This story is essentially an alternate version of Rise of the Machines, with a twist at the end.

The T-850 that assassinated John Connor (as revealed in Rise of the Machines) is brought down by the resistance using a number of Taser-like projectiles which finally overload the Terminator's system, allowing them to recover the body and reprogram it for its mission to protect John and Kate in 2004.

One of the resistance bases is seen to be located near the crumbling Hollywood Sign. The Hollywood Sign was also glimpsed in 2030 of an alternate timeline in "The Dark Years" Part 1.

After leaving the resistance compound near the Hollywood Sign, our hero Terminator runs along an old roadway. This is probably old Mount Lee Drive, near the sign. However, the road soon leads him to the ruins of Griffith Observatory, but, though the observatory is relatively close to the Hollywood Sign, there is no direct road connecting the two locations. Then the T-850 and its human companion drive their truck through the ruins of the observatory onto another road that does not really exist!

At times an endo will yank a metal road sign and pole out of the ground to use as a weapon against the hero T-850!

Arnold Schwarzenegger provided his voice for the T-850 in the game. During combat play, he is heard making "appropriate" remarks to events occurring. Some of them are a little silly and illogical, like "Talk to the hand," which the Terminator will not even learn until later, during the events of Rise of the Machines. He also says, "No problemo", famous from Judgment Day.  

During the game, the T-850 commandeers a series of FK Venoms and even an FK Hunter. It's not made clear how he is able to take control of these machines which are normally autonomous.
FK Venom	FK Hunter

During his cruise through L.A., the T-850 passes freeway signs for the 405 San Diego Freeway and 10 San Bernardino Freeway. These are actual freeways running through the L.A. area.

Though it's difficult to read, at one point in the game, the T-850 passes an old movie theater with a marquee stating, NOW SHOWING TERMINATOR 3.

After destroying the FK Command, the T-850 and resistance forces find themselves inside the ruins of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), seeking transportation.

One of the airline desks seen in the background at LAX is Barrel Roll Airlines! Obviously not a real airline.

During the trek through the airport terminal, the T-850 passes gates 13 and 14, indicating he is in Terminal 1 (LAX has eight numbered terminals, plus the Tom Bradley International Terminal).

After leaving LAX and passing through more of Los Angeles, our hero passes by the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where the Summer Olympics were held in 1932 and 1984.

Before using the time displacement chamber, the T-850's POV readout shows Katherine Brewster's address as 1340 Los Monica Dr., Los Angeles. There is no such street in Los Angeles.

The lead-up to the T-850 being sent back in time through the time displacement chamber is very different than that seen in "Heralds of the Rise" (from the prelude portion of the Rise of the Machines video game). This is another indication that it takes place in an alternate timeline from the Rise of the Machines movie with which we are familiar.

When the T-850 arrives in 2003, he leaves the Desert Star cocktail bar after taking the male stripper's clothes and the song "Bad to the Bone" by George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers is playing. In Rise of the Machines, it was actually "Macho Man" by Village People. ("Bad to the Bone" was featured as the protector Terminator left the Corral bar in Judgment Day.) Also, as he leaves he puts on normal-looking, bad-ass sunglasses right from the start, not the star-shaped sunglasses he momentarily wears and discards in the movie.

The highway sign and police radio inform us the highway that runs by the Desert Star is Route 49. This is an actual highway in California, but is in the northern part of the state. Rise of the Machines implies it should be in the desert outside of Los Angeles.

For some reason, when the T-850 leaves the Desert Star, the police are chasing another car already and it apparently ends in an explosion for no known reason! Then the police start chasing the T-850 in the stolen truck. Random explosions follow the T-850 through the chase and he even passes randomly burning vehicles on the side of the road, again for no discernible reason.

During the police chase, the T-850 takes dirt roads in an attempt to evade the police. One of the roads has a sign indicating he's entering Crescent Moon Gorge. He also passes through the grounds of Hermosa Canyon Power Plant, run by Cal Pac Electric Company. These appear to be fictional locations and business.

The T-850's truck crashes through a sign for Walden Auto Wrecking, with a phone number listing 555-4361. There are actually a few Walden Auto Wreckings in the U.S., but none in California. The 555 prefix of the phone number is a long-time convention in Hollywood TV and film. A sign for JLG Gradall is seen on the wrecking yard grounds.

A number of Gas 'N Go gas stations are seen throughout the game, all with the same gas prices! Although there are a number of independent stations called Gas 'N Go in the U.S., the chain seen here is likely intended to be fictional.

The crane chase seen here is very different from that depicted in Rise of the Machines. The T-850 also apparently has no programming against harming humans, as he blows up police cars left and right (with a shotgun, no less!).

The game actually makes use of the crane's support struts (intermittently seen extended or retracted during the chase scene in Rise of the Machines). During the chase here, the struts smash things to either side of the vehicle as it drives by!

A lot of the same graffiti appears over and over on walls and culverts during the crane chase.

During the crane chase, a Sherritt building is seen in the background a couple of times. Possibly this is a reference to Sherritt International, a Canadian mining and energy resources company. The logo seen in the game is all capitalized while the real world company's logo is all lower-case.

A large, painted mural on a building side features the Sobe logo and the slogan SOBE YOURSELF. This is a reference to Sobe beverages and one of their advertising slogans.

During the crane chase, the drivers pass Linoleum City. There is an actual business by that name in Los Angeles, although the location seen here does not look the same.

During the game, a scene from the Rise of the Machines movie is played when the hearse driven by the T-850 runs under the trailer of the Xenedrine truck. When the video game cinematic resumes, the truck is now an Enerdrine truck; Enerdrine appears to be a fictional brand.

Within the story of this video game, the T-850 brings up Crystal Peak as a place of refuge immediately after escaping from the T-X at the cemetery, then they head to CRS to obtain a plane to fly the 50 miles there. In Rise of the Machines, Crystal Peak was brought up by General Brewster after our heroes had arrived at CRS and the T-X tried to kill him.

A nice bit of detail is that the license plate of the hearse here is the same as that seen in Rise of the Machines, 4TRI019, which is a plate that has made the rounds of many a Hollywood production on different vehicles, including the TV series Lost and Psych.

Here in the video game, the coffin in the hearse is devoid of the gun cache our heroes picked up from the mausoleum niche of Sarah Connor. So, what happened to all the guns?

The T-X somehow commandeers a military helicopter that was flying overhead on the way to CRS. I guess she must have jumped into the air to intercept it!

In this game, we see the logo of Cyberresearch Systems on a sign as we enter the facility grounds, which we never see in Rise of the Machines (though it does appear in the DVD extras).

During the attempted raid at Cyberresearch Systems, the T-X knocks the T-850 into a primitive version of the time displacement chamber built as part of the particle accelerator and sends him back to 2032. But now it's an altered 2032 in which John and Kate were killed and all humans wiped off the face of the Earth. Notice that he arrives in 2032 naked, even though he was fully clothed in 2003, since only organic material (or, in this case, inorganic material inside an organic skin) can make the jump through time. Moments later, the T-850 walks through the ruins of L.A. fully clothed in the tattered army greens taken from a human skeleton lying in the rubble.

As the T-850 reinitializes upon arriving in 2032, a Monolith logo is seen on the wall behind him. Possibly this is a reference to Monolith Productions, a video game developer acquired by Warner Brothers in 2004, the same year this video game was released. Warner Brothers also distributed the movie Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines in 2003. 

The FK Reapers that appear here look somewhat similar to the ED-209 units from the original Robocop film of 1987 (and the 2014 version as well). In fact, "Tempest" Part 1, in one of the other Terminator timelines, also has a type of HK that looks similar.
HK Reaper	HK-ED from "Tempest" Part 1	ED-209 from Robocop

Apparently there are already some primitive Terminator endoskeletons built in 2003, because the T-850 down a number of them in the airplane hangar at CRS when he returns to that year after his brief excursion back to 2032.

The Cessna sitting outside the hangar at CRS has registration number N3035C. But this is the same registration as the plane inside the hangar, which John and Kate have already boarded for their escape to Crystal Peak! And the T-850 even blows up this exterior plane during the course of the fight against CRS forces! This same registration was on the Cessna in Rise of the Machines. 

Unanswered Questions

If CRS already had a primitive time displacement chamber in 2003 (capable of sending the T-850 back to 2032), what had they already done with it? Were humans already bopping around through time?

Memorable Dialog

John's dead.wav

hope you were worth the sacrifice.wav

your driving skills are lacking.wav

game over.wav

no problemo.wav