Hardly. While it is combat-oriented, it clearly demonstrates that a big part of the difference between a runner and a ganger is tactics, coordination, and situational analysis.

The gangers would normally be about Equal plus having the edge in firepower, but they don't work together effectively so they get smacked.

~J

Well, that's very true. I've seen a charisma rogue and a pickpocketing/sneak rogue do wonders. Another that was skill based and the other that focused on combat and sneak attack. It just depends but with two faces, you have guys that are designed to do the other's job (unless they each specialized in a class of society or something like the aforementioned example). Yes, they can be hell on the rest of the party, but I've found that usually there gets to be a big pissing contest if they're too similar. The rest of the party can ignore that simple enough.

Yeah, I could see that as working....I was just saying to be careful though. Nobody likes it when their job is taken away.

I'm not arguing that the runners can't take the gangers. That's pretty obviously true, even with weak runners. What I'm arguing is that Food Fight is a stupid, pointless run. It doesn't develop the characters or the game world at all.

The run is 80% combat to 20% non-combat, where in a normal run that ratio should be reversed. It introduces only one aspect of the game, and that aspect is rules-oriented, not world-oriented. If you want to play a role-playing game, and not just a shoot-em-up, I would suggest a different first run.

I agree with Grinzwilly on this. Not completely but on the aspect of combat at least.

It will save you lots of trouble in the future if you do not emphasize combat this early. Combat is a great part of shadowrun and ingame it will show you and the group how important often becomes to get out of trouble. But its so important that it does not need any further marketting by only running Food Fight. Dont get yourself (As new GM) and your players started on a bad foot into the game. The habits (sp?) you develop early on stick with you for most part of your gaming 'career'.

Enforce/market the legwork bit more. You said u have 2 Adept Faces. Well let them shine with their use of negotiations, interogations (be carefull with this one) and intimidation. Do all the ethiquette rules (ethiquette, negotiations, intimidations, interogations) by the book. May be slow at first but will get you and the group used to these skills being important and not just combat skills.
Eventually your group will end up needing combat skills and then you can run a variant of food fight in any locale u want, doesnt need to be a supermarket. One thing about being GM is being flexible with the story. The food fight goons can 'intercept' your group in an alley or a parking garage or they may be guards on duty. Anywhing anywhere can be transformed into food fight.
Extract the table from food fight about that random damage thingy (bursting soya cans, popping a bag of chips, toilet rolls flying in the air) etc etc and you can se it (with modifications to the present environment) to any situation to bring more flair into your game.
Combat often becomes a monotonous sequence of dice rolling and if it wasnt for the occasional OOPS or close to it (espeically when using demolitions) there isnt really any serious flair into combat.

Also combat slows the game down so you would like to let your players learn to avoid it if possible. Give each player something to do in your run eg the dude with electronics must at least once be allowed to open a maglock (make it low rating once just to get him used to the rules) etc etc... Dont force them into combat too early cause you do ave 2 faces who will never learn how to get outof nasty spots using their non-combat skills if you enforce combat this early into their playing 'career'.