History YMMV / TheCube

* UnwinnableByDesign: Only a handful of non-celebrity players have even gotten to the £100,000 level; none of them have attempted the £250,000 game, mainly because they risk losing all of their winnings if they fail. A recent S6 contestant refused to play the final game - ''Descent'', the only game he lost more than one life on - despite having six lives ''and'' his Simplify. It didn't help that his wife in the audience made an inappropriate joke about threatening a divorce if he tried it.

* WhatAnIdiot:
** Zoe, who used '''eight''' of her nine lives on her first game ''Time Split'' (stop a timer on exactly 5.0 seconds). She proceeded to use Simplify after her fifth failure (either undershooting or overshooting the mark by mere tenths of a second), which changed the timer to count in increments of .2 seconds. After '''finally''' winning that, she proceeded to fail on ''Stabilise''. The fact she had a bizarre fascination with wigs didn't help matters, either.
** Series 6 Episode 2: Nicky and her boyfriend Mark both demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of basic (freshman-level) rotational kinematics playing Pendulum for £2,000. Mark told her to throw the ball hard. She did, and it went way over the target ball. Repeat for a total of '''eight''' lives lost and a Simplify, all while she and Mark kept mulling over whether to start the swing higher or lower, and Mark kept telling her to throw it hard, when anyone who's taken Physics 101 (and any particularly observant child who's swung around a ball tied to a string, or rolled a marble inside a bowl) should know that it's the rotational velocity that matters.

--> "I'm watching a man count inside a box." "It's just counting! But it's counting, [[RecycledInSpace IN THE CUUUUUUUBE!]]"

* VisualEffectsOfAwesome: While this is supposed to be a game show, and not ''[[Film/TheMatrix the flippin Matrix]]'', we got {{Orbital Shot}}s, slow-motion views, BulletTime, the list goes on!

* SurpriseDifficulty: Doing simple-looking stunts inside a glass box is '''much''' harder than it sounds.

* WhatAnIdiot: Zoe, who used '''eight''' of her nine lives on her first game ''Time Split'' (stop a timer on exactly 5.0 seconds). She proceeded to use Simplify after her fifth failure (either undershooting or overshooting the mark by mere tenths of a second), which changed the timer to count in increments of .2 seconds. After '''finally''' winning that, she proceeded to fail on ''Stabilise''. The fact she had a bizarre fascination with wigs didn't help matters, either.

* ComeForTheXStayForTheY: What makes the show so exciting is how it's produced — liberal use of camera effects, slow-motion shots, etc.

* MomentOfAwesome: A contestant plays ''Contact'' for £50K - essentially a "steady hands" game where you have to guide a ring along a long metal rod without it touching - and ''nails it'' on his first try, giving him 5 lives and both Lifelines available for the £100K game.
** Same for its other appearance as the very last game in Series 1, whose contestant had three lives for £20k. Goes down to the last life after two poor attempts. Out of nowhere, he somehow manages to clear all three metres and win.
** Series 3 add a new moment to the list: a contestant has three lives and a Trial Run to play ''Hit Rate'' for £50k (a game in which the player has to hit five pads on a curved table within half a second). He uses his Trial Run and gets a time of 0.588. He commits, to the shock of pretty much everyone in the studio. His first two attempts get him down to a time of 0.513. Cue the entire audience behind him cheering him on, as his very last life gets him a time of 0.494, winning the game (and £50,000) by just ''six thousandths of a second''.
** On a July 2012 CelebrityEdition, British runner Mo Farah managed to become the first person to ever beat the final round (a harder version of Barrier in this case) and win the £250,000 grand prize (for charity, of course), with only 6 lives remaining. But then he took things a step further and won Britain's first gold medal in the Men's 10,000m run at the UsefulNotes/OlympicGames in UsefulNotes/{{London}}. If you can beat The Cube, anything's possible!

** On a July 2012 CelebrityEdition, British runner Mo Farah managed to become the first person to ever beat the final round (a harder version of Barrier in this case) and win the £250,000 grand prize (for charity, of course), with only 6 lives remaining. But then he took things a step further and won Britain's first gold medal in the Men's 10,000m run at the {{Olympics}} in London. If you can beat The Cube, anything's possible!

* UnwinnableByDesign: Only a handful of non-celebrity players have even gotten to the £100,000 level; none of them have attempted the £250,000 game, mainly because they risk losing all of their winnings if they fail. A recent S6 contestant refused to play the final game - ''Descent'', the only game he lost more than one life on - despite having six lives ''and'' his Simplify. It didn't help that his wife in the audience made an inappropriate joke about threatening a divorce if he tried it.

* ThatOneLevel: ''Elevation'', ''Barrier'', and ''Pinpoint'' are all notorious for sapping away most (if not all) lives of the contestants who played them. Typically when this game is won, ''Cylinder'' is next — a game so ridiculously simple it suggests the Cube's trying to bait the player into going on.
** Series 2 adds ''Side-Track''. Like ''Pinpoint'', the contestant has to hold onto a metal pole which will inevitably cause fatigue to set in and make the game harder on subsequent tries, whereas other games are likely to become easier after each try because you know what you're doing and how/where you messed up.
** ''Descent'' (bounce a ball off two pillars and into a bucket) is rapidly becoming the single most feared game on the show. Hard not to get intimidated after watching a player fail it despite having eight lives when he got there.

* UnwinnableByDesign: Only a handful of non-celebrity players have even gotten to the £100,000 level; none of them have attempted the £250,000 game, mainly because they risk losing all of their winnings if they fail. A recent S6 contestant refused to play the final game - ''Descent'', the only game he lost more than one life on - despite having six lives ''and'' his Simplify. It didn't help that his wife in the audience semi-facetiously threatened a divorce if he tried it.

* MomentOfAwesome: A contestant plays ''Contact'' for £50K - essentially a "steady hands" game where you have to guide a ring along a long metal rod without it touching - and ''nails it'' on his first try, giving him 5 lives and both Lifelines available for the £100K game.
** Same for its other appearance as the very last game in Series 1, whose contestant had three lives for £20k. Goes down to the last life after two poor attempts. Out of nowhere, he somehow manages to clear all three metres and win.
** Series 3 add a new moment to the list: a contestant has three lives and a Trial Run to play ''Hit Rate'' for £50k (a game in which the player has to hit five pads on a curved table within half a second). He uses his Trial Run and gets a time of 0.588. He commits, to the shock of pretty much everyone in the studio. His first two attempts get him down to a time of 0.513. Cue the entire audience behind him cheering him on, as his very last life gets him a time of 0.494, winning the game (and £50,000) by just ''six thousandths of a second''.

* VisualEffectsOfAwesome: While this is supposed to be a game show, and not ''[[TheMatrix the flippin Matrix]]'', we got {{Orbital Shot}}s, slow-motion views, BulletTime, the list goes on!

--> "I'm watching a man count inside a box." "It's just counting! But it's counting, IN THE CUUUUUUUBE!"

** On a July 2012 CelebrityEdition, British runner Mo Farah managed to become the first person to ever beat the final round (a harder version of Barrier in this case) and win the £250,000 grand prize (for charity, of course), with only 6 loves remaining. But then he took things a step further and won Britain's first gold medal in the Men's 10,000m run at the {{Olympics}} in London. If you can beat The Cube, anything's possible!

** On a July 2012 CelebrityEdition, British runner Mo Farah managed to become the first person to ever beat the final round (a harder version of Barrier in this case) and win the £250,000 grand prize (for charity, of course). But then he took things a step further and won Britain's first gold medal in the Men's 10,000m run at the {{Olympics}} in London. If you can beat The Cube, anything's possible!

** Series 3 add a new moment to the list: a contestant has three lives and a Trial Run to play ''Hit Rate'' for £50k (a game in which the player has to hit five pads on a curved table within half a second). He uses his Trial Run and gets a time of 0.566. He commits, to the shock of pretty much everyone in the studio. His first two attempts get him down to a time of around 0.51. Cue the entire audience behind him cheering him on, as his very last life gets him a time of 0.494, winning the game (and £50,000) by just ''six thousandths of a second''.

* ThatOneLevel: ''Elevation'', ''Barrier'', and ''Pinpoint'' are all notorious for sapping away most (if not all) of the lives of the contestants who played them. Typically when this game is won, ''Cylinder'' is next — a game so ridiculously simple it suggests the Cube's trying to bait the player into going on.
** Series 2 adds ''Side-Track''. Like ''Pinpoint'', it's a game where the contestant has to hold onto a metal pole, which will inevitably cause fatigue to set in and make the game harder on subsequent tries, whereas other games are likely to become easier after each try because you know what you're doing and how you messed up.

* VisualEffectsOfAwesome: While this is supposed to be a game show, and not ''[[TheMatrix the flippin Matrix]]'', we got [[OrbitalShot orbital shots]], slow-motion views, BulletTime, the list goes on!

* ComeForTheXStayForTheY: What makes the show so exciting is how it's produced — liberal use of camera effects, slow-motion shots, etc.
* MissedMomentOfAwesome: Series 2 had a player who stormed his way to the £100,000 game, losing only two lives in the five games. The £100,000 game was ''Digit'', with an average of 3.4 lives lost. The man, who still had seven lives left and his Simplify, walked without playing due to being a nervous wreck by this point; the fact that ''Digit'' required an enormous amount of concentration (rolling a pinball down a 1/2" beam with one finger) didn't help matters.
** Series 3 had a similar situation. A PE teacher was stormed to the £100,000 game, expect he only lost three lives (in the process clearing ''Rebound'' and ''Barrier'' [''Barrier'' cleared TWICE because of a Trial Run] without losing a single life) His game, with 6 lives left and a Simplify, was ''Cylinder''. Even admitting that he practiced this game all the time (with it being his job), he walked away.
* SurpriseDifficulty: Doing simple-looking stunts inside a glass box is '''much''' harder than it sounds.
* ThatOneLevel: ''Elevation'', ''Barrier'', and ''Pinpoint'' are all notorious for sapping away most (if not all) of the lives of the contestants who played them. Typically when this game is won, ''Cylinder'' is next — a game so ridiculously simple it suggests the Cube's trying to bait the player into going on.
** Series 2 adds ''Side-Track''. Like ''Pinpoint'', it's a game where the contestant has to hold onto a metal pole, which will inevitably cause fatigue to set in and make the game harder on subsequent tries, whereas other games are likely to become easier after each try because you know what you're doing and how you messed up.
** ''Descent'' (bounce a ball off two pillars and into a bucket) is rapidly becoming the single most feared game on the show. Hard not to get intimidated after watching a player fail it despite having eight lives when he got there.

* WhatAnIdiot: Zoe, who used '''eight''' of her nine lives on her first game ''Time Split'' (stop a timer on exactly 5.0 seconds). She proceeded to use Simplify after her fifth failure (either undershooting or overshooting the mark by mere tenths of a second), which changed the timer to count in increments of .2 seconds. After '''finally''' winning that, she proceeded to fail on ''Stabilise''. The fact she had a bizarre fascination with wigs didn't help matters, either.

* WhatAnIdiot: Zoe, who used '''eight''' of her nine lives on her first game ''Time Split'' (stop a timer on exactly 5.0 seconds). She proceeded to use Simplify after her fifth failure (either undershooting or overshooting the mark by mere tenths of a second), which changed the timer to count in increments of .2 seconds. After '''finally''' winning that, she proceeded to fail on ''Stabilize''. The fact she had a bizarre fascination with wigs didn't help matters, either.

* ComeForTheXStayForTheY: What makes the show so exciting is how it's produced, featuring liberal use of camera effects, slow-motion shots, etc.
* MissedMomentOfAwesome: Series 2 had a player who stormed his way to the £100k game, losing only two lives in the five games. The £100k game was ''Digit'', with an average of 3.4 lives lost. The man, who still had seven lives left and his Simplify at this moment, walked without playing due to being a nervous wreck by this point; the fact that ''Digit'' required an enormous amount of concentration (rolling a pinball down a 1/2" beam with one finger) didn't help matters.
* SurpriseDifficulty: Doing simple-looking stunts inside a glass box? Don't be fooled, it's harder than it looks.
* ThatOneLevel: ''Elevation'', ''Barrier'', and ''Pinpoint'' are all notorious for sapping away most of the lives of the contestants who played them. Typically when this game is won, ''Cylinder'' is offered up next - a game so ridiculously simple it suggests the Cube is trying to bait the player into going on.
** Series 2 adds ''Side-Track''. Like ''Pinpoint'', it's a game where the contestant has to hold onto a metal pole, which will inevitably cause fatigue to set in and make the game harder on subsequent tries, whereas other games are likely to become easier after each try because you know what you're doing better.
** ''Descent'' (bounce a ball off two pillars and into a bucket) is rapidly becoming the single most feared game on the show. Hard not to get intimidated by it after watching a player fail on it despite having eight lives to use when he started on it.
* WhatAnIdiot: Zoe, who used '''eight''' of her nine lives on her first game ''Time Split'' (stop a timer on exactly 5.0 seconds). She proceeded to use Simplify after her fifth failure (either undershooting or overshooting the mark by mere tenths of a second), which changed the timer to count in increments of .2 seconds. After ''finally'' winning that, she proceeded to fail on ''Stabilize''. The fact she had a bizarre fascination with wigs didn't help matters, either.