I'm only a few days into NHL 12, and already the game's much-touted "Full Contact Physics Engine" is revealing itself to be glitchy, annoying and completely unrealistic. 

The right-stick body checking isn't at blame. It's the retuned "instagib" hip check R3 button, which one-hit kills anyone who happens to graze the polyester on your player's jersey while he's -- or this year, she's -- treating opponents to a full moon.

I use the first-person-shooter term, "instagib," because players in NHL 12 act like they've been shot with a Flak Cannon at the slightest nudge from a hip check, dropping to the ice in a heap with their helmet flying off in one direction and their stick getting tossed in another.

Remember NHL 12's pre-release hype video where EA Canada told hockey fans, "Size does matter"? Sorry, EA, but size doesn't matter until NHL 12's hip check is fixed. Because whether your player is 5'7", 120 pounds or 6'9", 275 pounds, he falls like a giant redwood tree by simply brushing against hip checks. Alternatively, he can spend the entire game crouched down with his keister in the air scoring ridiculous one-hit KOs.

Even if your player is skating far away from the play and nowhere near the puck, he can be taken out with a hip check and interference won't be called. There almost seems to be a mistake in the game's penalty logic where normal body checks are being called as interference, but hip checks are completely ignored by the refs. God have mercy on all those poor centers, as the other team’s wingers can skate in and hip check the centerman off the faceoff every time without penalty.

Maybe if NHL 12 had four officials on the ice instead of one, the game would have gotten these calls correct. You know, like NHL 2K10 had way back in 2009 –- when the New Jersey Devils were still winning games and staying out of bankruptcy.

But enough talk, roll the footage:

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Is this a NHL game or Tony Hawk's Pro Skater? Looks to me like a boardslide grind into a backside ollie.

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Why bother with the new jostling system in front of the net when you can simply hunch your rump and have opposing forwards wiping out quicker than comedian Tracy Morgan in the old NHL 2K commercials?

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Ultimate Warrior, is that you with your patented Gorilla Press Slam?

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Fire in the hole! Toronto's scheming their way out of the NHL cellar by hiding hand grenades under their players' uniforms and taking out unsuspecting opponents in the dirty areas of the ice. Four men enter; one Maple Leaf blows by, unscathed.

If a patch or tuner update can't neuter the hip check's effectiveness, there's a good chance sports gamers will be putting down NHL 12 in the coming weeks with releases like NBA 2K12, FIFA 12 and Forza 4 only days away.