Camera screw
Camera screw is video game terminology for when a game's camera interferes with the player's ability to play a game effectively. Some examples of a camera screw include when the camera gets stuck behind a wall, points away from the action, is too closely zoomed-in on the player's character, or suddenly changes position before the player can adapt their input to the new direction. Although it's not impossible for a game with a fixed camera to screw the player, camera screws are typically caused by 3D games which feature a free-moving camera and a third-person perspective.
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Personal
My friend Kevin got a Nintendo 64 and Super Mario 64 shortly after it was released. Although I thought the low poly count looked terrible, I was still intrigued by the full 3D environment and the bizarre, yet comfortable, Nintendo 64 Controller. However, it took only a few minutes of game play before I hated the camera's uncontrollable panning around Mario. I would use the C buttons to move it where I wanted it, but it would never stay in place. The more I played the game, the more I found myself looking at extreme closeups of walls or the back of Mario's head. I had similar problems with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time when I first played it, Tomb Raider on Windows, and subsequent 3D games on the PlayStation. Initially soured on all these games, I ignored pretty much every third-person 3D game that was released, and remained focused on 2D games and first-person 3D games for over a decade. In the 2020s, I tried playing some GameCube games, hoping Nintendo would have solved the problem after several years of work and a more powerful console, but, after becoming just as frustrated with Metroid Prime and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, I continued my boycott. It wasn't until the 2020s that I started playing 3D games with had a free-moving camera that I didn't have to fight with titles like A Short Hike and Alba: A Wildlife Adventure.
History
Up until the mid 1990s, most video games used 2D graphics engines to render the screen, and, those few which used 3D either fixed the camera's position to the map or the player's character or used first-person perspective. These camera styles rarely create camera screws, and, if they were a problem in development, the relatively simple camera design makes it easier to prevent them.
Although a few 3D games, particularly flight and vehicle simulators, included a free-moving camera while in a third-person perspective, these were used very sparingly or as optional features. The first 3D game to pioneer the free-moving camera and use a third person perspective as the primary play mode is Super Mario 64 in 1996. This showcased how much more natural fluid camera movements feel to the player, but, in doing so, also showed just how difficult it is to prevent getting camera screwed. Such problems really became apparant in cramped indoor areas like in Big Boo's Haunt, which is why the game often switches to a fixed camera in many areas of that map.
The massive popularity of Super Mario 64 caused a large number of developers to imitate the third-person free-moving camera system, and they encountered the same problems as Nintendo. The new camera system paired with a lack of good 3D hardware resulted in many more unavoidable camera screws with all similar games through the late 1990s and early 2000s.
I haven't played enough third-person 3D games with a free-moving cameras to know when the majority of these problems were fixed, but, I do know that, by the 2020s, it was largely resolved thanks to several factors. Stronger 3D hardware allowed for the camera to be pulled way back offering a much wider view of the surrounding area, more powerful tech also allowed for foreground occlusions to be made semi-transparent, and, a better understanding of the problem led to maps being made with predefined ranges for the camera to move within to help keep it away from terrible viewing angles.
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