefights and even faster XP gains. It’s not a place for killstreaks – and it’s time Call of Duty realises that.