On Monday, January 7, you will know what Kotaku's 2012 Game of the Year is. But before then, you're going to see us try to figure it all out.

It's fun to discover a video game on your own, but every so often, you need a helping hand. We're here to be that hand. This year, Kotaku made a regular habit out of publishing "Before you start" guides to give players spoiler-free tips on how to get the most out of a given video game.

Playing video games is a lot of fun. Kind of goes without saying, right? But talking about games is just as much fun, if not even more so.

Sure, 2012 was a year rife with disappointments. But it was also filled with surprises of the best sort. Since we brought everyone down last week with our list of the biggest disappointments of the year, we thought it only proper to also share the best, most welcome surprises.

For years it slumbered in darkness, deep within the earth. An Old God, maybe even the First God, its hibernation marked by rattling breaths reverberating in the deep like cinderblocks dragged across wet asphalt. Sleeping… resting. One day to wake.

It's Christmas, and we know what that means. Board games!

It's been a long year! Can you believe it? Time has flown by. Let's take this opportunity to look back at 2012, Kotaku East style.

I'm obsessed with video games. No news flash there. I can mark months of my life with the games I've played, the games I heard about, the new systems I got or the articles about video games that I wrote.

The 2012 year is almost over. Soon, it'll be time to get out those top hats and ring in the New Year. But many you don't want to wear a top hat. Maybe you want to wear something else. Like these folks.

Japan: The birthplace of Mario, Sonic, Final Fantasy, and Street Fighter—just to name a few. Each year scores of games are made and released here. The best of these come to the West—or rather most of the best do. Each year, a few great titles manage to slip through the cracks for whatever reason and 2012 is no…

Nietzsche once said, "Without music, life would be a mistake."

2012 was a hell of a year for video games. We got a ton of fantastic games to play, surprises of all shapes, sizes, and colors. It was also a year of upheaval, when things often didn't go according to plan, and when many a game failed to live up to expectations.

It's not easy to idle like this in Need for Speed: Most Wanted the excellent open-world racing game from EA's Criterion Games.

We published a lot of stories this year. You loved some. You hated others. Some were great. Some were arrows.

2012 was a banner year for stealth games. From January up through December, we got to play a healthy variety of games involving dozens of different types of sneaking, skulking, lurking, and sklurking. (It's a thing.)

Everyone loves a tropical island. Rolling green hills, crimson sunsets, crashing blue waves; when we think "paradise," we think of the tropics. With its finely tuned engine and sprawling island setting, Far Cry 3 was easily one of the most gorgeous video games of the year. The drug sequences were awfully pretty, too.

On Feb. 12, 2012, Kotaku introduced "The Kotaku Network," which brings you the best that TV has to offer: regularly scheduled programming. We hatched segments like Off-Kilter, Melodic, Sportaku, and Panel Discussion, and dedicated blocks of time on the site to their topics. But soon into this idea, a problem emerged:…

Video games are more than lasers and explosions, rules and design, music and graphics. They require input, and so they require controls. But human interface can be a dicy thing—so tough to get right, so easy to screw up.

You press a button, and the beat drops. Forward you fly, straight into the perilous unknown, beats pushing against your eardrums as you push back against the controller. Tempo and harmony swim together, and you lose yourself in the rhythm of play.

It's been a long, hard year. But 2012 is coming to an end, climaxing in the end of year holidays. There's been a plethora of game posts here on Kotaku. Some of them have been breaking, some of them have been enlightening, and some of them have not exactly been safe for work.