I'm going to have to partially disagree. While you're right that jump scares have their qualities, especially the fact that you're stressing out in wait for the next one to happen, mere build-up isn't enough. This build up is only effective when the rest of the game mechanics work into that fear and this is not the case for both Dead Space and Doom 3.
Both games not only have an insane amount of not-too-scary enemies that start becoming predictable and repetitive to kill, you yourself are armed to the teeth and able to beat up anything that looks at you funny. After a while, I found myself running through Dead Space because nothing could possibly stop me in my tracks anyway and anything that does make me jump will only temporarily stress me out. That isn't good use of scare tactics.
And there is a clear difference between high levels of fear and stress. What you described in Doom 3 (enemies possibly appearing behind you) and Dead Space (necromorphs jumping out of places) made me stress out about the fact that I could get attacked at any moment, but I wasn't truly scared later on. Only the early sections of both games were able to instill fear, mostly because the game still had a mystery surrounding it (which once again adds to that jump-scare tactic)
What makes jump scare games like Slenderman and Containment breach so incredibly scary isn't just the sheer terror you feel in between the jump scares, it's that combined with the facts that the jump scares are completely random and there is absolutely nothing you can do AFTER the jump scare either. Powerlessness adds immensely to the fear that jump-scare games use.
Dead Space monsters eventually become incredibly easy to predict and the game sometimes even let you know beforehand (Doors shut, lights and sound go off) that they're coming.
I don't have anything against games that use jump-scares, I have something against games that use jump-scares ineffectively.
Both games not only have an insane amount of not-too-scary enemies that start becoming predictable and repetitive to kill, you yourself are armed to the teeth and able to beat up anything that looks at you funny. After a while, I found myself running through Dead Space because nothing could possibly stop me in my tracks anyway and anything that does make me jump will only temporarily stress me out. That isn't good use of scare tactics.
And there is a clear difference between high levels of fear and stress. What you described in Doom 3 (enemies possibly appearing behind you) and Dead Space (necromorphs jumping out of places) made me stress out about the fact that I could get attacked at any moment, but I wasn't truly scared later on. Only the early sections of both games were able to instill fear, mostly because the game still had a mystery surrounding it (which once again adds to that jump-scare tactic)
What makes jump scare games like Slenderman and Containment breach so incredibly scary isn't just the sheer terror you feel in between the jump scares, it's that combined with the facts that the jump scares are completely random and there is absolutely nothing you can do AFTER the jump scare either. Powerlessness adds immensely to the fear that jump-scare games use.
Dead Space monsters eventually become incredibly easy to predict and the game sometimes even let you know beforehand (Doors shut, lights and sound go off) that they're coming.
I don't have anything against games that use jump-scares, I have something against games that use jump-scares ineffectively.